Culture Convergence

Introduction In recent times, the world(a)ization topic is one of the almost discussed issue across the world. With globalization, countries has started to build fortifieder economic ties and be increasingly reliant on each another(prenominal) as it has never be. Some researchers argue of pagan intersection that is, as cardinal countries become closer with each other, they will be more promising to deviate each others conclusion, in that locationby bringing the two different endings to be more similar.For eccentric, the popular purification, which originates from westerly European and America, is often to be said to influence the developing Asian countries finis, and is often dubbed as westboundization (Leung et al, 2008). Conversely, there argon many another(prenominal) that argue alike of pagan divergence which is the sentiment that each nations culture atomic number 18 deeply rooted in the countries history, so that purge if outside culture try to influence the belief and attitude of the people, the contrast mingled with cultures substructure still be swaned, and wad even increase all over time (Axelrod, 1997 Turnbull & Sheehan, 2012).Hofstede (1980) defined four dimensions of culture that describes the fundamental similarities and differences of human behavior and decision making surgical process that forms part of culture. These dimensions will be valuable for measuring heathen carrefour or divergence. They consist of maleness/femininity, power distance, individualism/collectivism and uncertainty blockance. Power distance is the dimension of which inequality of power is pass judgment and accepted as normal by the less powerful members of formation and community.Masculinity/ Femininity is the measure of which union is oriented towards masculine value competitiveness, assertion, success , good performance, etc. instead of feminine value kindness, caring, empathy, etc. Individualism/ communism measures to what extent soc iety lets each individual care for their own more individualism centre that the ties in the midst of individuals in the society is more loose. Uncertainty Avoidance is the measure as to how much the members of the society avoid risky behaviors and stay the conservative way.This essay will try to discuss whether countries has experienced cultural take onnce or divergence, by first looking to the cultural divergence phenomenon, and then the cultural intersection phenomenon, and at last comparing both and giving recommendation as to how the risks of the phenomenon observed can be mitigated. Discussion heathen Divergence Axelrod (1997) argued in his model that local carrefour whitethorn baffle global polarisation. He contends that the convergence in society will stay in local area only, as the culture converge in a region that prepare nothing in common with neighboring regions.This causes local regions to oblige culture convergence, but in the bigger area, the difference ming led with cultures remain durable, thus increasing polarization or cultural divergence. Axelrod (1997) also argues that polarization level gets higher if there are a a couple of(prenominal) dimensions of the culture, many alternative traits on each dimensions, and if the size of the region is large enough to allow for many cultures, but small enough for the change process to finish before all cultural boundaries are dissolved by the spread of cultural traits. Further, Klemm et al. (2003) argued that the level of perturbation to a culture influences how the culture drifts.They argued that perturbation, up to a level, will bring a culture to converge together, but when the perturbation or influence is high enough, the culture will split into several sub-culture, meaning the culture has been polarized or diverged. This phenomenon can be attributed to several reasons, such as preference for more extreme views, geographical isolation, social differentiation (tendency for groups to come apart themselves compared to other groups), drift, the in and out of fads and fashions, specialization and changing environment or technology (Axelrod, 1997).There are almost examples of this phenomenon in the real life. For one, Turnbull & Sheehan(2012) argued that due to historical and cultural differences, the chain fast food caller-out McDonald micturate to alter their strategy and brand imaging in Canada and Japan. This happens even though they are a company that is trying to build a similar image in every country they are set up in. Furthermore, they also set in motion that some of Australias public relations policy clearly rejects that their culture has been assimilated to the US culture.Another example is given by Darling-Wolf (2004) interview with Japanese women about foreigners, in which he found that Japanese women are still viewing Western women as shallow, vain and selfish. Martin (2010) also found that Japanese people found foreign actors and actresses to be more likeable if they exhibit some Japanese characteristics. This indicates that Japanese women still acquire their cultural determine highly, and not influenced by the Westernization that may happen as a result of the strong ties between Japan and America. Finally, Anderson et al. 2000) found that there are significant differences between Indian and American aerospace scientists and engineers, particularly in the power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance dimension, indicating cultures still at the very least maintain their differences, if not diverging from each other. Cultural Convergence The theory behind cultural convergence impulse is that a nations culture is viewed as a subsystem of a global culture, and that culture is an open system that can exchange input and outputs with other cultures.Given this, to avoid entropy a system needs to reach an symmetricalness, which is the utter where all cultures are assimilated, and hence forming a culture convergence. This theory proposes that if two cultures interact frequently, they will most likely be converged together(Bergiel, 2011). One example that comes to mind when discussing convergence is Westernization, which is the phenomena where non-Western (typically Asian) culture are often changed and influenced with Western cultures through the exposure by media such as TV and Internet, as well as from dissimilar other interaction between the two cultures.The ever increasing global marketing, as well as the increasing number of businesses that expands their business to foreign countries, only serve as a vehicle for cultural assimilation to happen, as the two cultures will mesh together and form a stalls equilibrium according to this notion. This notion of cultural convergence also gain some support from researchers.As an example, Bergiel (2011) found in his study about Japanese and US culture that in regards of individualism, masculinity and power distance the shorten of convergence has been fo und to be very extreme, as the role of the two country reverses in between the two decades since Hofstede released his study in 1980. In 1980, the US society were said to be reserveing up the value of individualism, have low power distance and masculinity, while in this study it was found that without delay Japan culture has now moved from collectivism to individualism, surpassing the US score in the dimension, have lower power distance compared to the US, and is more masculine.However, this may be also influenced by the politic-economic factors in the two country, and not solely by the fact that the two culture interacted with each other. Also, in the long-term druthers it has been found that the two cultures converge, sporting similar score in that dimension. Further, Nieves et al. (2006) also found from their study that Mexican and American engineers has converged their culture in the individualism dimension, compared to when Hofstede did his research in 1980.Convergence Vs. D ivergence Hence, while cultural convergence theory contends that over time and different cultures that interacts with each other will form a stable equilibrium eventually, the cultural divergence theory contends that cultures will maintain its own unique identity, as culture needs big enough perturbation to have a lasting change, and they typically maintain their difference despite the influence from foreign cultures/countries.Some researchers argue that globalization will flip cultures to converge, as globalization means that information is very easily accessible, and cultures are exposed to other cultures constantly, so that in cultural convergence theory this will cause those cultures to form an equilibrium, and that the world is converging into a global village. (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). However, some researchers also argue that globalization may not necessarily cause convergence. Inglehart & Norris (2009) argued that the globalization may even cause polarization of the cultu res.They argued that the values that the rich countrys public hold usually changes rapidly, while poorer countries generally are dilatory in adapting change in culture. This opens up a gap in culture difference between rich societies and poor societies. Further, they also found that richer countries also differ in culture in religionism to poor societies. Richer countries are becoming more and more secular in these days, while poorer countries are typically more traditional and religious.Similarly, richer countries are also moving towards gender equality, while many poorer societies still hold patriarchal values highly (Inglehart Norris, 2009). Further, this can also apply not to nations cultures, but also its subcultures. Typically, the richer societies in the urban area adopt new values more rapidly, and rural society sticks with their traditional culture and adopt changes slowly. Finally, convergence theory is argued to be exaggerating the level of consensus of core value betw een US and other countries, thereby reducing the actual level of assimilation barrier that exists in the real world.Hence, it is most likely that cultural divergence and polarization is what actually happens in the world. Organizations should take note of this divergence phenomenon in launch to successfully conduct a global or multinational operation. Some researchers argue that the national cultural difference may bring problems in an presidential term in the integration process and consequently friendship transfer (Vaara, 2003). The reason this happens is cultural difference is often thought to impede cooperation between the members.Further, Hogg & terrycloth (2000) argued that similarity are often a factor in deciding attractiveness and trustworthiness, and having different culture progresss an individual automatically less attractive and trustworthy compared to someone from the same culture. However, Sarala & Vaara (2009) argued that with different culture, organization may benefit from having different knowledge and repertoire that could be shared around. Hence, with cultural difference, knowledge transfer can potentially be more effective as there are more knowledge to go around.Although the knowledge potential is great, what is more important is to actually manage to spread it around the organization and make sure that individuals from different cultures are comfortable with each other. Sarala & Vaara (2009) argued that the way for organization to do this is through facilitated communication, in order to reduce uncertainty and increase trust between the members of the organization. Also equally important is that the organization management practice must be aligned with the nations culture that they are in, in order to wage smoothly in the face of cultural difference (Nieves et al, 2006).Hence, to be successful, an organization must proactively try to make the members of the organization increase their trust with each other, as well as changing the ir managing practices, depending on the culture that they are presently residing in. Conclusion In conclusion, cultural convergence is the theory that different cultures that interact in a regular basis will influence each other and form a stable equilibrium, thus converging the two cultures, while cultural divergence is the theory that states that cultural differences will be maintained, and even grow apart from each other even though they interact in a regular basis.The basis of cultural convergence theory is that the member of society will try to chase and assimilate the new foreign culture, while the cultural divergence theory contends that group tends to stay in spite of appearance themselves and differentiate themselves from other groups. In real life, it seems likely that the cultural divergence theory is correct, as even if a culture is experiencing change from foreign culture, the rate of change in the different part of society may be different, thus creating a gap as we ll.For example, richer societies tend to adopt new values quickly, while poorer societies might hold to their traditional value, hence creating a cultural divergence overall. To overcome this issue, organization needs to actively try to facilitate communication between the members of their organization if they have different cultures, as well as altering their management practice to fit the culture of the society that they are currently residing in. Reference Anderson, C. J. , Glassman, M. , Pinelli, T. (2000).A Comparison of Communications Practices Among Indian and US Scientists and Engineers. ledger of East-West Business,6(1), 81-108. Axelrod, R. (1997). 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