Changing Values And Political Styles: An Analysis Of Ethical Differences Across Continents

Value Systems across the Globe – a Comparison

Discuss about the Changing Values and Political Styles.

The global marketplace is a throw of consumerism weaved with culture and ethics. At the current millenarian threshold that we stand at, organizations are struggling to move over from local markets to more of a g-local market. With suited alterations and customizations as per market and demands of people from various geographical locations, wherever their products hit, it should be functional (Lefkowitz, J. 2017). This is because superficially as well as at a deep level; mostly, business transactions are always affected by culture and their related obviousness. Factors such as product, price, promotion and places are factored only as per the cultural differences existing at a different location. It has hence become vital to marketers management from West and from East, from North and from South, to evaluate carefully the expectations of counterparts from around the world as otherwise, it shall lead to failure (Whelan, Y. 2016).

Culture mostly imitates the ethical values as well as ethical standards of conduct arrays in people for self and socializing. It shows us the viewpoint, ethics, approach, practices and societal ambitions in a faction, association or even civilization. Often culture inspires morality in different societies and helps them determine right and wrong. It has been mentioned by different researchers and scholars that often elucidations of reality as we know it is influenced by individual culture. Culture influences ethics unlike a misconception of taking both as same things. Culture commends a correct and acceptable conduct which provide life meaning and instills sense of triumph, belongingness, truthfulness etc. other normative beliefs which create a nous of direction and mechanism on life. This is the juncture where culture meets ethics. What might be correct or ethical to one group or society may not be for other. Hence, there is no singular truth to base ethics on. Ethics are largely influenced by the environment or culture we were provided. Ethical differences remain between people from people different sections of society and across world.

This report shall largely discuss ethics in major few continents and show how the ethical differences influence behavior among people both at a societal level, individual level and in business dealings. There shall also be an attempt to understand the origin of ethics being followed by two different cultures. Ethical values are largely instilled by parenting, socializing, faith and edification. It could as well be influenced by laws in country, acceptable people management systems, organizational culture, professional code of conducts and professional cultures existent in organizations in a country (Deresky, 2017). The report shall not discuss what is unethical or intends to condemn behavior, rather; it is an attempt to bring about awareness and find an acceptable means to sensitize self or any interested party to help manage those differences.

Value System in Africa

To start with, in one of the sections, the report shall outline value systems across Asia, Europe, Northern America, Africa and Latin America. Then, the report shall deal with differences and similarities in value systems between discussed nations. In the last section, report shall discuss the types of ethical conflicts that arise. Here example of USA and Asia (China) shall be discussed to understand the origins of differences. This shall be followed by conclusion where the report shall summarize the report highlighting limitations to accepting ethical differences which would have been outlined by then.

In this section of the report, there shall be spotlight on value systems at a global level. Specifically, we shall pay attention to value systems existent in Europe, Asia, Latin America, South America as well as Africa. Thereafter, the section shall focus on comparing them. Following dictum of descriptive moral relativism, the research allowed consultations from varied sources.

A value system could be explained as a method of theorizing realism plus involves a coherent bunch of principles, philosophies, parallel actions existent in people, organizations and society in general (Menkel-Meadow & Porter–Love, 2014). They could exist in any group – kind or size (Inglehart, R., 2015). The report shall however, focus on value systems that live in a nation considering it as the group with members sharing values. In order to build it on a reliable platform the data used for deriving the characteristics of value system is World Values Survey, the waves of 1996, 2008 and 2015.

The Inglehart – Welzel cultural map, essentially a scatter plot map showing comparison of values across clusters. The repetition of the survey indicates its likelihood to follow value system changes in relation to different regions and countries. The X-axis notes the survival values Vs the self-expression values. The Y-Axis tracks traditional Vs secular-rational values. Individualism/Self-expression is a bunch of values (Dalton & Welzel, 2014). It comprises of values such as acceptance, independence/ambition to right, communal illustration and life gratification. Whereas, survival values point more towards the fight for existence. A high score in survival values show fiscal sanctuary and material security which is linked to low levels of confidence and acceptance. High score in self-expression honours acceptance, contributes at a societal level in judgement making and equivalence. High score in traditional values are associated with household values and architypes, masculine societies, sex roles etc. that pass tradionally from generations. A tall score in secular-rational values shows morals which do not consider the stated values at all. Let us now look at individual value systems for some continents.

Europe is used to signify to the landform occupying the western headland of Eurasian continent. According to the Inglehart – Welzel map of culture, Europe has diverse value systems related to religion as well as moral values. The protestant region of Europe tends to have quite tall scores of self-expression values as well as secular lucid values. Catholic region displays these values at moderate level. Europe could also be separated into ex-communist and other countries. Marxism affects the value system in people to a large extent (Onyshkevych and Rewakowicz, 2014). The part of Europe which speaks mostly English, has a separate value system all together. They display increased self-expression and much decreased levels of secular-rational values. With the European enlightenment, a transition from traditional values to secular-rational values came about. This resulted in idea of social rights. Hence in European value system, there is importance of human self-esteem to a large extent. Some of the shared European values present and favoured are – righteousness, harmony, equality, self-worth, voter's rights, independence and sustainability (Beetham & Lord, 2014).

Africa is a giant continent with over 3000 ethnic groups and there is no ‘one’ culture or society. There are so many languages existent such as English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and more than 1000indigenous ones as well. Some distinction could however be drawn between regions north of Sahara and sub-Saharan Africa. To the north of Sahara exist mostly Arab countries linked to the basin of Mediterranean Sea and until the European exploration in 15^th and 16^th centuries, the region south of Sahara had their own traditions. According to Inglehart – Welzel cultural map, Africa scores high on countries tilting towards solid traditional and survival values and frail secular-rational and self-expression values. This shows that ‘religion’ is significant in Africa and of late, Africa’s civilization was extended by Euro-Christian and Islamic influences despite having roots in traditional religion. Africa could be categorized as a nation which is compassionate, societal and duty-oriented. Social welfare, securities and essentials is intrinsic to their value system.

Latin America refers to Central America, Mexico and South America. As per the Inglehart – Welzel cultural map, Latin America shows a small score point in secular-rational and survival values. That makes their traditional values similar to Africa and self-expression values similar to European cultures. Religion dominates Latin American societies, specially Catholicism. Support for democracy is high but there is also relative high support for authoritarianism as well. Latin Americans have a taste for high prestige within order which signifies distance between their subordinates and them. The average education levels instil fear of people in higher posts representing authority. People also do not believe in equal distribution of wealth, do not believe that Government works for welfare of people, do not believe in gender equality. Crime, corruption, unemployment is all rampant.

North America comprises of USA, Canada, Bermuda, Greenland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, however for the study Canada and USA have been considered. As per the Inglehart – Welzel cultural map, North America scores quite high on self-expression values. It is temperately associated between ‘Traditional’ and ‘Secular- rational values’ Christianity is leading faith. Their political system is federal democratic (Nevitte, N. 2017). They rank quite high in the Human Development Index as well. They represent quite stable democracies. Canada holds values of collectivism and USA that of individuality, moralism and acquisitiveness. USA scores high in values of independence, people values, honour, conscience, security as well as safety and regard.

Asia is used to refer to the Eastern landmass of Eurasian continent. According to the Inglehart – Welzel cultural map, there is a division of various regional based value systems in Asia. North-Eastern part follows ‘Confucian’ value system. They value self-cultivation, righteousness, ethics, edification and eventual character building, organic harmony and importance of family. South Asia on the other hand scores high on Traditional values. The major character of this region is that the people in these regions are highly religious. (Cheng et al. 2016.11(3), pp.8-13)

The purpose of this section is to inspect both the similarities as well as the differences between the value systems discussed in section 1. This is to help understand the ways the differences could be influencing practices at both national and local level in valuation of ethics. We shall quickly encapsulate the noteworthy outcomes from previous section.

Framework of descriptive moral relativism has been used for this analysis and the basis has been made the World Cultural Survey by Inglehart – Welzel Cultural maps of three research waves. The research waves of 1996, 2008 and 2015. It was found out that value system of Europe at a regional level had two personalities. Initially, by a tendency towards “Europeanism”, which shows a cumulative figure of people in Europe who trust that Europeans share definite standards (not essentially involve that they really do!). Furthermore, it is subdivided through materialistic (e.g., financial) to post-materialistic (e.g., ecological) values; which however frequently clash. A further comprehensive investigation of the European value system, the ensuing chief verdicts stemmed from the enquiry:

Commercial plus administrative modifications might intensely effect the value system management of a nation or any locality

In modern times, the important historical – cultural places within Europe could be as follows. The Northern European countries who have extensively greedy and democrat values. The Western countries in Europe, where it is safe to say that monetary as well as reasonable values govern. That is a good bit of change from pre – materialistic to post materialistic ethos. To the southern side of Europe, patriarchal and customary values are very rampant. Within Central Europe, though, those who have adopted the marketplace economy are well leaning towards western European side ethos. Places post waves of communalism follow a value system that quite curiously display traits of self-dependency, all for favour for Maoist era ethics. They have quite more communalistic and despotic beliefs pointing fingers to presence of fraud and political turmoil. Along with Europe, value systems prevalent in other countries were also studied and researched. The value system present in Africa, is largely community centric and centred around fulfilment of responsibilities more than being based on rights. The cultural gap looking start at face, in Africa, is between the Catholic South with Islamic North. Although values lean and swing towards personal values, sex and administrative impartiality, dictatorial rule is preferred, nevertheless still at present, by some of the ethnic people and equality between men and women is not commonly reinforced. Part of America, with Spanish and Portuguese influences, comprises of an equally logical cultural neighbourhood. Here, people believe in expressing self, are quite old-fashioned about their values. Also, the backing of independent ideals is lesser known, as is the support of the issues like gender-equality. The value system prevalent in northern regions of America could be segregated as people highly self-expressive but, also having generous dosage of old-school and secular-rational values in them. Most markedly, USA, evidently, displays of its people being quite individualist and at the same time containing traditional and new modern values as well. In Asia, value system is very different. Their ethos are generally represented by two main groups: those who follow Confucian culture – who primarily are more towards Eastern China They display secular-rational values more than self-expressing at times. The presence of religious countries in the Southern section of China that show traditional values best. Both the regions have strong value structures that are further centred around responsibilities than depending on rights.

In a business environment, managers rely on clarity to act and make decisions. Often at a workplace a list of dos and don’ts is listed out for any employee to understand what is culturally acceptable and what is ethically unacceptable in an organization. This, forms the very foundation of self-conduct in business. The situation however changes when a business dealing needs to take place between two culturally different clients. Over here, we shall discuss the case between USA and China work ethics-the things that are acceptable and unacceptable.

In China, people believe in upholding accord. They prefer keeping a long-term view in mind, anything sudden and substantial is considered as troublesome. Americans on the other hand believe in competence and success. They have a logical reasoning behind their actions and usually stems from facts and they are outright straight about them. For people from China, human relationships are sacred and they believe in creating the right ‘guanxi’ or connection. They believe in group work to achieve their goals, primarily because earlier due to agricultural work, communities used to work closely together. Individualism is hence not considered important. In American culture, however, individualism and privacy are important, they are a way of life. Also, to them, business relationships are separate from personal relationships. This is because business relationships have to adhere to contracts. Americans are open and easy to make friends with but this is only at a superficial level. Chinese believe relationships are a commitment and matter of life time. Hence, they are not quick to make friends or associate Chinese people do not like open confrontation and are very subtle in their approach even if there is a disagreement. They do not question directly and openly as they think that is rude. Frankness is very much a part of American ethics. They like to openly express their feelings and will not even stop from outright pointing out someone’s else’s fault. The Chinese on the other hand attempt to save face of others even in adverse situations and they would like the same for themselves. While they revere silence, and understand that more talking could lead to more mistakes, Americans on the other hand, tend to talk and think silence as awkward. They even think of it as a difficult negotiation tool used by Asians. Also, Americans exaggerate and think it is normal. Eloquence as well as ‘gift of gab’ is considered admirable. Chinese language though expressive and quite colourful still, negate eloquence. Chinese do not like exaggeration and give preference to subtleness and inner beauty. As mentioned Chinese are pragmatic but prefer actions that are not disruptive, the Americans are solution oriented and could go for means that may be original, disruptive or even avant-garde. When talking about physical space, Westerners consider handshake as a common practice. It stems from the fact that they extend their friendship ‘weapon less’ since mostly weapons used to be held in right hand itself in previous times. Chinese, on the other hand do not prefer touching. They would even avoid direct eye contact out of respect for private space. Americans on the other hand consider eye contact as a signal of confidence and bankable trust.

Conclusion

As the report tells us, through the course of time, evolution of culture happened and which formed eventually the basis of today’s society. What the civilization went through earlier times have largely helped shaped the ethics and value systems in the present society across regions. The variances and resemblances help influencing practices at national, regional and local level. The study conducted under Inglehart – Welzel culture mapping has in fact been successful to also point out that there are no major differences that could hinder harmony among people of different regions from different backgrounds. The value system studied under Inglehart – Welzel culture map also helps us categorize different countries discussed namely, Latin America, Northern America, Asia, Africa and Europe. It points out that Latin America thrives on corruption, fraud and people still do not believe in or foster ideas of gender equality, good education etc. Status and wealth accumulation still tops the agenda of people in administrative positions. The Government has not been very effective in laying reforms. Whereas, North America has been very progressive and the feeling of freedom, security, self-esteem etc. is very strong. In region like Africa, value systems of family, groupism is strong and there has largely been influenced by recent religion waves. Asia on the other hand has a mix of Confucian and religious backgrounds both giving it a very value centric ethical system in society. Europe is also a big mix but people are mostly progressive and liberal.

We have also discussed differences in business ethics of USA and China and saw how the cultural systems and evolution of civilization have shaped business dealings. It also helped point out that understanding and acceptance of differences in culture could be helpful in avoiding issues involving money and prevent failure.

References

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