Dutch Culture Introduction to Cultural Differences

It is obvious that differences in cultures are very important, though these differences are difficult to handle. The failure to understand and appreciate that differences in cultures bring variety to lifestyles leads to embarrassment, uneasy relationships, and failed businesses. Culture permeates both life and death. Take, for instance, the high rate of plane crashes in Korea from the year 1970 to 2000. The discovery made from the analysis of the black boxes from the crashed planes show that the flight engineers and the co-pilots in the cockpits carry out actions only in deference to the captains. Even at the wake of the possibility of a crash, the flight engineers and the co-pilots rarely made suggestions that would go against the good judgment of the captains.

In this presentation, culture is seen as a shared system of values, beliefs, assumptions and projections which are imbibed on account of membership to a group, and which influence the generality of the behaviors and attitudes of the members of the group. Looking at culture in this way, three major ingredients can be isolated. In the first place, culture is a phenomenon attached to a group by which members of that group can be identified and distinguished from other groups. Approaching cultural studies in this way reveals that culture exists at several different levels such as business establishments, organizational entities, industrial companies, occupational groups, geographical regions, and nations (Leung et al., 2005). Rather than study cultural groups in isolation, this paper focuses on national culture in particular, and also addresses the effects of the differences in cultures across countries.

Secondly, the definition given above implies that it is only through socialization that culture is obtained, not by birth. Through the interactions with family members, friends, teachers, and society itself, culture is learned and internalized. It is in this regard that Geert Hofstede sees culture as a mindset that has been programmed collectively (Hofstede, 1980). Furthermore, the collective programming determines what behavior is to be considered acceptable, and what is to be forbidden. In essence, cultural values provide basis for individuals' choices of the kind of behavior to adopt.

Worthy of note is the fact that cultural differences in a Holland have become stable over a period of time. At the surface, similarity of cultural habits can be observed. For example, the increased appreciation of symbols and artifacts is brought about by the wide spread and acceptance of American perception of such items. However, a deeper analysis would show the persistence of cultural differences. In support of this, data collected from the study carried out in 65 countries shows that, even with the profound cultural changes caused by economic development and modernization, there is a remarkable persistence of core cultural values. The report of this study representing 75% of the world's population is contained in the World Value Survey (Inglehart and Baker, 2000).

Take a look at this scenario. You are in a car with your friend who drives at an alarming speed and eventually hits a pedestrian. You are aware that the speed is too much for such a part of the city where speed limit says 20 miles should be covered in an hour. Nobody has witnessed the avoidable accident. Your friend's lawyer tells you that if you could testify under oath that your friend was driving at the designated limit, you could save your friend from the consequences attached to his actions. Over 90% of people in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Norway, Switzerland, Western Germany, and Sweden say they would never testify falsely under an oath, not even to help a close friend. However, 47% in Indonesia, 34% in Venezuela, 26% in South Korea, 48% in China, 42% in Russia say they would not bear false witness in such a situation (Tompenaars and Hampden-Turner as cited in Adler and Allison, 2008). And so, some cultures emphasize adherence to universal virtues such as honesty, while others prefer to pay more attention to issues of relationships and loyalty to particular personalities or concepts. And that is why there is bound to be misunderstanding even between countries that share affiliations while spearheading modernism.

Thesis statement

Multinational companies in Holland are even more subjected to infiltrations of different cultural values in their daily operations due to the convergence of multiple cultures. In other words, operating businesses across borders calls forth complexities since the managers are forced to streamline their activities to suit every representative culture. Nevertheless, this situation describes the position...

United States citizens have the attitude of owning guns for which reason other Europeans do not understand. Czechs are found to drink more beer than Saudi Arabians. The Irish people come in second in this culture of drinking beer. China and India happen to be geographically close to the extent that their territorial disputes are still unresolved. But there still exists distinct differences in their eating cultures, especially concerning the parts of an animal that should be eaten. Psychotherapists are patronized more in Argentina more than in other parts of the world. Brazilians pay so much attention to and spend a greater part of their income trying to look good. They literally invest on beauty products more than the citizens of other countries (Argentina Mental Health, 2009).
One other very prominent indicator of the differences in cultures is the diversity in religion throughout Holland. The World Christian Encyclopedia reports that people all over the world practice 19 major religions, and these are further divided into 270 large religious sects and many other smaller ones. For the year ending in 2000, Christianity comes first with 33% of the world population; Islam is said to be 21%, the non-religious were 16% in number; and Hindu religion takes 14% of the world's population. In any case, the cultural diversity perceivable within these religions is quite huge. In Christianity alone, there are separate groups numbering up to 34,000! (Dow et al., 2006). Though a greater number of Czechs citizens are not religious, Christianity happens to be the religion with the greatest number of devotees. And here, wine and alcoholic drinks are taken as part of their ritual practice. But the official religion in Saudi Arabia is Islam which condemns the consumption of alcohols. This accounts for the divergent sales of alcoholic drinks in those parts. In the same way, the difference in diet between the Chinese people and the Indians are a result of the distinctions in their religions.

The researches that have been conducted with religion as the indicator of cultural differences focuses on two issues: to know whether the communities in the nation share a common religion or not. A sample drawn from 163 countries shows that 51% of those countries pair up in having not less that 30% of their populations practicing similar religion. However, this data does not analyze the differences that exist between denominations that are within one religion. Measures used to study religious differences consider similarities at denominational level as closest (Baptist, for example); the next level is the study of the aggregation within one religion (for example, Protestant); it then goes on to the level of religion (Christianity, for instance); from there it moves to the most broad combination of a group of religions that have common origin and similar beliefs (an example is Monotheistic religions that originate from the Middle East, and this category encompasses Christianity, Islam and Judaism) (Dow et al., 2006). It should be noted that differences also exist in the level of diversity within religions (West and Graham, 2004).

Another major factor to consider in cultural discourse in Holland is language. According to a couple of researchers, language gives access to the thought processes and the deeper beliefs of a people (West and Graham, 2004). Early researches of the potential implications that could come about in the thought processes across different cultures as a result of linguistic differences date back to the writings of Edward Sapir in 1921, and that of Benjamin Whorf in 1940. The great impact of language on culture is brought to the fore by Michael Agar when he says that language brings with itself patterns of perceiving, inquiry into the unknown, discourse, and acting. And these patterns reveal thought and create basis for judging ideologies and actions (Agar, 1994). Scholars in later epochs, in the 1960s particularly, focused on patterns that are common across languages thereby moving away from the view discussed above. However, recent researches in Linguistics have shown that the appreciation of how the differences in the use of language could be interpreted in relation to cultural structures is gradually growing (Gumperz and Levinson, 1996)

One of the simple ways to draw conclusions on the effects of linguistic differences on culture is to take note of the finding that, in the sample study of 163 countries mentioned above, 10% of country pairs have not less than…