SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

When Max Weber composed "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [wikipedia.org]" in 1905, it became a foundational text in modern sociology whose premise, that work-related cultural values in Europe were responsible for those societies' global economic ascendance, has been hotly debated since. You'll still find it in the syllabus of any college course on sociology.

Now, a new study challenges Weber afresh:

Researchers and businesses have often operated under the idea that work-related cultural values are defined by country - just think of stereotypes about countries that are known to have hard workers or are team-oriented. A new study finds that nationality is actually a bad proxy for work-related cultural values, and points to other groupings - such as occupation - as more reliable indicators [phys.org].
...
the researchers evaluated variation, both within each country and between countries, on four work-related cultural values:

        --Individualism, which measures the extent to which a society places emphasis on individuals as opposed to groups;
        --Power distance, which measures the importance of status and hierarchy in work settings;
        --Uncertainty avoidance, which measures the extent to which cultures are willing to accept ambiguity or the unknown; and
        --Quantity versus quality of life, which measures emphasis on competition and material wealth versus emphasis on societal welfare and well-being.

The researchers found that approximately 80 percent of variation in these values was within countries. For example, at the low end, only 16.6 percent of the variation on individualism was between countries - 83.4 percent of the variability was within countries. At the high end, 20.8 percent of variation on power distance was between countries - which still left 79.2 percent of the variability within countries.

"This told us that country does not equal culture on work-related values," Kirkman says.

Original Submission