Cultural awareness
There are different definitions of cultural awareness. I will explain Ferdinand Tönnies and Hofstede's theory on cultural awareness in the following blog and give my personal opinion to it.
Ferdinand Tönnies is searching the difference between Community and Society. He focus on the inner will of people. In his opinion every community and society have a collective will. Tönnies made researches about how to express your opinion freely and how to change political or social actions.
Hofstede’s theory on cultural awareness means that every employer should understand the difference in every culture and how it affects the working life at the office or even worldwide.
These six categories are defining culture in Hofstede's theory:
These six categories are defining culture in Hofstede's theory:
1. Power Distance Index
2 2. Collectivism vs. Individualism
3 3.Uncertainty Avoidance Index
4. Femininity vs. Masculinity
5 5. Short-Term vs. Long-Term Orientation
6. Restraint vs. Indulgence
The experience I got with living in Finland for some time gave me the opportunity to compare those two theories with my own impression. I agree that every society have a collective will. I could experience this "collective will" in the Student Village I lived and also at university, more precisely at some group tasks. Every member of the group has the same goal and it doesn't matter where they came from or how they look like.
The categories Hofstede defined are very central. It depends pretty much on the nationality; Collectivism is not that common in the central Europe countries than in more eastern Europe countries for example. I realized it also while speaking to other exchange students. In my opinion this is a very excited topic and I know you can learn so much from other cultures if you allow to open your mind.
