Intercultural differences in attitude towards work and career

Recruitment and selection of employees as well as creation of motivation and remuneration system are two of the very important processes if it is intended to invest in another country (Nwankwo et al., 2024). If the business is being expanded through franchising, this process is also important, but the responsibility lies with the franchisee. The attitude to work is very significant for the competitiveness of any organization, for the quality of manufactured products and services, and work productivity (Exhibit 10-5). Attitudes to work differ between cultural clusters and this has a significant impact on the economic development of countries (Schwartz, 1999). In the Anglo, Germanic and Nordic cultural clusters, work is considered a very high value, and a working person is highly respected in society. All states in these three cultural clusters are world leaders in terms of GDP per capita, level of earned income, level of innovation reflected in rankings, level of entrepreneurship and other attributes of economic development. The most significant scientific inventions and discoveries have been achieved in the countries of those cultural clusters, so industrial revolutions took place in these countries first too, those countries first used mass production and specialization for the growth of their economic prosperity as it is described in more detail in the second chapter of this book. In these countries, being workaholic or addiction to work is also the most common and even it now has become as a negative form of the love and passion to work. The reason why exactly these three cultural clusters are characterized by such a great interest in work is distinguished by various researchers. One reason is religion. In Christian countries, the Reformation began in the 16^th century, which formed a Protestant branch next to the traditional Catholic and Orthodox religions. The protest against the norms of the Catholic Church and the reform of the church formed branches such as Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Mennonites, Quakers, Methodists, Pietists, and Puritans. If in the traditional Catholic Church, the priest was considered the bearer of the message and the preacher, because only priests be literate and able to read. Protestants enabled and encouraged people learn to read and interpret the Bible for themselves.

Ex. 10‑5 Main factors behind an attitude towards work

Keywords: work attitude

Source: Adopted from House at all., 2004

In Protestant countries, literate population has begun to increase significantly, which soon led to the freedom of science and the complete separation of the church from ruling a state. In the Protestant faith, the effort and work of each person was considered of great value. In the Protestant cultural clusters, this strongly encouraged the desire of man to dominate the surrounding environment and accelerated cultural dimension of mastery orientation instead of harmony. This led to the fact that in the Anglo, Germanic and Nordic cultural clusters, people began to adapt the surrounding environment to the material needs of human.

After realizing in the 21^st century that excessive exploitation of natural resources can destroy the entire planet, causing climate warming, air and soil pollution, enormous efforts have been made in the countries of these cultural clusters to restore harmony with the surrounding environment. Movements and political agendas such as the “Green Deal” in Europe, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reducing fossil fuel use, sustainable development, reducing ocean plastic have come from the realization of how much the culture of Mastery orientation has caused damage and is causing threats to the future for planet Earth.

Catholic and Orthodox countries – Latin American, Latin European cultural cluster, Central and Eastern Europe, Ruso-Slavic cultural cluster were not affected by Protestantism and retained the Catholic or Orthodox religion, which is more oriented towards harmony, reconciliation, obedience, forgiveness.

Even when comparing the economic development of the European Union countries after collapse of Berlin Wall and Soviet Union, a clear difference can be seen between the rich countries in the North and the poor countries in the South. The cultural differences between “North” and “South” are even manifested within the same state. The northern part of Italy is very economically and technologically advanced, many fashion brands originate from there, luxury and sports automotive industry products are in demand all over the world, but the southern part of Italy is the complete opposite – still less developed, more lover added values industries and agriculture focused, painfully affected by organized crime.

Climate is another important factor in determining attitudes to work. Cultural clusters located in moderate climate zones experience a constant need to make more efforts to survive the cold period of the year. The need to have energy for heating, a cold resistant construction of house to survive the winter, and to have warm clothes made it necessary to constantly work harder and stock up for the winter. Short summers in Nordic, German, Anglo cultural clusters provided significantly shorter agricultural production season, to compare for example, the subtropics or tropics, where nature provided food and warmth to man throughout the year. Therefore, in the Nordic, German and Anglo countries, the need for mastery and to work harder and to accumulate energy and food was formed, and this became a value in the population.

In religions that focus more on God’s will or destiny, human is less inclined to change the world around him and the attitudes of harmony and conformity prevail against mastery. The Catholicism, the Islam, the Buddhism, the Hinduism, as well as Paganism or other similar religions promote strongly conformism, and a human life is determined in those cultures quite strongly by immaterial values – spirituality, relationship with family, while material values are less valued. It forms a different attitude towards work and achievements. Combining the religion and the climate factor creates a worldview in which work is not an aspiration and a goal. One of the pioneers of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s opponent, Carl Jung, studied archetypes in different countries of the world. Jung conducted experiments by himself living in different countries and experiencing the worldviews of local peoples. Jung, who lived among the natives of Africa in 1925, reflected a mindset of local Africans towards Europeans in his books “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious” in 1934. According to Jung Africans sincerely do not used to understand why the Europeans need everything to have, conquer and control and everything is not enough, why people can’t just be in harmony, instead of trying to change and accumulate everything according to persons own understanding and will (Jung, 1991). These cultural differences are psychological nature and relate to the meaning and purpose of human life (Iguisi, 1997).

In the Confucian Asia, there is an also different attitude towards work and the meaning of human life. In this collectivist culture, a strong belief is that the meaning of human life is to pragmatically serve the community. This worldview places work for a collective goal at the top of value in China and is one of the reasons for China’s global dominance in terms of GDP from the beginning of our era to the 18^th century and its short-term have regained economic and geopolitical positions in the 21^st century. This ideology is based on the doctrine of the Communist Party, the ruling party in China for more than half a century. Bearing in mind the model of Chinese state capitalism based on the ideology of communism, the promotion and worship of work is also part of the state policy of this country. Driven by a strong motivation to work and accumulate wealth, the Chinese already surpass the Americans in the number of billionaires. Although China’s GDP per capita still lags behind that of Western Europe and North America, China is developing an abundance of wealthy entrepreneurs motivated to work, whose total number equals or even surpasses the total population of some rich European countries as for instance Belgium, Netherlands of Baltic States.

The perception of work as a value is also reflected in the individualistic cultural dimension, but in a different way than in the collectivist one. For example, in the cultural clusters of Anglo, Germanic and Nordic countries, even wealthy or really rich people often teach their children to independence, responsibility and work from adolescence, and when they reach adulthood, it is common for young people to start living separately from their parents, even if they have to work a lot and hard and rent a house. In collectivist cultures, this is difficult to understand because family and loved ones are valued more than independence and the ability to take care of oneself.

Even in Southern European countries, Spain, Italy, Greece, it is common for a man in his thirties to live with his parents and enjoy breakfast every morning that is made by mother. On the beaches of Spain and Italy, families can be seen picnicking, where even four or five generations of the same family interact closely together.

In the cultural cluster of Anglo, Germanic and Nordic countries, a young man prefers to work on his own and rent an apartment rather than live with rich parents. Unable to rent apartments due to the very high rent prices in New York or London, young Americans or English people even use joint rent or so-called co-living and share apartments with their peers. This value of wanting to be independent and self-sufficient is very encouraging and motivating to work.

Strong orientation of cultural dimensions towards future and mastery also works as strong motivators to work more as it related to deserved achievement and satisfaction of work results.