The contrast and comparison of cultures

Running head: CONTRAST AND COMPARISON OF CULTURE’S
CONTRAST AND COMPARISON OF CULTURE’S
Name of Student
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Author Note

CONTRAST AND COMPARISON OF CULTURE’S1
Culture refers to the norms and social behaviour that are found in the human
society and also includes the knowledge, arts, beliefs, capabilities and customs. Culture
is therefore made up of the beliefs, values, underlying assumptions, behaviours and
attitudes that are shared by a group of people. The main aim of the paper is to compare
the culture of Australia with that of UK on the basis of the cultural dimensions defined by
Hofstede. The paper will therefore discuss about the definition of the cultural dimension
on which the cultures will be compared and contrasted, identification of the cultural
differences, similarity between the cultures, some generalisations that can be made on
the basis of comparison (Block and Walter 2017).
The cultural dimensions of the Hofstedes cultural dimension framework, that will
be used for the purpose of this study includes- the masculinity dimension, uncertainty
avoidance dimension and long term orientation dimension (Hofstede 2003). According
to Hofstede there are six major dimension upon which the culture of country varies and
these includes- power distance, long term orientation, uncertainty avoidance,
masculinity dimension, indulgence and individualism dimensions. Therefore the
comparison and contrast between the UK and the Australian cultures will be done on
the basis of some of these dimensions. The masculinity dimension discusses about
whether a society of a country is driven mainly by competition, success and
achievement, strives to be the best in the field or if the society is driven by better quality
of life, care for others. Countries that score a higher marks in masculinity have a more
masculine culture and that which score a low have a more feminine culture. On the
other hand, the uncertainty avoidance includes- the thinking of the society related to
their future whether they are open to changes or become anxious with change. A higher
score in this dimension will mean that the society of a country avoids any changes and
get anxious in case a change occurs on the other hand countries with a lower score
shows that they are open to change. The long term orientation dimension discusses
about the way each society maintains links with its past while they are dealing with
present and future challenges. On the basis of this, societies can be of two main types
normative and pragmatic (Hofstede 2009).