Introduction to Culture

The world is composed of countless cultures depending on how close one looks. For instance take a cursory look in the field of anthropology. Where only several decades ago anthropology focused on the investigation of distinct tribal cultures there are now innumerable studies of the cultural minutiae of modernity, from biker gangs to science fiction fan clubs and sport teams. Part of the cause behind the ever spreading idea of culture is the term itself. Now the term culture is applied to social groups of all sizes from corporate culture to pop culture, from youth culture to Chinese culture. In the field of business research many prominent researchers view each individual nation as containing a unique culture. However a nation is not a homogeneous unit.

For example Thailand has large minority populations of people who are not Thai, yet they all live together in a single nation. Or look at Taiwan where this study takes place. Taiwan contains a culturally Chinese population but has a minority aboriginal population. Looking more closely at the culturally Chinese in Taiwan one can see discernable differences in behavior between certain segments of the population which can be easily be explained as cultural differences. So, what exactly does culture mean?

“Culture is a term to describe a set of patterns, beliefs, behaviors, institutions, symbols, and practices shared and perpetuated by a consolidated group of individuals connected by an ancestral heritage and a concomitant geographical reference location” (Jackson & Garner, 1998). This definition, however, is not exactly perfect. As has just been explained culture has come to mean many things and can be extremely general. To accommodate all current uses of the term culture Jackson and Garner’s definition is useful with slight modification. For culture to exist many people feel a common ancestry or geographical location is not required to exist. Therefore the definition of culture adapted for use in this thesis is describes a set of patterns, beliefs, behaviors, institutions, symbols, and practices shared and perpetuated by a consolidated group of individuals. This definition can encompass everything from a national culture to the

hippie culture.

In order to account for similar cultures held by people of common ancestry and geographic origin the term ethnicity comes in useful. Hraba (1979) has this definition for ethnicity, “self-conscious collectivizes of people, who on the basis of a common origin or a separate co-culture [e.g. religion, language], maintain a distinction between themselves and outsiders.” For this thesis ‘common origin’ will mean common ancestry and geographical reference location, as used by Jackson and Garner (1998).

This definition is more fundamental than culture. There may be a surf culture in the Western United States and a cowboy culture in the Midwest but the majorities of the members of both these apparently different cultures are from the same ethnicity and most likely hold similar values with each other than with members of other ethnicities. Using these definitions the constructs of Western, Chinese and Southeast Asian cultures can be created.

Western culture is the culture behaviors, beliefs and attitudes held in common by people from ethnic Western backgrounds. Likewise Chinese culture is the set of common values held by ethnic Chinese and Southeast Asian culture is the common behaviors held by people from Southeast Asian ethnic groups. It is vital to remember that the very concept of culture is actually just a set of generalizations and therefore should not be applied too rigidly. This is especially true now where all cultures have contact and there is great transference of behaviors across cultures. To match with previous research these constructs are created here for comparative purposes and to see if they are useful to explain behavior as they differ across cultures.