Significance of National Identity as a Source of Individuals Culture - Essay Example

?What is culture? Introduction The term “culture” indicates the beliefs, customs, language, dress, norms and values, roles, diet, skills, knowledge, competences, and everything else that is learnt by people and plays a role in shaping a society’s way of life (Browne, 2008, p. 31). Socialization helps the transfer and continued growth and nurturing of culture in the subsequent generations. Although a vast majority of members of a society have different aspects of the daily life in common, yet different definitions and conceptions of culture exist within the general approach. Conceptions of culture Dominant culture A society’s dominant culture is its main culture that is accepted and shared by the majority without opposition. For instance, the British culture is characterized by it being patriarchal, white, and unequal, wherein the things of the white males are regarded as worthwhile and are given more importance as compared to the things of females or of the minority ethnic groups (Browne, 2008, p. 32). Likewise, views of the more powerful and rich people regarding the valuable aspects of the culture are considered more important than the views of the less powerful and rich. Subculture A subculture is the culture of a particular community or a group of people within the dominant culture. A subculture has many aspects common with the dominant culture with certain differences. Examples of subculture include the culture of gypsies and of gays. Folk culture Folk culture is the culture of the local communities. Folk culture originates in the customs, beliefs, and experiences of the daily life of common people in a society. Examples of folk culture include the culture of folk songs, folk music, folk dances, and storytelling. Socialization facilitates the transfer of folk culture across generations. High culture High culture supersedes other forms of culture. High culture refers to such cultural aspects that have lasting literary or artistic significance, and is aimed at intellectual elites that particularly include the middleclass and the upper-class groups that are interested in new and innovative ideas. Examples of high culture include jazz, theatre, opera, and specialist art films. Low culture Low culture, also known as popular culture or mass culture is in contrast with the high culture. Low culture is the everyday culture that is undemanding, easily comprehensible, and simple unlike the high culture that is special or set apart. Although low culture is aimed at common people, yet it lacks roots in the routinely experiences of the ordinary people. The significance of national identity as a source of individuals’ culture National identity can be defined as “The set of meanings that individuals impute to their membership in an ethnic community, including those attributes that bind them to that collectivity and that distinguish it from others in their relevant environment” (Esman, 1994, p. 27). National identity plays a very important role in shaping an individual’s culture and is amongst the fundamental determinants of culture. Various scholars and researchers have commented on the relation between national identity and culture. Delanty (1996) writes, “Nationalism no longer appeals to ideology but to identity. Thus the predominant form that national identity takes today is that of cultural nationalism” (Delanty, 1996). Michael Billig’s postmodern theory of nationalism considers the production and reproduction of national identity by daily social practices. Billig (1995) uses nationalism as a way to describe a practice rather than a doctrine or theory. By nationalism, he primarily means to refer to civic nationalism. Billig (1995) asserts that nationalism and national identity’s active reproduction continually occurs within all states of a nation. Delanty (1996) comments on Billig’s theory in these words, “One of the pervasive forms the new nationalism takes is what Billig calls 'banal nationalism', the nationalism which pervades everyday life” (Delanty, 1996). Vucetic (2004) studied the role of humor in the structuring of national identity in the daily life, which provides another example of the banal nationalism. A potential example of national identity as the source of an individual’s culture is the way immigrants’ culture changes as they move to a country whose identity they have freshly taken. Initially, the immigrants experience culture shock, but over the passage of time, they merge into the culture of the host society as they adopt and endorse their values and way of life. The importance of culture in the global business world Different theorists, professionals, and educationalists have visualized culture in different ways in the context of a global business world. While for some, it is a threat, others see it as an opportunity and a potential means of obtainment of competitive advantage. “Despite popular beliefs to the contrary, the single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture” (Hall and Hall cited in Hodgson, Sano, and Graham, 2008, p. 54). Cultural diversity is the growing aspect of the modern society. This imparts the need for the management to treat diversity in such a way that it serves as a resource rather than a threat so that the demands of a global market economy can be accommodated. “…think about cultural differences as a source of competitive advantage, there must be a shift in assumptions ... Culture should not simply be considered as an obstacle to doing business across cultures. It can provide tangible benefits and can be used competitively” (Hoecklin, 1995, p. 15). This can be achieved only by understanding and realizing the fact that organizations need to be flexible and cannot just foster their indigenous culture particularly when they want to expand and internationalize the business. Organizations need to study and understand the cultural norms and values of the host countries and try to endorse them to be able to integrate in the foreign societies. Cross-border alliances can help the obtainment of value from response to the global market economy’s demands. According to Schneider and Barsoux (2003), organizations need to identify cultural reasons behind the national differences so that the impact of culture on the systems and processes of an organization’s structure can be demonstrated. When dealt with in the right way, national identity and cultural differences can be converted into opportunities for the growth and success of an organization. References: Billig, M 1995, Banal Nationalism, London: Thousand Oaks. Browne, CH 2008, Chapter 2: Culture and Identity, [Online] Available at http://www.polity.co.uk/browne/downloads/sample-chapter_2.pdf. Delanty, G 1996, Beyond the Nation-State: National Identity and Citizenship in a Multicultural Society - a Response to Rex, Sociological Research Online, Vol. 1, No. 3. Esman, MJ 1994, Ethnic Politics, USA: Cornell University Press. Hodgson, JD, Sano, Y, and Graham, 2008, Doing Business with the New Japan: Succeeding in America's Richest International Market, Rowman & Littlefield. Hoecklin, LA 1995, Managing cultural differences: strategies for competitive advantage, Addison-Wesley. Schneider, SC, and Barsoux, JL 2003, Managing Across Cultures, Prentice Hall/Financial Times. Vucetic, S 2004, Identity Is a Joking Matter: Intergroup Humor in Bosnia, Sources of Identity, Vol. 4, No. 1. Read More