Cultural Comparisons of India and China

When analyzing cultural traditions and innovations, economic relationships, and social classifications and expectations during/between the periods of classical China and classical India. Classical China lasted from 2000 B.C.E - 600 C.E, while classical India lasted from 600 B.C.E – 600 C.E. There are quite a few similarities and differences between these two civilizations. With regards to cultural traditions and innovations both developed similar technologies in their period. Spoken language was introduced in China during the Zhou Dynasty. Also in India, Sanskrit was the language of educated people.. India and China were similar as agricultural societies. Both civilizations relied on a large peasant class,

Classical China and Classical India were two great civilizations that are known for their influences on modern day China and India. Even so, they showed their own unique signs as they developed, with some similar qualities, and others that were not so comparable. Both Agricultural based civilizations had their own technological advancements, and China and India shared many similarities, but they had differences such as the hierarchy of social structure, religious influences, cultural practices, and the importance of trade in the economy.

The foundations were set for these two Classical developing empires: China, separated from other developing empires and India, supported by them. While both Classical China and India had hierarchy’s based on agriculture and organized patriarchal societies, India developed multiple institutions, such as language, while China developed one united dialect.

Ancient China and ancient India are both important and interesting ancient civilizations. They are alike and unlike in many ways. Some significant ways in which ancient India and China are similar and different are religion, art, economics, politics, and social structure.

Between Classical China and Classical India, both their religion and political aspects made a big impact. Although China and India had various similarities and differences, it’s no doubt these components were what made the civilizations fascinating.

China and India were both complex classical civilizations with several social similarities and differences. In China, the merchants were less respected, there was greater access to social mobility, and the Emperors were treated as Gods. India treated the merchant class with respect, had extremely limited to no social mobility, and had the Brahman at the stop of the social hierarchy. Some similarities included the structured societies supported by belief systems or a religion, a patriarchal society, and the large peasant classes in both civilizations.

1000 B.C.E. marked the decline of the river valley culture and the rise of the classical civilizations in Asia and the Mediterranean. The classical civilizations proved far more durable, developed complex political bureaucracies and facilitated the development and proliferation of many of the great belief systems in history. The two classical civilizations China and India differ from the ancient river valley civilization because of advanced technology, belief systems, and political structures.

Following this argument, Hall builds the differentiation between High Context and Low Context cultures using some characteristics which could be divided in:

It would be very easy to refer to international human resource management as little more than HRM on a national scale with some additional features that indeed similarities in the role of human resource management within national and international organizations; however, there are also some significant differences, not least of which is the development and deployment of staff in different national and regional locations around the world. The somewhat overused maxim encouraging the imperative to ‘think globally and act locally’, if nothing else, illustrates the importance of looking at the management of global organization at two, sometimes distinct, levels. The first of these may take

Iran, my native country, is the paradigm of high context culture. In fact, lots of rules are not written but people are becoming familiar with them from the early ages. In the past, the high context culture indicators were extremely extensive while this approach recently has changed significantly to the low context culture. This transition has produced a number of challenges between almost two generations, the old generation (in their fifties) and the new one (in their twenties). The generation between these two generations is still

In addition to the above institutional differences there are some cultural differences between countries that effect MNCS and HRM. The work of Hofstede focuses on how perceptions and values influence the way people interact and react to each other with the help of five cultural dimensions. Cultural difference namely power distance is the degree to which people in a society perceive the power to be distributed unequally. The high score of PD represents countries with the more organizational hierarchy and more power held by the people at the top levels of the hierarchy. Countries with a high Score of PD include India, China and South American countries. On the contrary, U.S can be one example of countries with low power distance (Hofstede, 2001). The second dimension is of Uncertainty Avoidance. It is the degree to which the individuals in a society are threatened by uncertainty risk. Countries like Saudi Arabia with high power distance and uncertainty avoidance tend to have rigid rules and leaders have more power. For example, India has a unique and diverse culture with a set level of hierarchies. The employees at the top level of hierarchy have more power that can be misused as those in power are backed by governments and unions. The social inequality, poverty and unstable political environment explain the high uncertainty avoidance in the Indian culture. Therefore, HRM uses training and career development programs as means of improving this high level of uncertainty

Another survey of 3011 organisations that had more than 200 employees was done in 11 countries using the Cranet Questionnaire. The cultural practices were measured by collecting data from middle managers response to the questionnaire such as common behaviours, institutional practices, proscriptions, and prescriptions in a 7-point scale, where ‘1’ indicates strong disagreement and ‘7’ indicates strong agreement. From this survey, the authors summarized the enabling and disabling factors of cultural practices in HRM which is devolution; workforce diversity; strategic orientation of HRM and

There is a great deal more in like manner between the two nations socially, than say, between a Chinese (or Indian) and an American or European. A snag might be the dialect. Numerous Chinese from Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong visiting India communicates in English and feel good in their relations with Indian individuals. Indian individuals are insightful, persevering and family-situated, same as the Chinese (Moran 345). They are likewise extraordinarily otherworldly and demonstrate resilience and regard for other individuals' religions and convictions. In Hong Kong, by far most of Indians communicate in Cantonese. They are fruitful in what they do and fit into the group consistently.

Therefore, to strengthen the labour markets, multinational companies should focus their human resource management mainly on how management practices varies from one region to another and talent development. This report is intended for global managers of HSBC Holdings as one of multinationals that operates in many countries. Generally this report’s purpose is identifying how management practices can be varied and talent development issues in one of the biggest emerging markets, namely India. As management practices can be diffused or in need to be altered to suit the local country and also what the global managers of HSBC need to be aware of in developing the talent of their labours, global managers need to look upon the local’s context of HRM in this case is India. India opened their markets for foreign firms to enter their market in the early 1990s that was due to the liberalisation of their economy. These foreign firms tend to have superior and more efficient HRM systems than India’s firms. Budhwar & Varma (2010) state:

Furthermore, Hall builds a differentiation between High Context and Low Context cultures using characteristics which could be divided in: