Cultural Value: Culture, Values And Value Of Culture

“Culture encompasses the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation” (Santrock).

Culture embraces all the manifestations of social behavior of a community, the reactions of the individual as affected by the habits of the group in which he lives, and the product of human activities as determined by these habits.

Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.

Culture can be defined as the behaviours and belief characteristics of a particular social, ethnic,

The term “Culture" can have many varying meanings, traditionally, it is thought of as the shared beliefs, traditions, religious practices and values of an ethnic group; or the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behavior of a particular nation or people. Culture can also be defined as people with shared beliefs and practices: or a group of people whose shared beliefs and practices identify the particular place, class, or time (era) to which they belong. It can also be defined as the shared attitudes or particular set of attitudes that can characterize an ethnic or religious group of people. Culture is also art, music,

Culture: Culture refers to values, languages, symbols, norms, beliefs, expectations that members of a group possess and the good things they produce and use in their life. Culture is the thing that all the members of a group or society follow.

The attitude, values, ideals and beliefs of individuals are greatly influenced by the culture in which they live. Precisely, culture is the sum total of the ways of life of people in a particular society.

People’s attitudes can be influenced by the culture they are apart of, this is because individual thoughts, actions and feelings are influenced by social groups (Social influence, n.d.). This is also known as social influence which can contribute to the development of our attitudes as it may encourage members to change their beliefs, thoughts and feelings. People can conform with people in culture to have the same attitudes. Conformity can be formed through direct interaction between family, friends and teachers as well

Spencer-Oatey (2012) suggested that, Culture is customs, ideas and social behaviour of a particular people or society. Moreover, culture is also defined by arts, and other manifestation of human intellectual achievement (Spencer-Oatey, 2012). Therefore, culture covers broad areas in our society, and culture plays an important role of development of individual’s self-awareness. Cultural self-awareness is gained from birth by developing knowledge by experience, outcome, and the behaviour that seem to form the cultural self-awareness of individuals and makes the whole culture.

Values are separated into three different types: universal values, cultural values, and personal values. Universal values being that humans universally value good manners. Personal Values provide an inner suggestion for what is good, important, beautiful, beneficial, useful and so on. It also influences behaviour and helps solve common difficulties and problems for human survival. Members of a culture will share similar values, which are transmitted by family, media, education, and religion.

Culture is described as the symbols that individuals, groups and societies use to make decision of daily life and to assure their values. Culture is a model of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given organization as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaption and internal combination, which has worked well enough to think correctly and, so to instruct to new comers as the valid way to observe, consider and feel in relation to these problems. Culture consists of manner, mind-set, values, rituals, religious belief, law (written and unwritten), arts, ideas, custom, belief, ceremonies, social institutions, myths and legends, individual identity and behavior. Cultural pattern classifies are used to describe the dominant beliefs and values. Culture has been called the way of life for an entire society. It is a group or community living together and sharing a set of norms. Culture and society are coexistent. One does not or cannot exist without the other. Culture and society may have some common elements but the two are not the same; they are not identical.

Culture is one of the major influences on our lives and social interactions; culture is associated with our characteristics of religion, societal norms of behavior; moreover, culture is always changing and the influence increases. With every religion there are traditions and cultures that are a form of art as it involves many characteristics’ of individuals and their beliefs, values, and perspective, for this reason, there are various dynamics in terms of how culture is involved and the influence of our actions, such as media, peers, family, and socializations. Culture is a factor of social environment and what is modeled to us in our early years of development.

Culture can be defined in many ways due to the fact that everyone can have their own distinct and traditional beliefs and values. “ Culture is fluid, it is not a static entity which one takes out of the box on occasion. It is with us daily” (Cultural Handout). Someone’s culture is set as the characteristics of the group practices in language, religion, types of food, social traits and habits, and the distinct arts and music. There are a variety of different cultures for example, Western Culture, Eastern Culture, Latin Culture, Middle Eastern Culture, and African Culture. All of these different cultures have their own ideas, values, and individualism, laws that are implied, civil rights, and even technology. In our, “ Culture Handout” culture is defined as the tool of the mind, “ it is an individual’s way seeing and interacting within the world. It encompasses one’s values systems, beliefs, and perceptions of the world around them. Race, socio-economic class gender, sexual orientation, ability, geographic location, age, religion language, etc. all impact the formation of culture, but these various context are not culture” (Cultural Handout).

Culture is made up of a number of building blocks, which provide a much fuller understanding than what is distinctly national (Wild and Wild 2016, p.73). These components are: aesthetics, values and attitudes, manners and customs, social structure, religion, personal communication, education and, physical and material environments (Wild and Wild 2016, p.73). Values are ideas and beliefs to which people have an emotional attachment; they affect work ethic and materialism (Wild and Wild 2016, p.74). Attitudes are influenced by underlying values and are positive or negative reactions towards ideas or objects (Wild and Wild 2016, p.74). Attitudes are more flexible than values and often change over time as people mature and have different experiences. Aesthetics are what a culture considers good taste in the arts. It includes the use of colour, symbols and materials (Wild and Wild 2016, p.74). Manners involve what are considered appropriate ways of dressing, speaking, and behaving in a certain culture (Wild and Wild 2016, p.75). It is of particular importance when conducting international business. Customs are specific patterns of behaviour in particular circumstances, which have been passed down through the generations of a culture (Wild and Wild 2016, p.75). Customs may either be from folk culture or from popular culture (Wild and Wild 2016, p.75). Social Structure represents the primary organisational system of a culture, encompassing social groups, social status, and

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,