Cultural Differences and Creativity

Cultural Differences and Creativity

Cultural differences are defined as behaviors, beliefs, languages, and practices. The patterns of cultures are determined by the differences in ethnicity, race, and country of origin. When a worker from different backgrounds brings different cultures into organizational management, the various practices can either improve the operations of the business or result in a culture clash.  For instance, multinational companies from the United States and the western world have different management models with their Asian counterparts.  Scholars have come up with various theories to illustrate the difference and creativity among the workers from both Western and Asian countries.  Recently, China introduced a policy that advocated for creativity and innovation. The new slogan aimed at countering the paradox that the Chinese are not as creative as Americans.  However, before the new policy, some inventions in China date back in Ancient times.  Although Chinese were the initial users of paper, printing, and gun powder, they lag behind Americans in modern discoveries due to the differences in the cultural values.

Hofstede’s cultural value framework

According to the Hofstede cultural dimension, different countries around the world have different languages, beliefs, and values that con troll their business management criteria. In this case, a business organization can be client-based, employee-based, or profit (Manrai & Manrai,2011). Despite the difference in cultural difference in different regions, the three significant dimensions that brings out the differences in the business organizational cultures in both Asian and Western countries include individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance.

Collectivism versus individualism defines the extent to which people have different interests in either individualistic or group goals.  By a large r extend, Hofstede dimension describes China as a collective society and the United States as an individualistic society. In the Chinese community, a respective organization is more critical than being unique.  It is easier to find a Chinese population working with their families to pursue their common interests and goals. The United States is an individualistic society.  The community values individual goals, happiness, and interest in collective goals. Taylor and Wilson (2012) argue that individualism portrays a favorable implication on a nation’s creativity and innovation. The individualistic group generates more innovative ideas as compared to the groups with the collective goals.  Through the self-initiative culture, individuals may express different creative ideas through the emphasis on uniqueness, autonomy, and independence. Contrary, Kurman et al. (2015) argues that collectivist societies generate fewer original ideas and seem to follow the objective of the group.

The dimension of the power distance refers to the ability of the communities to view and react to the unequal distribution of power within a community of an organization. The high power distance culture offers authoritarian managers the power to make centralized decisions. The subjects respect those with power and maintain the status quo and do not question their choices.  The low power distance offers the employees a perception that they are equal to the supervisor and, therefore, can engage in the decision making process.  Power distance hinders creativity in a particular community or organization. The high power distance employees re too sensitive about supervisors’ willingness to accept ideas.  Before embarking on any initiative, the employees seek advice from their supervisors and prefer managers to closely monitor the innovative developments (Rinne, Steel & Fairweather, 2012). Chinese have lower creativity and innovation as compared to the U.S. due to their high power distance and thus do not invest in creativity.

Uncertainty avoidance is the ability of society to tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity. It is a term referring to the capabilities of a man to search for the truth.   Individuals with higher uncertainty avoidance prefer to follow formal rules to avoid threats.  As a result, the individuals cannot take up any initiatives without approval from the authorities.  China has high uncertainty avoidance than the United States.  In this case, the authority expects the innovators to conform to the laws of the land to avoid conflict. On the other hand, low uncertainty avoidance gives the innovators a chance to monitor the authorities and interfere with their management practices. Moreover, the managers offer the employees an opportunity to breach rules and norms. The employees can interfere with the hierarchy by criticizing and propose management practices.  Therefore, it is expected that societies with higher uncertainty avoidance shall have a low level of creativity as compared to their counterparts.

Creativity and Confucianism

The philosophical theories of Confucianism in the East and the liberalism in the west account for the differences in creativity levels between the United States and China.   Confucianism philosophy is the idea of teachings from Confucius (551–479 B.C.) that considers the adoption of the practical ethics of daily lives rather than religious values.  The theory became popular and became the critical influence of Chinese cultural beliefs and values.  Confucianism emphasizes on rot learning, conformity, hierarchy, and filial piety and thus have traditionally negatively impacted to creativity and innovation. Contrary, the liberalism of the west incorporates the Jewish culture that focused on independence (Kim et al., 2011).  As a result, Western people consider themselves as unique and distinct themselves from the rest of the population.  The Chinese people have a perception of themselves as a part of a more exceptional web of social relations and thus hinder the extent of their curiosity.

The Chinese population impacts children with the cultures of academic achievements.   Chinese parenting emphasis the dependency of the children’s persistence in academic achievement through working harder in their educational objectives.  Instead of challenging the social hierarchy, children develop an exam hell where they depend on rote memorization and private tutoring to pass the examination. Working towards academic achievement is the only sure way of attaining the upper class with their distant families.  As a result, Chinese learners do not factor out creativity and innovation as part of the achievement (Niu, & Kaufman, 2013).   Western culture transforms threats from children into a source of social justice.  The westerners expose their children to people from different cultures resulting in diversity. As a result of diversification, the learners open their minds to a wide range of ideas. As a result, they have multiple perspectives, complex thoughts, and perceptions from the external cultures.

Creativity as a form of Motivational Behavior

The use of creativity measure and assessment tools has revealed some insightful information about the differences between the East and Western countries.  Western countries such as the United States have a higher score in the assessment as compared to those from the East. Despite the increase in tremendous research on intrinsic and extrinsic behaviors, scholars have avoided the investigation of extrinsic motivators on innovations and creativity. However, there is an appositive correlation between inherent motivations and innovative performance(Niu, & Kaufman, 2013).    Initially, innovation and creativity in China have been an attribute of the environment. The motivation s of the Chinese students to be creative is dependent on the climate of their classroom. In contrast, self-focus is the motivational factor for creativity for students in the United States.

A creative person is likely to get involved in the initiatives that create new projects while the uncreative individual may focus on his or her ego. Self-actualized individuals believe in their abilities and efforts. The ego-involved individuals adapt to an extrinsic in performing a pressured and time-oriented activity. As a result, the employees at the workplace may have the motivation to complete the work within the specified timeline (Niu, & Kaufman, 2013).  United States society is task-oriented as the business organizations place most of the emphasis on realizing potential. The nation depends on some psychological attributes that motivate workers to concentrate on their creativity to solve problems within the shortest time possible.

Creativity requires a person to stand out among the population and tackle the issues within the environment. In this case, the behaviors of the individual are inclined towards the initiatives that enhance the face of the community. As compared to the United States population, Chinese depends on the opinion of others to feel good about themselves or their achievement. As a result, the community seeks material goods, extrinsic motivators to have to belong and approved by the affiliated groups. United States population does not depend on the group affiliations.  Western individuals find happiness from offering a solution to a particular societal problem (Niu & Kaufman, 2013).  Therefore, the Asians are inclined towards the in-groups such as family and friends, and thus are likely to have extrinsic motivators towards their creativity and innovations. The United States is not ego-involved, and therefore their psychological makeup is intrinsic.

Creativity and innovation are some of the critical factors that analyze the differences in populations in both Eastern and Western countries.  Although creativity and innovation in China date back in ancient times, the community has lagged behind the United States in contemporary developments.  Experts link the creativity and innovative abilities to the differences in cultures of both Eastern Asian and the Western world.  The primary indicators of the differences in cultures are Hofstede’s dimension.  Chinese society embraces collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance, and a high power distance. Moreover, the culture of Confucianism dominates their beliefs and values. On the other hand, the United States population is individualistic, low power distance, and a little uncertainty avoidance. Therefore, the differences between the culture of Chinese and the United States are the causative agent for the differences in creativity and innovation level.

References

Kim, K. H., Lee, H. E., Chae, K. B., Anderson, L., & Laurence, C. (2011). Creativity and Confucianism among American and Korean educators. Creativity Research Journal, 23(4), 357-371.

Manrai, L. A., & Manrai, A. (2011). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and tourist behaviors: A review and conceptual framework. Journal of Economics, Finance & Administrative Science, 16(31), 23.

Niu, W., & Kaufman, J. C. (2013). The creativity of Chinese and American cultures: A synthetic analysis. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 47(1), 77-87.

Rinne, T., Steel, G. D., & Fairweather, J. (2012). Hofstede and Shane revisited: The role of power distance and individualism in national-level innovation success. Cross-cultural research, 46(2), 91-108.

Taylor, M. Z., & Wilson, S. (2012). Does culture still matter?: The effects of individualism on national innovation rates. Journal of Business Venturing, 27(2), 234-247.