Homogeneous Culture Research Paper

It is obviously impossible to explain the society in such a short paper and we limit ourselves to only highlight a few relevant factors to our research area.

Homogeneous Society

One of the characteristics that make Japan different from Western countries is the homogeneous society. It is a geographical fact that the country is an island that naturally isolates itself from other countries. In addition, Japan has been isolated by the foreign relations policy for 200 years in Edo period. No foreigners could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death, and it was still illegal to leave Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. That combination of inherent and acquired isolation resulted in a homogeneous culture and parochial mentality (Itoh, 1996). Clausen (2006b) explains that in this

From a functionalist perspective of viewing national culture, Japanese and Danish culture is opposite of each other. For instance, according to Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimension, the Japanese have masculine values while Danes have more feminine values. He concludes that Japanese do rather ‘live to work’ and seeking to be the best, and Danes ‘work to live’ and wanting to like what you do. Their masculinity also explains the hard and longtime working culture in Japan. In addition, Japanese have a high uncertainty avoidance while Danes are more risk taker and less worried about the uncertainty. Japanese are collectivistic, while Danes are individualistic. And Japan has higher power distance, while Denmark has lower power distance. Meaning that Japanese are hierarchical, while Danes are egalitarian. This indicates that in Japan employees work longer hours and anything you do is prescribed for maximum predictability, which leads to a lot of time and effort spent on feasibility analysis and all the risk calculations before any decisions can be taken in corporate practices. (Hofstede,