While there are some superficial similarities between the two, the differences between the cultures of the United States of America and Japan are striking. Using Geert Hofstede’s six dimension analysis as a guide, we shall see that there are notable differences in the national character of both countries.
Masculinity/Femininity Dimension
First, there is one area where both countries score closely, namely on the Masculinity vs Femininity Dimension. Both have above average levels of the Masculinity dimension, with 62 for the US and 95 for Japan. Japan’s very large result is due in part to the remaining rigid expectation about what jobs and roles both men and women are expected to take (Hofstede 1984). For example, there are very few women managers or presidents in Japan. In contrast, over the past 40 years, America has gone through vast social change in the gender roles of women in society, generally accepting women in the workplace as well as managers and politicians. This change has been so …show more content…
For example, in a survey of firms, it was found that US firms were a lot less likely to have formalized codes of conduct. This can also be seen in the underlying legal structures of the US. US law is built off of English Common Law, which has been called “an evolutionary approach to law”, wherein one, the law wasn’t written by a legislature that someone in the modern day would recognize, and two, the law was decentralized. Instead, the law was “discovered”, as the society starts with general principals (promises must be kept, people have a right to property, etc.), and then applied by individual judges to each case before them. The law is therefore, seen as a general set of guidelines that can be bent to make sense for each situation, rather than something that has to formalized by a governmental body ahead of
Masculinity/Femininity Dimension
First, there is one area where both countries score closely, namely on the Masculinity vs Femininity Dimension. Both have above average levels of the Masculinity dimension, with 62 for the US and 95 for Japan. Japan’s very large result is due in part to the remaining rigid expectation about what jobs and roles both men and women are expected to take (Hofstede 1984). For example, there are very few women managers or presidents in Japan. In contrast, over the past 40 years, America has gone through vast social change in the gender roles of women in society, generally accepting women in the workplace as well as managers and politicians. This change has been so …show more content…
For example, in a survey of firms, it was found that US firms were a lot less likely to have formalized codes of conduct. This can also be seen in the underlying legal structures of the US. US law is built off of English Common Law, which has been called “an evolutionary approach to law”, wherein one, the law wasn’t written by a legislature that someone in the modern day would recognize, and two, the law was decentralized. Instead, the law was “discovered”, as the society starts with general principals (promises must be kept, people have a right to property, etc.), and then applied by individual judges to each case before them. The law is therefore, seen as a general set of guidelines that can be bent to make sense for each situation, rather than something that has to formalized by a governmental body ahead of