Schwartz, S. H. (2014). National culture as value orientations: Consequences of value differences and cultural distance. In Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture (Vol. 2, pp. 547-586). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
This chapter introduces the theory of seven cultural value orientations and shows how it can be applied to better understand how culture interacts with important societal issues. The first section explains the concept of culture, which the authors refer to as the normative value system that underpins social practices and institutions. The author talks about seven values that can be used to describe and compare societies.
The chapter presents the theoretical foundations for gauging cultural value orientations. The author presents the survey methodologies for this aim, empirical validation of the content of the value orientations, and the structure of relationships between them. It is based on data from 77 different national groupings in 75 different nations.
The author presents the analysis that justifies the use of countries as cultural entities and a brief comparison of these value orientations with two additional dimensional approaches to culture. The chapter depicts a global graphic map of country cultures using the seven validated cultural orientations. On each axis of the map, national cultures are compared to one another. This comparison identifies eight unique world cultural areas that are influenced by factors such as geography, history, language, and others. The author explores the various cultural profiles of each cultural zone on the globe to demonstrate the significance of the cultural map.
The chapter also looks at the links between culture, as measured by value orientations, and a number of economic variables, including a country’s socioeconomic status, its level of corruption, the social safety net it provides its citizens, its level of democracy, and the competitiveness of its market systems. The author explains the reciprocal causal processes that could explain these correlations. The chapter also examines how cultural value orientation distance between countries influences global investment flows. This approach derives the constructs to measure culture from a priori reasoning and then tests their match to empirical evidence. The author asserts that correlated dimensions represent culture better than orthogonal dimensions because they can express the interconnectedness of cultural factors. This cultural theory establishes a logical, complete framework of relationships between the seven cultural orientations. These orientations form these three correlated bipolar dimensions.
Schwartz, S. H. (2014). National culture as value orientations: Consequences of value differences and cultural distance. In Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture (Vol. 2, pp. 547-586). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53776-8.00020-9
Schwartz, S. H., & Ros, M. (1995). Values in the west: A theoretical and empirical challenge to the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension. World Psychology, 1, 99-122.
The authors present a theory and methods for identifying cultures based on their value priorities. They used data from schoolteacher samples in 46 countries. Their method indicates a shared value profile that separates West European countries from the rest of the world. The authors show that Autonomy takes precedence over Conservatism, Egalitarianism takes precedence over Hierarchy, and Harmony takes precedence over Mastery in this value profile.
Data from student samples from 41 countries support these conclusions. Both sets of data also show that the cultural profile of West Europeans differs significantly from the profile found in US groups. The latter give greater priority to Mastery, Hierarchy and Conservatism values, and less to Egalitarianism, Intellectual Autonomy and Harmony values. The United States and Western Europe have long been seen as archetypal “Western individualist” cultures. The findings reveal that they are culturally distinct, with both exhibiting features of individuality and collectivism. Furthermore, there are as many differences within the West as there are between the West and East Asia. This demonstrates how the individualism-collectivism dimension is not sufficient to adequately represent cultures. The dimensions presented in this article can provide better explanations of these differences.
Schwartz, S. H., & Ros, M. (1995). Values in the west: A theoretical and empirical challenge to the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension. World Psychology, 1, 99-122.