外文翻譯---民族文化的概念

1、<p>　　本科畢業(yè)設計（論文）</p><p>　　外 文 翻 譯</p><p><b>　　原文：</b></p><p>　　The Concept of National Culture</p><p>　　1． Definition of National Culture</p>

2、<p>　　The term culture has various meanings, all derived from the Latin meaning “which is the cultivation of soil.”In today’s colloquial language,culture is often used in the sense of“high culture,” perhaps better

3、expressed by the German “Kultur,”when referring to painting or classical music. Culture in the anthropological sense, however,is not restricted to these things,but comprises all products of human life.Further,culture doe

4、s not only refer to“civilized”societies.All human groups are said to pos</p><p>　　Even if the anthropological understanding of the term culture is taken for the purposes of this research,literature provides

5、more definitions.Though there is little agreement on the appropriate definition of culture,most definitions of national culture place emphasis on shared values.When addressing the question of values,some anthropologists

6、ask questions like“What should be?”O(jiān)ther approaches refer to modal practices of collectives instead of emphasizing the importance of values.Modal practices</p><p>　　As the relevant approaches to conceptualiz

7、e national culture in social sciences are all in the tradition of value-based approaches,the development of these definitions are outlined in the following section.</p><p>　　The first anthropological definit

8、ion was set down by TYLOR in 1871.He defined culture as “that complex whole which included knowledge, belief, art, morals,l aws,customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” More

9、than half a century later,the anthropologist REDFIELD defined culture as“shared understandings made manifest in act and artifact.”KLUCKHOHN,another important anthropologist, stated that national culture“consists in patte

10、rned ways of thinking,feeli</p><p>　　In the same tradition,but more parsimoniously,HOFSTEDE determined national culture to be“the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one grou

11、p or category of people from each other.”Another important contribution has been made by researchers involved in the the GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR EFFECTIVENESS research program.The authors designated

12、 culture simply as“shared motives,values,beliefs,identities,and interpretations of meanings of significant eve</p><p>　　This research builds on HOFSTEDE’s understanding of culture,not only because the empiri

13、cal part relies on his conceptual work,but also because his definition has the “merit of simplicity,instantly conveying how it is that nations differ from eachother.”</p><p>　　2． Definition of Values</p&g

14、t;<p>　　From the definitions of culture provided above,the two critical components of culture are clearly the presence of values and practices.The most popular conceptual frameworks of culture today focus on analy

15、ses of value differences.Thus,before presenting these frameworks,a short definition of values is provided is in order.</p><p>　　The study of societal values has a long history in sociology and anthropology,w

16、hile the study of individual values has a long history in psychology.The literature provides various definitions of the term“value”when describing cultures: KLUCKHOHN defines a value as a“conception,explicit or implicit,

17、distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group,of the desirable which influences the selection from available modes,means and ends of actions.”Similarly,ROKEACH considers a value an“enduring</p><p&g

18、t;　　A comprehensive evaluation of many definitions of values by SCHWATZ found the following characteristics as most frequently attributed to values:</p><p>　　Values are beliefs,but they are not objective,<

19、;/p><p>　　Values refer to desirable goals and to modes of conduct that promote these goals,</p><p>　　Values transcend specific actions and situations,</p><p>　　Values serve as standard

20、s to guide selection of and to evaluate people’s behavior,</p><p>　　Values form a system of priorities as they can be ordered by importance relative to each other.</p><p>　　In conclusion,values

21、refer to relationships among abstract categories and imply a preference for certain types of action. They provide people with assumptions about what is desirable.Thus,values are feelings;as such,they are non-rational.Val

22、ues deal with such things as“evil versus good,”“dirty versus clean,”“ugly versus beautiful,”or perhaps more relevant to the research questions at hand,“irrational versus rational.”</p><p>　　Values are learne

23、d,or programmed,early in life.Once a value is learned,it is integrated into the value system of every individual.While the system of values is relatively stable,particular values are influenced by everyday experiences in

24、 the ecological and sociopolitical environment surrounding an individual.Thus,values are not only suitable in examining the mutual change processes between an individual and its environment,they are also suitable in comp

25、aring and differentiating human communities</p><p>　　At the individual level,values influence behavior by setting desirable goals.Relations among different values at the individual level reflect the psycholo

26、gical dynamics of conflict or compatibility experienced by individuals when pursing values.</p><p>　　At the cultural level,relations among different values reflect the social dynamics of conflict and compati

27、bility that occur when societies pursue their goals.A society’s shared values include ideas of what is desirable.When individuals within a given society carry out their social roles,they draw upon cultural values to deci

28、de about appropriate behavior.Hence,both cultures and societies can be described by their shared values.</p><p>　　For this reason,most researchers measure the average value priorities of societal members,kno

29、wing that these point to the underlying common cultural values,independent of individual differences that stem from certain(individual)experiences.The study of values at the cultural level,or the study of shared values,i

30、s adequate if the research question concerns relations between cultural values of societies and other variables.The major advantage of conceptualizing culture as shared values is its abst</p><p>　　The early

31、phase in cross-cultural research was mainly comparative.Mere comparative studies,however,provide no explanations of the differences and similarities that have been detected.In these cases,culture has been treated as a“bl

32、ack box”for every effect that could not be explained.The unbundling of the cultural“black box”by analyzing the effect of cultural values is favored by MCQUAID and is considered necessary by LEUNG.The next section discuss

33、es the relationship between values and culture and</p><p>　　3． Value Based Frameworks of National Culture</p><p>　　There have been many attempts to explain the relationship between national cult

34、ure and values.</p><p>　　The first attempt was made by KLUCKHOHN/STRODTBECK.Employing basic philosophical issues,the authors specified five dimensions and predictions about preferred positions,or values,for

35、each culture.Due to the lack of a sufficiently large empirical examination of these propositions,this approach has meanwhile lost its importance.</p><p>　　ROKEACH distinguished two types of values,namely ter

36、minal values and instrumental values.While terminal values are defined as idealized end-states of existence,instrumental values are seen as idealized behaviors to attain end-states.ROKEACH identified 18 values of each ki

37、nd and compared rankings of those sets of values in four countries.However,methodological issues and the lack of a theoretical foundation organizing values into dimensions has diminished the possibility of drawing conclu

38、sions ab</p><p>　　From the studies which analyze cultures rather than individuals as the unit of analysis,the contributions by HOFSTEDE,TROMPENAARS,and SCHWARTZ have been most influential.Recently,the F rese

39、arch program,a long-term project,has greatly contributed to the existing literature through its conceptualization and operationalization of an integrated theory of the relationship between culture and leadership.These ap

40、proaches will be discussed in detail in the following sections.</p><p>　　3.1 The Hofstede Project and the Chinese Culture Connection</p><p>　　HOFSTEDE has introduced a paradigm in the study of n

41、ational culture,which has stimulated a blossoming of research on work-related values both within and across cultures.</p><p>　　To develop this paradigm of work-related values,HOFSTEDE questioned 116,000 empl

42、oyees within originally 40 national subsidiaries of a multinational company,IBM.Later,samples from an additional ten countries and three multicountry regions were added,allowing the total sample to comprise data from 72

43、countries.Respondents were questioned twice,once between 1967 and 1969 and again between 1971 and 1972.By questioning only employees from the marketing and servicing departments,and thereby distinguis</p><p>

44、;　　Power distance deals with the way societies or organizations handle inequalities between people or employees.While high power distance countries accept inequalities of power and wealth,countries ranking low on the pow

45、er distance dimension downplay the differences between the power and wealth of its citizens.Accordingly,the level of power distance within a society is related to the degree to which authority is centralized and the degr

46、ee of autocratic leadership inside organizations.</p><p>　　Uncertainty avoidance describes the extent to which a culture’s members feel threatened by ambiguous situations.A high uncertainty avoidance ranking

47、 indicates that a country has a low tolerance for unstructured situations,resulting in the creation of a rule-oriented society that institutes technology,laws,and religion in order to reduce the amount of uncertainty.Low

48、 levels of uncertainty avoidance ranking indicate the country is not as concerned about uncertainty and has more tolerance for a var</p><p>　　Individualism describes the emphasis individuals place on their s

49、elf interests as opposed to those of the larger group.A high Individualism ranking indicates that individuality and individual rights are paramount within the society,implying that social ties between individuals are ver

50、y loose.Individuals in such societies are emotionally independent of their company and their involvement tends to be calculative.Work practices tend to allow for individual initiative.On the other hand,a low Individ</

51、p><p>　　Masculinity deals with the fundamental fact of the duality of sexes and its implications on gender roles in society.The masculinity dimension focuses on the degree a society reinforces,or does not reinf

52、orce,the traditional masculine work role model of male achievement,control,and power.A high masculinity ranking indicates that a country emphasizes and values assertiveness and work objectives such as earnings and promot

53、ions.By contrast,a low masculinity ranking indicates the country has a low lev</p><p>　　A few years later,in the 1980s,the conceptualization of national culture in four cultural value dimensions was extended

54、 by including another distinct dimension specifically useful in analyzing Eastern cultures.This dimension was identified through a joint project between HOFSTEDE and BOND.BOND previously had developed a Chinese Value Sur

55、vey(CVS).Data reanalysis at the country level revealed four dimensions.Three dimensions correlated significantly with power distance,masculinity,and individualis</p><p>　　5．Long vs.Short Term-Orientation is

56、independent from the four dimensions described above.This dimension is only relevant for comparing Western and Asian countries.It focuses on the degree the society embraces,or does not embrace,long-term devotion to tradi

57、tional,forward-thinking values.Long-term orientation countries value long-term commitments and respect tradition.In short-term orientation countries,change can occur more rapidly as long-term traditions and commitments d

58、o not impede change.</p><p>　　HOFSTEDE made great efforts to prove the reliability and validity of the cultural dimensions through subsequent replications.Various replications and applications even outside t

59、he core of the social sciences made HOFSTEDE’s book Culture’s Consequences the most influential work in social psychology.BASKERVILLE analyzed the citations of Culture’s Consequences from the Social Science Citation Inde

60、x from 1981,when the first edition of the book appeared,to 1998.She found HOFSTEDE’s approach“more than</p><p>　　Despite or maybe due to the success of HOFSTEDE’s paradigm,there has been extensive criticism

61、of it.The four major criticisms will be briefly recaptured in the following:</p><p>　　The first allegation is that surveys are not a suitable way of measuring cultural differences.HOFSTEDE admits that the su

62、rveys should not be the only way.When conducting large-scale empirical surveys,applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM),it is however necessary to have validated scale at hand which can be used in a questionnaire.Furt

63、hermore,for reasons of cost-and time-efficiency,a qualitative research approach would not have been suitable for this research.</p><p>　　Second,most critics claim that nations are not the best units for stud

64、ying cultures.HOFSTEDE concedes that they are not the best units for studying culture but most frequently,nations are the only one available.As this research does not include multiethnic states,no negative effects are ex

65、pected to result from the focus on nationality as a variable for selecting the target respondents.</p><p>　　The third criticism is that a study of the subsidiaries of only one company can not provide informa

66、tion about entire national cultures.HOFSTEDE replies that this approach offers the possibility to get a functionally equivalent sample and that any functionally equivalent sample can provide information about differences

67、 between national subsidiaries.Indeed,his data has been validated by the correlation of the country scores measured with all kinds of other data,including results from representativ</p><p>　　Fourth,as HOFSTE

68、DE measured his data in the early 1970s,his data is considered outdated and thus obsolete.HOFSTEDE replies that present cultures have centuries’old histories and that values are relatively stable.Further,he included only

69、 data which showed sufficient stability between the two surveys conducted.</p><p>　　Cross-cultural research in general is a difficult undertaking.The operationalization of culture in general and national cul

70、ture in particular provides serious obstacles to crosscultural research.Although these criticisms must be considered before conducting a survey which builds on HOFSTEDE’s conceptualization of culture,even his critics adm

71、it that“critical responses[…]do not appear to have impacted on its acceptance in other disciplines which,instead,show evidence of its cumulative and continui</p><p>　　Probably the most important issue when c

72、onducting cross-cultural research is the lack of validated scales suitable for being applied at the individual level.The existence of a validated scale for measuring national culture at the individual level would allow f

73、or a multitude of research designs,rendering obsolete complicated research designs and lowering the requirements on sample size when applying Hierarchical Linear Modeling,a methodology frequently used in cross-cultural r

74、esearch to avoid the</p><p>　　Hence,as long as a measurement instrument for national culture at the individual level is missing,and as long as this desired measurement instrument is not validated to a simila

75、r extent,it seems suitable to rely on the HOFSTEDE instruments for the purposes of this research,HOFSTEDE’s conceptualization was considered particularly suitable in answering the questions of how national culture might

76、affect practices of managerial information use.</p><p>　　3.2 The Schwartz Culture-Level Approach</p><p>　　SCHWARTZ developed two distinct approaches to culture,an individual-level and a country-

77、level approach.Both approaches are independent of each other.Similar to HOFSTEDE in his cultural-level approach,SCHWARTZ assumes cultural value dimensions to reflect how a group deals with basic societal problems.Three b

78、asic societal issues are distinguished:</p><p>　　The relationship between individuals and group:to what extent are persons autonomous versus embedded in groups?</p><p>　　Assuring responsible soc

79、ial behavior:how should people be motivated to consider others’welfare and coordinate with them?</p><p>　　The role of humankind and the natural and social world:is it more to submit,to fit in,or to exploit?&

80、lt;/p><p>　　Based on these basic considerations,SCHWARTZ developed three bipolar value dimensions:Conservatism versus Autonomy,Hierarchy versus Egalitarism;and Mastery versus Harmony.Though the validity and rel

81、iability of SCHWARTZ’s value dimensions has been shown empirically,his approach has had no impact on crosscultural research in management sciences.</p><p>　　3.3 The Trompenaars Value Survey</p><p&

82、gt;　　In his doctoral dissertation,TROMPENAARS drew upon sociological literature to derive cultural dimensions that might affect individual behavior in a business context.He developed a questionnaire to measure preferred

83、ways of management in different countries.Some 30,000 responses were collected from 55 countries.</p><p>　　TROMPENAARS distinguished seven cultural dimensions.Five of the seven deal with three fundamental di

84、lemmas every culture must deal with.TROMPENAARS categorizes those dilemmas as those arising from relationships with others,those which come with the passage of time,and those which relate to the environment.There are,how

85、ever,some serious methodological concerns with the TROMPENAARS’approach.First,no empirical analyses were performed to assess the validity of the seven dimensions.Second,in contrast</p><p>　　It seems that TRO

86、MPENAARS did not attempt to develop valid scales for measuring culture,but instead intended to teach managers about the importance of cultural diversity in business.Central to his work is the assumption that there is no

87、best way of management as sometimes implied by folkloristic management literature.Rather,there are several approaches to management,some more culturally appropriate,and thus more effective,than others.TROMPENAARS’approac

88、h has not yet been utilized for empirical r</p><p>　　3.4 The GLOBE Research Project</p><p>　　The GLOBE research project is the latest attempt to analyze the influence of national culture on lead

89、ership styles.More than 150 researchers are involved in the project,which aims to examine the relationship among culture,leadership,and various outcome variables.The database, comprising responses of 17,300 people from 9

90、51 organizations in 62 countries, was developed from data collected between 1994 and 1997.This database has allowed the researchers to identify nine cultural dimensions:Performanc</p><p>　　In the GLOBE proje

91、ct,a theory-based approach was applied, implying the a priori formulation of cultural dimensions based on HOFSTEDE’s work;in consequence,most of the identified dimensions are conceptually related and empirically correlat

92、ed with HOFSTEDE’s dimensions.LEUNG ET AL.assert that the usefulness of the mere refinement of HOFSTEDE’s dimensions needs to be demonstrated. The fact that the project is not yet complete further implies that the possib

93、ility that results could be used for a com</p><p>　　3.5 Conclusion</p><p>　　As demonstrated, the different dimensional approaches differ in methodological strength. HOFSTEDE and SCHWARTZ have th

94、e most extensive and globally representative samples. HOFSTEDE’S dimensions are the most frequently applied in cross-cultural management accounting and marketing research; comparative surveys thereby provide a wealth of

95、findings to mirror the results of this research.</p><p>　　Regrettably, none of the approaches allows for the measuring of national culture on the individual level, thus imposing severe difficulties on the re

96、search design. Having said this, due to the lack of suitable alternative approaches and the undeniable advantages offered by the reliance on HOFSTEDE’s conceptualization, e.g. with regard to the basis of comparison, this