CULTURE OF UK AND SAUDI ARABIA

Culture of UK and Saudi Arabia

Culture of UK and Saudi Arabia

Culture

To give a single, uncontroversial definition of the concept culture is a difficult task, for any definition of culture is itself an expression of a theoretical stance. With this caveat, the following definition summarizes a conception of culture widely used in contemporary psychology. Broadly, culture is a collection of information (or meanings) that is no genetically transmitted between individuals, more or less shared within a population of individuals and maintained across some generations over a period of time. As such, culture plays an important role in the formation of individual and collective self-concepts or identities and has implications for human psychology. (McGuigan, 1992, pp. 152- 310)

Concept of Culture

Culture, as a concept, is one of the most complex ideas in academic use today. It is defined and applied in various and often incompatible ways and is the site of significant disagreement between academic disciplines regarding the fundamental character of human social life and the manner in which it is to be studied. For anthropologists, culture tends to refer to symbolic systems of beliefs, values, and shared understandings that render the world meaningful and intelligible for a particular group of people. While these systems-which provide the basis for such elementary concepts as food and kinship and even, influence how individuals experience time, space, and other aspects of reality-often appear to their adherents as natural and objective, they in fact represent variable, socially agreed-upon models. In turn, humans must themselves construct these models in order to find order and meaning in a world lacking an inherent sense of either. (Appadurai, 1996, pp.201-215)

Key cultural differences between UK and Saudi Arabia According to Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions

Power Distance:

In Saudi Arabia the high Power Distance (PDI) ranking is indicative of a high level of inequality of power and wealth within the society. While in UK's score in this dimension are 35. This indicates that rank, status and inequalities between people are reasonably low.

Individualism:

The lowest Hofstede Dimension for the Saudi Arabia is the Individualism (IDV) ranking at 38, compared to a world average ranking of 64, While UK scores 89 for Individualism. This is high and therefore points to that fact that British culture values and promotes individuality.

Uncertainty Avoidance:

The high Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) ranking of 68 indicates the society's low level of tolerance for uncertainty in Saudi Arabia while UK scores are 35 which are quite low. This means British culture is relatively open to taking risks and dealing with change.

Masculinity:

In Saudi Arabian the Masculinity index (MAS), the third highest Hofstede Dimension is 52, only slightly higher than the 50.2 average for all the countries included in the Hofstede MAS Dimension, While the UK scores 66 which indicates that it is somewhere in the middle. This may reflect the fact that British society and culture aims for equality between the sexes, yet a certain amount of gender bias still exists underneath the ...