Every world nation has the peculiarities that make it complicated to compare them according to one universal principle. For this reason, various scholars throughout world history were trying to define a versatile pattern of contrastive cultural analysis. One of the most outstanding researchers in the field was Geert Hofstede, who allocated six major principles according to which every world nation can be characterized and compared (Brzozowska & Chłopicki, 2015). The purpose of this essay is to make the contrastive analysis of such countries as the US and the Russian Federation according to the aforementioned model.
The first aspect of Hofstede’s cultural dimension is power distance, which concerns the issue of human inequality in the country. According to it, Russia has considerably larger power distance than the US as it is not used to treat the residents as equals and hence, builds a strong hierarchy within the country. In the context of individualism, the US distinctly outweighs Russia as the latter still has the remnants of the prior communist regime. The next category, masculinity, shows that the US residents are more likely to strive for power and career development, and the gender roles tend to be more distinctive.
The aspect of uncertainty avoidance is almost unknown to the US culture as its residents are ready for changes for a better future, whereas Russians are quite conservative in terms of any modifications. Long term orientation category also shows that Russia is more likely to try to foresee any future implications in order to avoid any unpredictable change. Last but not least, the level of indulgence, which implies the overall residents’ satisfactory emotional state, tends to be higher in the US. It is happening due to the fact that Russians are used to rather pessimistic attitudes set by the government.
To sum everything up, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions scale shows how polar are the characteristics of Russia and the US. Such a gap exists because of the countries’ different development patterns. Russia, as a Post-Soviet country, tries to balance the ideas of collectivism, which are left from the times of communism, with considerable social inequality. This attitude makes the state fall behind more individualistic countries such as the US.
Reference
Brzozowska, D., & Chłopicki, W. (2015). Culture’s Software: Communication Styles. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.