Cultural values as constraints and facilitators of socio-economic change
On 10th of October has been held seminar from series "Culture Matters" with Shalom H. Schwartz, PhD, Scientific Supervisor of ILSCR, Professor at Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel) and at HSE (Moscow, Russia), presented an open lecture on following topic: "Cultural values as constraints and facilitators of socio-economic change".
The presence of particular values facilitates or constraints future societal changes. All societies confront certain basic issues in regulating human activity. Cultural value emphases evolve and change as societies generate preferred responses to these problems. Each actual cultural group can be compared with the use of three bipolar cultural value dimensions / orientations: autonomy vs. embeddedness, egalitarianism vs. hierarchy and mastery vs. harmony.
S.H. Schwartz and colleagues conducted a study and cultural value orientation scores were derived from responses to the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS). Samples were of elementary and high school teachers and of university students in 77 cultural groups from 74 countries (total N=55,022). The teachers and students came from the dominant cultural group in each country. Means of individual value preferences were used as indicators in each national group. These indicators were standardized, making it possible to graphically display results of the survey for each cultural group. According to obtained "map" we can argue that the Russian culture is "closer" to Eastern European countries than to Western European countries.
Prevailing cultural value orientations are likely to influence major public expenditures. Cultural value orientations in countries correlate meaningfully with and predict various critical aspects of social and economic progress some ten years later. Cultural specifics have an impact on areas such as health, military complex, level of democracy, corruption, etc. On the whole one can claim that culture, social structure, policies, and practices mutually influence one another.
Cultural Value Orientations