Overview of the Essay
Nature of creativity is different in every country; the compare and contrast of between two countries United States and South Africa will be reflected in this section. It has been found that the collected data took place in the language of English as English is the national language for both countries. South Africa is the traditional country that is well known country due to various amendments in its economic condition over the last 20 years. It has been analyzed that after the election of President Nelson Mandela in 1994, the country of South Africa had to face various issues in their post-Apartheid period. Challenges had been raised in the country and enhanced spread of HIV, amplified criminal violence rather than government violence. More than 200,000 white South Africans had left their countries due to insecurity as they were not sure about their safe future (Avert, 2016). It has been analyzed that people of South Africa are struggling to recognize the space in the future, it is vital for the country to adapt the creativity of their employees in a country for the purpose of enduring its journey to reshape, convert and reconstruct its past. There is not that much effective creativity found in South Africa. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory is effective framework to define the various aspects. It involves the six dimensions which define in the similarity of both countries that the score of South Africa is greater than US that mean that people are ready to extent a hierarchy and the people of South Africa are expected to be decisive. On the other hand, the dimensions of Hofstede in the context of U.S. expresses that the behaviour of the culture and the power is distributed equally.
On the other hand U.S. is a contemporary country that has creative culture. It impacts the global economy on continuous manner. The U.S. adapts the culture of uniqueness, self-expression, originality and dignity. Due to effective culture in the United States, it can adjust with various cultures in easy manner. It has been researched by Badibanga, (2013), that the participants of United Stated got scored high in comparison of participants of China in the domains of creativity of elasticity, creativity and inventiveness (Parsons, et. al., 2007). The comparison between both cultures are made and the study are focused to make difference between the current inventive culture (U.S.) against a traditional culture of South Africa by taking the prospective of high creative productivity as the transitions of South Africa by dynamic changes. Moreover, South Africa is the most developed country in Africa. Many critics claimed that unruly technologies hurt specific businesses and industries, but the fact is that “creative unruly” drives the market, bring the new opportunities in the form of innovation and provide the customers value they did not dream up yet.
Differences in Culture, Attitudes, Beliefs, Growth, and Creativity between the United States and South Africa
The culture of United States is different and this country is able to take risk and when it fails, it picks itself up and tries again. There are various examples that show the innovative nature of this country. One of the examples is television broadcasting which flourishes for many years until the introduction of TV cable and hastily took market share. Along with that there are some retailers services such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target became a point for Americans wanting a great deal. But then to compete that Amazon and eBay built the new business model and allured many of those same Americans away from the space to their personal computer. These examples are defined innovation and how essential it is to entrepreneurial culture of America.
The culture and living style is different in South Africa from the people of United States. It has been found that the people of South Africa do not prefer to take risk in comparison of US. People of South Africa are very familiar and labor is quiet cheap in comparison of US. However, there are entrepreneurs in South Africa who think big and create new industries. The growth of this country is low in comparison of US but it never stop to move ahead in the path of success. As differences in culture, the assessment and value of creativity get varied (Hatcher and Erasmus, 2008). For instance, the culture of United States compared to South Africa, keep importance of creativity and innovation on creative ideas rather than convenience and suitability. The two types of cultures are presented eastern cultures and western cultures (Okpara, 2007). The main focus of western cultures towards increment of their formation of original ideas but not utilizes ideas. Whether, the concept of eastern culture is having the opposed result as they believe to produce the more useful ideas in comparison of original ideas. It has reflected that one culture is able to embrace ideas as creative due to of it exclusive distinctiveness while another culture may not value that same idea as creative, and squeeze the practical of innovation for the purpose of using the importance of that innovation (Anderson, Poto?nik and Zhou, 2014).
There are various theories of culture that defines various aspects of the ideas. Cultural as cognitive system is the theory that have not developed very extreme further than a mapping of certain and carefully bounded semantic domains. As per this theory it is vital for the country for developing the growth to put significant attempts to sanctify the knowledge of culture required to stage performances or operate in certain social situations. Cultural as structure system is the other theory that demonstrates the aspects of the symbolic sphere to protect from the unnecessary violence. It includes the various legislative terms (Nakata, 2009). Cultures as Symbolic system refers ideational which focuses on the subjective meanings such as the action of people come out based on what they believe not just truth. It has been found that the both selected countries indicate a preference for control of their environment. The citizens of South African are more oriented toward Order and Hierarchy and likely they rigidly follow protocol. Along with that they are multi-focused in their communication orientation. For instance, if US want to startup business in South Africa, it is vital for the country’s team to get to know the employees and maintain or create the relationship before mingling in business. As per the values, the reputation of the Unites states is being aggressive but it can be seen in the form of straight forwards and direct manner. South Africa is able to trust counterparts which involve both company and negotiator and require less for personal relationship. The culture of unites states are straight forward and they do not believe to talk in huge manner to maintain the relationship, but normally straight to business (Na, et. al., 2010). On the other hand South African makes discuss about the relevant topic and begins with small greetings and making little talk. The United States wants a win-win solution and not ready to compromise, the negotiations criterion is typically informal. In contrast the value of price is more important but bringing value may be more valuable. People of South Africa start to react badly to those who aim to pressure or cheat into making a decision. In the context of risk taking, Americans are tending to take measured risks on the basis of research and they have ability to cover themselves (Schwartz, 2012). Whereas, South Africans are tend to be conservative while taking risks because of short acceptance for mistakes and failure. They are ready to take calculated risks but they need time to make comfortable.
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that the world has diversity of cultures. Both countries have different cultures, attitudes, beliefs, growth and creativity but in some cases both are similar such as respect to others, growth of nation and preference for control of their environment.
References
Anderson, N., Poto?nik, K. and Zhou, J., 2014. Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of Management, 40(5), pp.1297-1333.
Avert, 2016. HIV and aids in south Africa, Accessed on 28th December, 2017 from: https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-saharan-africa/south-africa.
Badibanga, J., A., 2013. Cultural Values and Creativity: A Two Country Comparison Between the United States and South Africa. Unpublished work © Junior Ali Badibanga, April, 2013.
Hatcher, J.A. and Erasmus, M.A., 2008. Service-learning in the United States and South Africa: A comparative analysis informed by John Dewey and Julius Nyerere.
Li, N. and Kirkup, G., 2007. Gender and cultural differences in Internet use: A study of China and the UK. Computers & Education, 48(2), pp.301-317.
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014. Managing cultural differences. Routledge.
Na, J., Grossmann, I., Varnum, M.E., Kitayama, S., Gonzalez, R. and Nisbett, R.E., 2010. Cultural differences are not always reducible to individual differences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(14), pp.6192-6197.
Nakata, C. ed., 2009. Beyond Hofstede: Culture frameworks for global marketing and management. Springer.
Okpara, F.O., 2007. The value of creativity and innovation in entrepreneurship. Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, 3(2), p.1.
Parsons, S.K., Saiki?Craighill, S., Mayer, D.K., Sullivan, A.M., Jeruss, S., Terrin, N., Tighiouart, H., Nakagawa, K., Iwata, Y., Hara, J. and Grier, H.E., 2007. Telling children and adolescents about their cancer diagnosis: cross?cultural comparisons between pediatric oncologists in the US and Japan. Psycho?Oncology, 16(1), pp.60-68.
Schwartz, S., 2012. Mapping and interpreting cultural differences around the world. In Value frameworks at the theoretical crossroads of culture. Intercultural research (pp. 340-379). Shanghai foreign language Education press.