Week 8: Anglo Cultures and Northern Europe

In this week’s presentation we took a look into Anglo cultures (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand) and Nordic cultures (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweeden and Iceland). In this post, I will approach three concepts related to these cultural clusters: The Law of Jante, the LAGOM concept and, in the research question, the Tall-poppy syndrome. 

The Law of Jante, a concept rooted in Scandinavian countries, highlights the socially-praised modesty. According to this law, any sign of individual success and outstanding is collectively rejected, then you must not excel over other (or at least do not show you do). The Law of Jante comprises 10 laws:

You’re NOT to

1. think you are anything special

2. think you are as good as we are

3. think you are smarter than we are

4. convince yourself that you are better than we are

5. think you know more than we do

6. think you are more important than we are

7. think you are good at anything

8. laugh at us

9. think anyone cares about you

10.think you can teach us anything

Aligned with the Law of Jante, the concept of LAGOM, a swedish term that has no translation in english, highlights the importance of moderation. No extreme is good, and the justification is that when someone wants to win more, someone else has to lose. Then, if everyone is moderated, in the end everyone will have the same opportunities. As our classmates told us, both concepts are the reflection of equality as a common and shared value in Scandinavia.

As evidenced so far, every cultural cluster has strong identities and values tied to them. The countries within a cluster possess deep differences regarding their cultural systems, but still we can find values and principles that are commonly shared. The way I see it, the study of these clusters we are covering with the presentations, gives us a view of the world from a cultural perspective. I mean we stop seeing the world as a group of continents categorized by geographical location, but as a group of cultural clusters where behaviors, values, rituals, customs, language, etc can be grouped. For this reason, we as International Negotiators must see the world in this way and look for business opportunities arising from these cultural inter-cluster and intra-cluster similarities or dissimilarities.

Research Question: What are the effects/consequences of Tall-Poppy Syndrome?

As complimentary to the two previous concepts on equality in Scandinavia, the last concept is the tall-poppy syndrome and I wanted to do further research about it. This cultural behavior takes place in Australia and New Zealand, and its origin dates back when Australia was a British Penal Colony. All the criminals sent there were angry people who rapidly gained a resentment against society, specially, those with successful lives (the lives they did not have). Unfortunately, this resentment and hostility against successful people became part of Australia’s culture.

Amazingly, this syndrome is seen by Australian experts and economists as a factor that has ruined the success of many outstanding professionals in the country hitting its economic performance (Larsen, 2002). Despite sounding like a “stupid” explanation, if we think one more time, we do can establish a relationship between this cultural phenomenon and something “less-abstract” as the economic performance. In conclusion, culture does impact business world.

References

Larsen, J. (2002) The Tall-Poppy Syndorme. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 38 (1), 36-56.  Retrieved from: http://www.businesspsych.org/articles/244.html