Examples Of Long Term Orientation

by: Chris Smit - December 11th, 2012 Add Comment

My previous post on the cultural dimension Long Term Orientation had a lot of comments. Mainly on Social media. Since the concept of this dimension is often quite confusing for Westerns, I’d like to share a couple of examples of Long Term Orientation in this article.

Coming Up With Examples Of Long Term Orientation Is Difficult

Why is this so? In the discussions going on, on different Social Media Platforms, there were a lot of comments about the US being long term oriented (which they are not, compared to Indians, Chinese, Japanese etc; All of the discussion were from the US).

The Anglo Saxon reaction is typical for low scoring countries like the US (in other words being short term oriented): wanting to get to the “absolute answer” of this discussion. Read More

What Is Long Term Orientation?

by: Chris Smit - December 3rd, 2012 5 Comments

Lets start with a definition of Long Term Orientation, so we’re all on the same page:

“A national culture attribute that emphasises the future, thrift and persistence.”

It’s likely that you can find more definition, but this one makes sense and is compact. The way this definition is phrased is from a relative high score on this dimension.

Why Is LTO So Difficult To Understand?

During a cultural awareness training, I hardly ever go over this dimension. Read More

Why Democracy is not World Universal

by: Chris Smit - November 24th, 2011 2 Comments

This writing is an attempt to explain, from a cultural point of view, why Democracy is not a World Universal “thing”.

Democratic elections in Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan, Burma? The list is far from complete.

In the western world we seem to be obsessed by spreading our Democracy. We deploi peace missions and other diplomatic initiatives to spread our Western contemporary “religion“.
My point here is, that that will not work. Here’s why not.

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