Managing religious differences essay
The next no less important variable that requires attention is religion. It reflects the search for the ideal life of people and includes the vision of the world, the true values, and religious rites. Religion as an element of culture influences economic activity of people and society: fatalism may reduce the desire for change, material wealth can be considered as an obstacle to spiritual enrichment, etc. (Mead, 2004; Rollinson, 2008). Obviously, not only religion influences the level of economic development, but to understand the culture of the nation it is important to consider the religious aspects and their influence on the formation of national mentality.
A study by the World Bank served as a good example of a relationship between religiosity and gross national product (GNP) per capita. The highest value of GNP accounts for the Protestant Christian communities. Buddhist societies are in the second place. The poorest are the Southern Buddhist and South Hindu societies (Thomas, 2008).
Another example of great religiosity is Latin America. Here, starting from the date of religious festival Semana Santa all business activity stops for 10 days. The system of religious taboos in advertising has a significant impact on business activity in this region (Hilal, 2006). The difficulties of orientation in this sphere become greater, the farther they are from the standardized European markets (Cateora et al., 2010; Browaeys & Price, 2011).
Speaking of the influence of religion, there are cultures mainly with object-oriented activity and objective knowledge, and cultures that appreciate more the contemplation, introspection, and autocommunication. The first type of culture is more flexible, more dynamic, but may be vulnerable to spiritual consumerism. The cultures focused on autocommunication are able to develop great spiritual activity, but are often much less dynamic than it is required by the needs of human society (Hoecklin & Payne, 1995).
With all the conventions, this cannot be ignored in identifying psychological characteristics of representatives of the two regions of East and West. New European model of a man is activist-subjective, arguing that the personality is formed, manifested and gets to know itself primarily through actions, in which it transforms the material world and itself (Huang & Vliert, 2003). Eastern religion, however, ignores the substantive work, arguing that the creative activity that constitutes the essence of “self” is deployed only in the inner spiritual space and is learned not analytically, but in an act of instant enlightenment, which is simultaneously the awakening from sleep, self-realization and immersion in self (Pearson & Entrekin, 2001).
In the beginnings of European culture there are two religious principles: the ancient and the Christian. While antiquity left Europe a legacy of faith in the conquest of the human mind, Christianity added to the Western mind a no less dynamic element – the idea of the moral ascent of man. It is these two elements that determine the identity of European culture: its dynamics, flexible system for intellectual and spiritual values and concepts, its ability to design and management of social processes (Peterson & Sondergaard, 2008; Rollinson, 2008; Tarakeshwar, 2003).
In the East, the basic religious setting is aimed at contemplation of man merging with the world, one’s self-digestion in the religious and philosophical doctrines of the subordination of one’s own “self” to social and group discipline. A person should know one’s place in the society and act in accordance with the position occupied. For example, in Buddhism, there is the principle of “non-action” (“wu-wei”), which means no idle inaction, but the striving not to disturb the natural order of things (“Tao”). Rejection of external, objective activity frees man from subjective bias, allowing the achievement of perfect harmony. All the activity is drawn inward, becoming purely spiritual. This contemplative philosophy of the East, emphasizing the insignificance and inauthenticity of all happening, sees the meaning of life and comfort in inner focus (Pearson & Entrekin, 2001; Tarakeshwar, 2003).
As one can see, the way from animal unit to personality is ambiguous. Mankind has different canons of personality which are impossible to line into a single genetic range – from simple to complex and from lower to higher. Therefore, culture of any nation must necessarily be viewed through the prism of religion.
