Another case like Ostalgie, or an evidence of a cultural change? KOLMAN, L. ; DIENES, E.

Transcription

1 Another case like Ostalgie, or an evidence of a cultural change? KOLMAN, L. ; DIENES, E.

2 Introduction The term Ostalgie is used in Germany to mean feelings of nostalgia for the times before some twenty years ago; The change following the fall of 1989 was profound and prolonged. Many things have changed and this influenced people in diverse ways; Much more as just Ostalgie might have happened; The inquiries described in this presentation were carried out in an attempt to widen knowledge on consequences of a major societal change.

3 Aims of the paper To repeat the measurements in Czechia and Hungary by means of Hofstede s scales; The present authors conducted the measurements in1998; To use the results to discuss possible cultural change in Czechia consequent to the major societal change in the last 20 years; To discuss viability of using questionnaire to this end.

4 Initial assumptions The changes in the Czech society consequent to the events of 1989 might have evolved gradually. In such a case there might be changes identified between today and some instant in the past in the last 20 years; One such change seemed to be obvious a growing incidence of ruthless, unscrupulous behavior, especially on the highways.

5 Interviews To check on the assumption 26 extramural students were interviewed; The subjects gave many references to aggressive behaviors and impatience of drivers and generally of people being ruthless in other circumstances; According to the subjects it seems that aggressiveness and ruthlessness grown continually through the last two decades.

6 The hypothesis As it was mentioned, the study will compare measurements conducted by means of Hofstede s Value Survey Module; the hypothesis was formulated accordingly; Hypothesis: In the recent years there appeared a shift in the positions of the Czech Republic on Hofstede s cultural dimensions in direction of greater individualism (IDV) and/or greater masculinity (MAS).

7 The method Hofstede s VSM was employed in the same form, as in the survey of 1998; Respondents were University students majoring in economics and management, again, the samples were of the same kind as in the previous case; Measurements were repeated in Czechia and Hungary; Hungary was added for comparison reasons.

8 Results: Hofstede s indices for the Czech and Hungarian subjects from 2010 and 1998 Cz 2010 Cz 1998 Hu 2010 Hu 1998 PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO

9 Discussion The problem with Hofstede s scales is the impossibility to get reliability estimates; This makes it difficult to determine if the aforementioned hypothesis should or should not be rejected; To get some guidance we computed for three selected indices (Cz IDV and MAS; Hu UAI, all 2010) values based not on means, but on lower and upper bound values of the confidence intervals of the relevant VSM 94 items.

10 Selected indices computed from the lower and upper bound values of confidence intervals Confidence intervals based values Lower bound values Upper bound values Cz IDV 2010 Cz MAS 2010 Hu UAI

11 Discussion cont. It should be noted that the differences between indices in the preceding table computed from lower and upper bound values of respective confidence intervals do not constitute any kind of real confidence intervals. These numbers serve only as a kind of auxiliary information.

12 Conclusions In case of the Czech data the IDV value from 1998 fall outside the interval of lower and upper bound indices and MAS value from 1998 is on the margin of the respective interval; We understand this results as not supporting the rejection of the hypothesis; The difference between the UAI in Hungary in the same period is another matter. As we have not arrived at any reasonable explanation, we think it is a result of a measurement error.

13 Thanks for your attention.