4.6 Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Value Orientation数字时代的商务英语写作.pdf

Cultural Patterns 4.6 Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Value Orientation Hello welcome back. Value orientations are complex but definitely patterned principles which give order and direction to the ever-flowing stream of human acts and thoughts as these relate to the solution of “common human problems”. The theory of value orientations is based on the following assumptions: people in all cultures must find solutions to a limited number of common human problems. Kluckhohns and Strodtbeck, after examining hundreds of cultures, reached the conclusion that people turn to their culture for answers to the following questions. (1) What is the inborn character of human nature? (2) What is the relation between people and nature? (3) What is the focus of human life with respect to time? (4) What is the value placed on activity? (5) What is the relationship of one person to another? The answers to these crucial questions serve as the bases for the five value orientations that are at the heart of their approach. These five orientations might best be visualized as points on a continuum. As you move through these five orientations, you will undoubtedly notice some of the same characteristics discussed by Hofstede. This is very understandable because both approaches are talking about meaningful values found in all cultures. Hence, both sets of researchers were bound to track many of the same patterns. As indicated above, every culture must find a solution to each of these problems. The solutions available, however, are limited for each of the problems. The range of alternative solutions to a cu