One of the most widely used characterisations of East Asian culture, and of China in particular, is ‘collectivism’ as opposed to individualism. This notion is axiomatic across many disciplines, ranging from management science to neuroscience, which draw on empirical research, such as value surveys, to support this fundamental assumption. In this seminar, we will take representative examples, such as the Hofstede cultural dimensions and the World Values Survey, and apply a constructive critique which proceeds from Fei Xiaotong’s conceptualisation of Chinese and Western culture. Through closer examination of both theory and data, we achieve a much richer understanding of individualism in different cultural contexts, thus debunking the stereotype of Asian ‘collectivism’.
