Country Comparison Through the Lens of the 6-D Model

- A case study on the land of a thousand lakes & the land of the rising sun
I want to explore both Japan’s and Finland’s cultures through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory. In the current world, Finnish culture has been largely marginalized by the Occident and faded from Westerners’ eyes due to her late independence from Russia & geographic remoteness. Contrary to Finnish culture’s isolation, Japanese culture is now renowned worldwide as a culture integrating both tradition and modernity. As the consequence, when the puissant & dynamic Japanese culture meets tranquil & transcendent Finnish culture, we can probe deeply into the essence of the East-West dichotomy.First, let’s make an in-depth investigation of two countries’ power distance index. Unsurprising, Japan’s hierarchical structure contributes to her intermediate score of PDI index——54. At the same time, snow-capped Finland only scores 33 in PDI. In a typical Japanese corporation, we would expect all hierarchical layers to participate in the decision-making process. Japan never smashes her seniority-based promotion and thus we can often use age as a proxy for someone’s position in a Japanese corporation.In a Finnish Osakeyhtiö, however, managers don’t behave like instructors, instead, they count on their team members’ experience and consult them if necessary. In contrast to Japan’s steadfastness in the hierarchy, Finland prefers to decentralize power in her society and teach her citizens to be independent and pursue equal rights.Whereas Japanese culture scores 46 on the Individualism dimension, Finland scores 63. Japanese society possesses many characteristics of a collectivistic society. Japanese are typically mindful of their own reputation and always attempt to achieve harmony inside in-groups. As the young generation in Japan is combating the culture of long working hours & powerful central bureaucracy, modern Japan can be considered as “Individualist” by Asian standards now. Finland is an individualist society, but more precisely, Finland is an individualist society that has absorbed many elements from collectivistic society (compared to Australia and the USA, which score more than 90). Finnish is self-dependent, but they are also taught to show more consideration of other people’s feelings and maintain relationships based on mutual advantage.Astoundingly, with its MAS reaching 95, Japan is one of the most Masculine societies in the world. Every Japanese fiercely compete with each other, aiming at excellence and perfection. Workaholism has saturated every corner of Japan’s society. Finland, however, merely scores 26 on this dimension and is thus considered a Feminine society. Finnish people work in order to live and they manage to avert fierce competition for their well-being. Finnish abhor Darwinian competition in Japan’s educational system and their motto is —— “Real winners do not compete.”Japan is also the most uncertainty-avoiding countries in our world. Japanese favor schemes and precautions for their future and they spare no efforts achieving maximum predictability. They will invest much time & energy into feasibility studies and if they work out risk factors, they simply avoid them. By western standards, Finland also has a high preference for avoiding uncertainty. Finland maintains many rigid codes of belief and behaviors and forbids some unorthodox ideas. However, she occasionally failed to achieve the balance between conservatism and creativity. She had to mourn the loss of Nokia to Microsoft in 2013.At 38, Finland performs poorly in Long-term orientation dimension. Her culture can be described as normative. Finland ranked first on the World Happiness Report for four continuous years and therefore people are content with the status quo and relatively unconcerned with the future. Finnish believe happiness is attainable without planning for the future. Japan is a 100% pure long-term-oriented society. Japan, always afflicting by current economic recession and natural disasters, prefers to mobilize her citizens to build a sustainable future.
Last but not least, Japan is dedicated to her causes of “obliteration of immoral entertainment”. Japanese society has an atmosphere of cynicism and pessimism and deeply-rooted stoicism makes her citizens feel guilty of indulging themselves. Pheromone like karoshi and suicides are ubiquitous in Japan. Finland, with its indulgence index at 57, holds a positive attitude towards indulgence. Her government has an aspirational goal of a six-hour, four-day workweek plan. Many national parks and smoke saunas have been set up for citizens to rewind themselves.
In a rapidly globalized age when Tokyo and Helsinki are connected by 13-hour direct flights, Japan culture and Finnish culture can seek common ground while reserving differences. Both belonging to Ural-Altaic language zone, Japan and Finland could achieve more in bilateral social welfare, science and technology and trade.

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