Cultural Differences between the West and East and their Impacts on Global Economy

Uses an evolutionary perspective and interpretative methods to explore economic and social transformations in the United States and China, highlighting the roles of culture, institutions and entrepreneurship in policy change

This book highlights the roles of culture and institutions on economic change. In particular, it compares cultures between the United States and China and examines their impacts on entrepreneurship, innovation capabilities, and economic and social changes. It also covers their impacts on everyday life performance.

This volume consists of four parts, comprising 15 chapters. It highlights the roles of culture and institutions on economic and social changes. The West is illustrated by the United States, Britain or Canada and the East, by chopstick economies such as China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Part I is the theoretical framework. It contains five chapters. Chapter 1 (Searching for the New Paradigm: Uncertainty and Learning in the Evolutionary Approach) employs the evolutionary perspective to interpret economic and social transformations. Chapter 2 (Culture and Institutions on Economic Transformation) explains the relationship between traditional belief/ideology/religion and culture. The West adopts rule of law while the East, rule by law. In chapter 3 (Quilt and Shame Cultures: Anglosphere versus Chopstick Economies), a Christian nation in Western economies, such as the United States, is identified as a society of guilt while chopstick economies in the East, such as China, are embedded with Confucianism, a society of shame. Cultural difference has implications on social control and educational reform. In chapter 4 (Chinese Legalism and European Mercantilism), contemporary China utilises Confucianism supplemented by Legalism to strengthen the state power. Legalism is akin to European Mercantilism. Chapter 5 (An Imagined Social World in the West and East) highlights the imagined world in the West and East.
Part II presents different cases in entrepreneurship and everyday life creativity. Chapter 6 (Entrepreneurship: Transformative and Adaptive) argues that the United States, due to individualism and self-assertion, brings technological breakthroughs in the world while Asian economies such as China receive training in Confucianism, and provide the world with mainly adaptive entrepreneurs and imitative products. Culture makes a difference in entrepreneurship and hence economic transformation. Chapter 7 (Intellectual Property Protection: The Case of Smartphone) explains the origin of the disputes in U.S.–China intellectual property protection. It is illustrated by Huawei, a learner in technological transfer. Chapter 8 (The ‘New Opium War’: On Supplying Fentanyl) argues that China’s ways of handling the production and consumption of fentanyl contrast sharply with the Western...read more...