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VU THIEN

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25697595

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073 223 6230

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Cross-cultural management
communication

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MGS5640

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Lecturer/tuto
r

VIETNAMESE CULTURAL IDENTITY AND PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

(Assignment 3).
Ms Ilse Niemann-Struweg

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Due date: 07/09/2014

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Updated: July 2014

VIETNAMESE CULTURAL IDENTITY AND

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
STUDENT: VU THIEN BACH
STUDENT NO. 25697595
ASSIGNMENT 3RD (5232 words)
SUBJECT: Cross-cultural management communication
CODE: MGS5640

Table of Contents
I.

Introduction:............................................................................................................. 2

II.

Body......................................................................................................................... 3

III.

Conclusion:......................................................................................................... 14

I.

Introduction:

We currently lives and are doing business in global environment where we can do business
in everywhere in the world, however, all above that, we have a country to serve, a nation to build,
and a Vietnamese race to preserve and protect Open-letter from General Meeting of the
Vietnam Association of Young Entrepreneurs 5th. This is one of the examples of nationalism or the
collectivism in the national level one part of Vietnamese cultural. This statement also has raised
the debates in Vietnam that since the acceleration of globalization, the world become flat, the
barriers and borders between nations have been physically and legally low down, the differences of
nationalities become less, what could be national identity, in the future, the nation definition should
be eliminated during the globalization process or we still have the nation as above statement?. The
first modern problem is the modern nation identity, for example: why this area belongs to
Zimbabwe not Mozambique? , why these border must be drawn, are there any difference, if we
could pass through every propaganda activities an information, we philosophically could hardly
define the nation definition so that because of what reasons, so many patriots have been honored to
guarded these definition. The question have been raised and answered domestically in Vietnam
since 30 years ago, and until now, there are not the clear answer. However, there is a popular
opinion is that, the nation identity is somewhat the national cultural identity, or at least it is
appropriate in Vietnam situation.
Generally, cultural identity is the identity or feeling of belonging to, as part of the selfconception and self-perception to nationality ,ethnicity, religion, social
class, generation, locality and any kind of social group that have its own distinct culture, in this way
that cultural identity is both characteristic of the individual but also to the culturally identical group
that has its members sharing the same cultural identityi. Surprisingly, in Vietnamese situation, in
the majority aspects, everything consists of nationality, religion, locality come together and become
Vietnamese cultural identity.
Historically, Vietnamese society could be considered as an intercultural society. Started at
thousands years ago , Viet community has its own cultures Bronze Age Dong Son culture,
also been deeply influenced by Chinese cultural for 1000 years of Chinese rule, and accepted their
value, norms of Confucians, Taoism, Buddhism at the same time with the India cultural values of
village culture, and the French cultural influence from 80 years of colony. Those influences did

not separate Vietnamese community into different groups of culture, but create a group that has a
great deal of cultural characteristics. Another proof of being intercultural society is that the
discrimination of ethnics, religion, origins in Vietnam is not clear, for example, in Hanoi, you
cannot find out who come from Thai, Tay, or Kinh ethnic. As the statement above, everyone has the
deep connection, and united as people of nation. In additional, Vietnamese culture keep changing up
on the time, and depends on their influences. If there are group of outsiders come in, the imbalances
are created, there are the transformations of all groups of people in both ways, as the result create a
group of new cultures.
This essay will explain my personal cultural identity which mainly base on national level of
Vietnamese cultural identity which mainly focus on basic assumptions and norms & values the
most important part in cross cultural communication, and how it could influence the personal
view of ethics, values, norms, and also how I practice its values in the global society. The content
will be divided into 2 parts. In the first part, using the historical approach to explain the origins and
describe the cultural identity of Vietnamese, and my personal reflections which includes what I
strongly believe and what I could refuse to follow. The second part use the Geert Hofstede (1980)
cultural dimensions to analyze Vietnam cultural identity in general, and try to give the solutions,
and explain my personal views.

II.

Body
a. Historical approach:

Cultural, according to this perspective, can be understood as the entire pool of artifacts
(including language, norms, customs, tools, values) accumulated by the social group in the course
of its historical experience. It is the species specific medium of human development. The capacity
to develop within this medium and to arrange for its reproduction in succeeding generations is the
distinctive characteristic of our speciesii
Called as a historical reservoiriii, culture reflects the community history, and generally
measures the strength of influences of historical events to modern community; Vietnamese
community is not the exception. Similar to neighbor countries, Vietnam has a relatively long history
as an independent country (firstly recognized as a country is 696 682 BC as the name: Van Langiv

and began the age of independence in 938 AD), Vietnamese community has received major of
historical and cultural events that changed its cultural in the very complicated way. To sum up, there
are 4 main trends those had influenced Vietnamese culture which are: the local cultures; the
influence from Chinese through its Long Eclipse: Chinese Millennium (111 BC 938 AD) and the
continuous years; the cultural interactions between Vietnam and India in Vietnameses territory and
the influence of Western cultures (especially French) through the French Colony Periodv.
-

Chinese cultural influences:

Chinese is the big and long-history country, its expansionism especially in Chinese Millennium
(111 BC 938 AD) and the continuous years. There are several reasons for their cultural influences;
it could be educations and building the local government systems, the commercial activities
between regions, or even because of large amount of Han Chinese majority ethnic immigrants
during centuries. To sum up, although Vietnamese government has tried to expel the Chinese
cultural influences from Vietnam, it is undeniable that Chinese cultural play the biggest role of
Vietnam cultural life and Vietnamese cultural identity.
The first and the biggest contribution of Chinese culture to Vietnam is the great deal of basic
assumptions, values & norms the two important parts of Scheils model of organizational culture
(1985)vi which were shaped by the government systems and the religions and theories. The biggest
religions and theories that were imported to Vietnam is the religions system that Confucianism,
Taoism, and Buddhism could appear together. Those theories have brought the basic assumptions,
and norms & values into Vietnam, and created the similar views and opinions. For example, the
definition of human rights in Vietnam is the social agreements, that means if the whole community
agrees a statement, the statements could be available even if it would be unfair for some
individuals.
Another value the Vietnamese culture has obtained from Chinese is the strong power distance
which mainly relies on Confucianism Theory that has been stronger and different from another
country. According to Confucianism, all men are created equal, there are no forever distance
between people in different classes, and the lower classes citizens could have chances to join the
higher classes. However, the theory created the undeniable power distance in side families and
organization. More specifically, the farther has the extremely strong and even unquestionable power

to his sons and daughters and also the bosses and teachers have the same level of power to his
employees, followers, students. This is the original of collective characteristic of people in Far East
since every organization requires their highly loyalty of every member.
The religions and philosophies in Vietnam have been influenced by Taoism and Buddhism
which believes in the principles that run the universal instead of God. The theories have not only
influenced the Vietnamese worship systems but also brought the theory of balance between
negative and positive, Feng Shui and cause and effect principle of Buddhism which concentrate
on proper reactions in the life and business transactions. For example, the Vietnamese citizens will
avoid of doing the bad things because of the invisible revenges, unlike some other countries where
people afraid of going to the hell after dead.
Last but not least, the literatures and languages and using languages traditions from Chinese
culture also put the influences to Vietnamese cultures. Vietnamese language contains a great deal of
Chinese original words, and also copies the same style of using languages. It is very regular in
Vietnam to use the historical events or the similar features things to provide the information in
writing and speaking communication, and using the high context languages. One of example is
that, the Vietnamese also values the promises, even in some situations the promises is more
powerful than the physical paper contact in business, so that the most useful tactic is never make
a direct promise, and they could use another to provide information that they will do.
Personal reflection: As well as many traditional people, I have studied, and lived with the
Confucianism values, assumptions, and moral standards. In general, the basic values and
assumptions contribute a big part of my personal identity, moral assumptions and standards. For
examples, I adopt the beliefs that following the Confucianism values of respecting strongly parents,
and earning the unquestionable responsibilities of taking care my relatives and friends is one of my
biggest purpose of life, and human rights should be social agreement, in meta-cognition and
philosophy, I strongly believe the balance principle of Taoism, which mean that even in the positive
things, there are some negative points and vice versa, there are some positive points inside the bad
persons, I also feel comfortable and happy to practice high context language as the method to
avoid the wasteful conflicts and arguments. However, there some points of Confucianism, and
Taoism I have already changed for my life, such as, despite the agreements of parents and older
relatives respects, I has decided the way I lived and do not obey totally the orders they give, for

me, I has defined respects are different from powers. Secondly, I do not afraid of social differences,
the better method is avoiding the social disagreements without removing my personal differences
because I believe that there are no one fit all solutions, and everyone should do and live in the
way that suitable for them.
-

Indian cultural influences:

Indian cultures influenced Vietnamese cultures through the expansions of Buddhism in two
different ways in two different history periods. Firstly, Vietnamese obtained Buddhism theories and
religions from the Indian Buddhist monks in their way to go to China. The second is from the
China, the Indian Buddhism cultures and religions indirectly spread back from China and create the
double effects. Two ways had remained their effects in Vietnamese modern cultures in the different
ways and create the different from Chinese Mahayana Buddhism (which currently are in in most of
China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam) and the Theravada Buddhism (which
currently are practiced in of Buddhism in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Burma) in
some point and make our cultural identity of religions of Vietnam.
Firstly, Mahayana Buddhism (mostly of Northern of Vietnam, come from Chinese) had stronger
influences than two remaining religions (Confucianism and Taoism) because the efforts to create to
nations cultural identity of Ly dynasty and Tran dynasty that defined Buddhism were the source of
three religions, unlike China where Confucianism is the primary; and the recession of Confucianism
and Taoism during French Colony Period and after Independent (1945). Thus the basic
assumptions, norms & values of Buddhism could be the primary in the cultural model. For example,
for Chinese, avoid to doing the bad things most are actions to become guanxi the respectful
man in the theory of Confucianism, but for Vietnamese, the reasons are afraid of being invisible
revenged as the cause and effect theory of Buddhism. As the result, most of Vietnameses views
of good or bad are self decided not social agreements. That could be the cultural identity of
Vietnamese.
The direct Indian cultural interactions happened since the Indian Buddhist Monks were in the
way to China, passed Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. During those journeys in Vietnam,
Buddhist Monks taught the Buddhism religion to Vietnamese local citizens; their impacts have still
existed in Vietnam society not only in South where the Theravada Buddhism has the strong

influences, but also in the North. One of its three characteristics which are will agreed in Vietnam is
Anicca (impermanence): All conditioned phenomena are subject to change, including physical
characteristics, qualities, assumptions, theories, knowledge, etc. Nothing is permanent, because, for
something to be permanent there has to be an unchanging cause behind it. Since all causes are
recursively bound together, there can be no ultimate unchanging causevii. That statement allows
Vietnamese citizens to accept the new and different religions easily.
Personal reflections: personally, similar to majorities of Vietnamese, it is hard to define I am
the Buddhist or not, it depends on the religions definitions, however my religions life could have
three main points. The first point is: as the Buddhism philosophy all creatures could become
Buddha which could be presented in a Western Idioms: all roads lead go to Rome, I respect
every different religions and consider them as the way to be awakened, and even in my religion life,
I has decided to live in the different way to others. As the result, I could have no prejudices of
different religions and the discriminations. The other point is I strongly believe in the cause and
effect principles of Buddhism. Different from Muslim an Christianity, the my personal motivation
of avoiding the bad actions, behaviors, is the invisible revenges, which could happen in majorities
of forms includes the personal next life, the relatives, the personal future or even the next
generations. Finally, I believe on the principle: nothing forever as the explanation for the
changing life and development of society, and the different of facts, meta-cognitions and basic
assumptions, as the results, the traditional values, morals should not be over preserved or it will
discourage the development of society.
-

The French colony influence:

Being French only in 80 years, Vietnamese culture witnessed the extremely changed in artifacts,
rituals, and even some norms & values, basic assumptions such as the bigger individual role and the
direct logical way of thoughtviii. There are three major changes that French brought to Vietnam:
clothing & customs; writing language and some rituals holidays.
Different from China, Japan, Korean Vietnamese use Latin character to present their language
which are invented and introduced during the Christian propaganda of Western Christianity Monks.
This kind of writing language was officially recognized by Ho Chi Minh as the only available

national writing language. It is not only making the national identity from another Far East
Countries but also help Vietnamese citizens would learn how to write more easily.
The French cultures also changed the way Vietnamese wear clothes. In the modern life, except
the extremely special events, most of Vietnamese wear the Western style clothes not the traditional
customs.
Personal reflections: apart from the disadvantages, and some national interest, French
Colonization was the biggest Western culture sources those were brought to Vietnam. As the
majorities of Vietnamese, I am wearing the Western customs, writing the Latin characters writing
languages, enjoying the Western music, also the Western view of economics and sciences. I adopted
and followed every natural science which mostly were come from Western countries such as
Physical, Biology, and Chemical and have been studying the social sciences achievements in the
economy fields, laws, psychology and the research methods. It is undeniable that, from the 18th
Century, the sciences, technology and social development have gone far than my nations, thus
undoubtedly, it is necessary to study follow the better knowledge.
-

The local cultures development:

Vietnamese local culture began since the Dong Son Bronze Age culture born, and been
developed and influenced by other big cultures as described above. Besides those influences,
Vietnamese local people also have developed their own cultural identity which based on their
(water) rice culture and civilization. There is a great deal of Vietnam cultural identities such as
language; worship and respect ancestors; bamboo influences in architectures. However, 3 culture
identities should be noticed in Vietnamese communications and managements: the village culture;
the offering betel cultures; and the role of women in society.
Vietnamese villages firstly appeared since their local people had known how to grow rice, and
have demands of collective because of not only to protect from the unwanted invaders and violent
robbers, but also to defend from the natural disasters especially flood. In some situations, the
villages cultures are even more powerful than legal power (as the idioms: .) The consequence is
Herd mentality become popular which explain how Vietnamese are influenced by their peers to
adopt certain behaviors, follow trends there are many examples in agricultures industry one of those

were some Vietnamese farmers raised tortoises and earned considerable profits, other would try to
copy ad raise the tortoises, as the results the supply of tortoises would immediately become bigger
than that of demand, and create the bubbles which make many farmers to become bankrupts. On the
other hand, Village culture is the part of Vietnamese nationalism which were describe in the
statement in the introduction part. The original of Vietnamese nationalism was the demand of
protect the villages, lands and neighbors.
The second point should be noticed as the cultural identity of Vietnamese is their offering betel
cultural. Betel is the traditional food in Vietnam, which do not contain so many useful energy but to
protect their teeth. In the past, Vietnamese had the habit of chewing betel and offering them to
friend as the symbol of kindness and friendship to their communication partners. At the modern life,
the betel has become minority in Vietnamese community, but offering habit has been still remained
in the society no matter their age or their income. For example, the old generation often offer the
cigarettes to start the conversations, the new one could offer the ice green tea (in the North) or ice
black/milk coffee (in the South), there is a few case of business conversation that happened
without the tea, coffee or even mealsix. Moreover, most of the important business deal should be
made during the meals which usually are served with alcohol. As the result, there is the possibility
that both sides could not consider carefully the contract. Another consequence is it will slow down
the speed of doing business in Vietnam since people would need a meal to sign the contract or other
kinds of business agreements.
Although be considered as the one of the Far East Countries, the index of Masculinity /
womanizer of Viet Nam is 40 only which are relatively low if we compare to China (66), Japan
(95), United States of America (62), Germany (66)x. The explanation is Vietnamese Culture has still
been influenced by the historical matriarchy which begun before the Dong Son Bronze Age. This
statement is proved by the women involvement in power systems in organizations. This means in
Vietnam conversation, the women-leaders could gain the same respect with the men-leaders, and
could equally make the business deals. The index also reflects some womanizer elements in
Vietnamese managements. The management style in Vietnam considers the collective is the
primary elements in organization, and more importance than that of competitive; also leader in
Vietnam prefer the stable, survive together than the conflicts and improvements. As the result, there
are the different in managements since bosses could face the mortals and reputations problems, if

they fire their employees carelessly, normally, they could only do that if their employees did the
very naughty things, and could be considered as unacceptable.
Personal reflections: there are 2 traditions that I strongly follow which come from my local
cultures: the tradition of worship and showing the respects to the ancestors, and the collectivism of
Vietnamese community. Today, many people have confused that the tradition of worship and respect
ancestors was come from Chinese culture. In fact, this tradition existed before the Chinese
appearance in Vietnam territory. I follow this tradition and consider it as the most important
tradition to remember the contribution of our ancestors to my life, and our society. As the result, my
family always stays together and worships my grandparents in the death day anniversary, to let
every family member remember and respect our ancestors. By doing this, we could strengthen our
relationship between each other. The collectivism is the basic values of Vietnamese community
which have been educated in schools, families, society, and proved by history. In my personal view,
the collectives could be very useful and could make people achieve the great prizes which would
benefit everyone. The collectives could also lead people avoid the wasteful internal conflicts, as the
result, the members could has the more security situation.
b. Using the Geert Hofstede (1980) cultural dimensions to
analyze the cultural identity of Vietnamxi.
Undoubtedly, cultural traditions have the strong influence on the culture of local
organizations. In this part, 5 elements of cultures of organizations of Geert Hofstede (1980): power
distance;

Individualism/collectivism;

masculinity/womanizer;

Long-term

Orientation

and

Uncertainty Avoidance could be used to analyze the organization cultures of Vietnamese and try
to find out the Vietnamese organization-cultural identity.
According to 5 elements, Cultural of organization of Vietnam have the average index in
power distance, uncertainty avoidance and Masculinity. In general, Vietnam cultural identity would
be similar to other Far East Countries as Japan, Korea, and China as the table below:

LongNations

Power

Individualism

Masculinity

Uncertainty

term

distance

/Collectivism

/Womanizer

Avoidance

Orient
ation

Vietnam

70

20

40

30

80

China

80

20

66

30

118

Korea

60

18

39

85

75

Japan

54

46

95

92

80

USA

40

91

62

46

29

Germany

35

67

66

65

31

Sweden

31

71

29

33

(Source: ITIM culture and

Management Consultants)

According to the Geert Hofsede dimensions; we could analyse the Vietnamese organization
cultural identity as follows:
-

Power distance:
Traditionally, Vietnamese organization work as the one boss systems, which means that

the employees should unquestionably obey their boss order. As the result, the power distance
between employees and boss would be relatively high. In those organizations, the role of bosses and
leaders could be the more importance. Most of Vietnamese could agree that the only reason for
your positions is to make your boss happy.
In Vietnamese organization management, obeying the level of management is the primary
principle of operations. The lower level employees must obey the higher level. Every operation,
decision which is made must follow the certain process before become valid. The purpose is to
stabilize the organization, and avoid the conflicts; however this process could eliminate the creative
of employees.

In additional, the using pronouns such as anh, em, ch, bc in direct speaking language
to present the relationships and the levels in society, ages, positions which different than other
language (such as in English, for direct conversation there are only 2 pronouns: I and You) This
point could also create the psychology power distance. As the result, this could create the negative
impact in management.
Moreover, in most of organizations in Vietnam, whether it is private or state-owned, the
information transmission mostly and officially is one-way direction, from higher levels to lower
levels in organization. As the result, in the organization, there are demands for unofficial parties to
get useful information.
-

Individualism/ collectivism
The basic assumptions and the meta-cognition of Vietnamese have been influenced by the

traditional agricultural industry. The traditions of blood relations, religions, and villages cultures
could create the highly collectivism in communities and organizations (as the Vietnamese popular
idioms: more people is better than better individuals or bad as colleagues is much better than the
lonely good or more people could make survival or even Law and regulations could not be
practiced if majorities violated law. As the result, Vietnamese could attempt to copy what others
practiced to seek the security in psychology (as the ducks reactions in Herd mentality)
Moreover, because of the influences of communitys cultures, the role of organizations;
communities and collectivism could be more important, the individuals interests and opinions
would be less noticeable. This trend could affect the way to organize, and the firms structures, and
activities, for example, no matter the size of company, to increase the employees efficiency,
companies should regular organize the community activities (or in the modern words: team
building activities) for their employees. The second point is the individuals must obey the
community official or unofficial standard, and should not present the opinions which would be
opposite the majority opinions. It is irregular to directly transmit the information, especially directly
present the personal ideas and opinions. As the result, the role of individual could not be improved,
to more security, employees often only obey the boss orders, thus the processes of receiving and
processing information could be very low, and ineffective. Furthermore, low role of individual

could make the employees become more irresponsibility, not dynamic, and do not consider the
quantity of working even in the private company.
-

Masculinity/womanizer
As discussed about, because of the influences from the historical matriarchy which begun

before the Dong Son Bronze Age, the methods to organize in Vietnam could have some womanizer
facets, as women could be considered as the same as men in business, and working environments,
as the social agreement.
Avoiding conflicts in Vietnamese culture could not only represent the collectives in
communities but also the womanizer.
In communication and business, Vietnamese consider not only face but the emotions of
the partners. As the result, the over consideration in relationships, gratitude and experiences could
cause the unfair, ineffective in management.
-

Long- term Orientation

As well as other Far East countries, deeply influences by Confucianism and its values &

norms which have concentrated to the levels and appropriate relationships in families,
organizations, Vietnamese citizens could also apply those values & norms and its following
principles in management and organizing the associations, groups, or firms. It could also affect the
strategies orientations of every organization which is: long term stable is the primary, and the
development and improvement should be the secondary mission.
The trend of engaging in stability, and long term relationship would explain in Vietnam,
the low income but stable job position could be considered more valuable than the high income
ones. For example, most of Vietnamese people, especially women could prefer to become the
primary teachers or accountants which could be considered as the stable job in Vietnamese society
than the salesman or saleswoman even if the later position could give them double or triple income.
As the result, the supply of accountants become bigger than that of demands and caused the
temporary unemployment in Vietnam society in 2013. For example, in Ho Chi Minh the biggest

city in Vietnam, in July 2013, demand of accountants and audit sectors was 4.53% of total job
demands, but the supply was 42.58%, in the situation that the total demand was bigger than supply,
there were a great deal of accountants could not find the proper job, and had to face the
unemployment situations or had to change their careerxii.
-

Uncertainty Avoidance
Avoiding conflicts, not interested in changing are the points to explain the uncertainty

avoidance in organizations and management cultures in Vietnam. Those ideas could also explain the
tradition of closed ballot which means no one could know who the voter voted in most of the
elections. The disadvantage of those is the manager could hardly get the appropriate information,
even for internal problems since most of the information could appear in the type of rumors.
Personal reflections: In my opinion, the cultural identity of Vietnam could not die, thus every
living organization should change, and develop to satisfy the changing condition. Vietnamese
cultural identity which also is my personal cultural identity should change up on the time. As
discussed and analyzed above, there are many drawbacks of our cultural identity, which should be
solved. According to What leads to cultural intelligence by Kerri Anne Crowne cultural
Intelligence (CQ) consists of 4 parts: meta-cognition, cognition, motivation and behavior. The
motivation of improve cultural identity is my motivation of cultural intelligence (CQ): efficacy, I
am also willing to get the appropriate meta-cognition; those would lead to the better cognition and
behaviors which become extremely useful in cross cultural communications.

III.

Conclusion:

The historical approach and the using of Geert Hofstede (1980) dimensions of culture could
bring the difference views of Vietnamese cultural identity. However their result could be very same
that Vietnamese cultural identity has got a lot of similarities of other East Asia Country such as
highly collectivism, long term orientation, avoiding conflicts, the differences are the more
womanizer in cultural identity.
To sum up, we could review the Lewis Model of Cultural Typesxiii:

Vietnam cultural identity could define majority of Vietnamese are very reactive-courteous, amiable,
accommodating, compromiser, and good listener. As the philosophy of Taoism, everything has the
positive and negative point. In that situation, this means, in communication, and meta-cognition,
decision making, the disadvantage of my cultural identity is the shortage of linear active cool;
factual and decisive planners as the result, the quality of achievement of working and
communication could be limited. There are also lack of emotional, multi-active-warm heart and
loquacious, impulsive in Vietnamese cultural identity which could lead to social ignorance of bad
things and evils which are happening in community, and people only recognize them since they are
too late to fix, and would probably create the serious consequences.
Personal reflections: there are two ways to solve the cultural problems, the first one is to
get closer to Multi active group, and the second one is to get closer to Linear active. My
personal opinion is the Linear active which could be the fastest way to solve the problems. By
doing this, I could study about norms & values of American, German, and South Africa. The main
point I follow in business is the East Asia collectivism which the conceptualization of ingroups

and group behavior in East Asia tends to place less emphasis on categorization, intergroup
comparison, and depersonalization of the self, and places more emphasis on maintaining harmony
within groups, being sensitive to the needs and feelings of others, and being aware of the
relationship structure within the group (Yuki, 2003). In a collectivist society, where awareness of
interdependence and status relationships is high, relational ties are the key to social identification
with ingroupsxiv

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