"surface culture" vs. "underlying culture"

 

 

 

"Surface culture"  is related to popular culture or trend, whereas "underlying culture" is imbedded in a country's customary values and historic traditions. I think this notion is related to Trompenaars' (1993) concept of dividing culture according to how we manage time. The “sequential” aspect of culture is related more to the underlying culture, as traditions and values build up over time one after another. on the other hand, the “synchronic” aspect of culture is related to the surface culture in which a number of activities and cultural notions are combined so as to create timely and trendy definitions of culture in a given context or time.

 

What we experience now, with ever fast globalization, is an influx of values and cultures that create some kind of global trends in every corner of our lives. Some cultures like popular culture and surface culture exist in a form of global trends that sustain and live entirely in the present. Underlying cultures and traditional values are embedded in each nation's cultural and historic identity and are believed to be something that must be realized in a form of nostalgia in the advent of globalization.

 

Business entities seem to go with or prefer the surface culture more in that surface culture is flexible, trendy, changeable and convergent. Underlying culture is more traditional, difficult to change and exclusive to those who believe in or are related to a given culture. Referring back to the core objective of a firm—profit maximization—realistic adaptation of flexible surface culture or trends is indeed more relevant in actual business activities and management practices than some nostalgic and ritual adaptation of complex and exclusive underlying culture.  

 

Just some thoughts.

 

- Jules

 

Reference:

Trompenaars, F. (1993) Riding the Waves of Culture. London: Nicholas Brealey.