comm4559 assignment

8/13/2019 COMM4559 Assignment

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Assignment for COMM4559

Individualism in the US

Prepared For:Professor Christopher L. Wilcox Elliot

Assistant Dean, Student Life & Global Programs

Prepared by:Jonathan Ng Jun Kiat

4thYear Commerce, Student Exchange Program

Fall Semester, AY 2013/2014

As the U.S. moves into the 21stcentury, its previously unassailable position as the

world super-power is increasingly being challenged by the re-emerging economies of the Far

East while its domestic electorate is polarized as never before, leading to a state of political

stasis and ailing economic health. Have the contemporary ideals and values of the greatUnited States become anachronistic in modern times? Innovation, individualism, creativity;

McIntire School of Commerce

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, Virginia


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some of the oft-espoused core tenets of business culture that have provided the engines of

growth for America come under scrutiny in this paper. In particular, we look into how

individualism in the context of Americas businesses has shaped its faade into the

monolithic yet waning business powerhouse it is today.

Individualism is defined as a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or thoughtto be ethically paramount, a culture encompassing qualities including independence, self-

reliance, and a belief that every man could build and achieve his own American dream

through toil and labour. It is the idea that the individuals life belongs to him and that he has

an inalienable right to live it as he sees fit, to act on his own judgment, to keep and use the

product of his effort, and to pursue the values of his choosing. It is the idea that the individual

is sovereign, an end in himself, and the fundamental unit of moral concern. This is the ideal

that the American Founders set forth and sought to establish when they drafted the

Declaration and the Constitution and created a country in which the individuals rights to life,

liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness were to be recognized and protected, forever

enshrined in the words of Thomas Jefferson.An analysis of the historical timeline of America

sheds some light on our issue.

In the context of Virginia, the Virginia Company of London was an entirely

entrepreneurial venture that founded Jamestown in 1607: The new world spurred the birth of

nations, bringing in brave entrepreneurial settlers into virgin land where each man could

claim his own fortune in accordance to his efforts. Later in 1776, The Declaration of

Independence encapsulated the values of individualism in its emphasis on individual

freedom, individual thought, individual liberty, and individual action. The Declaration of

Independence is emblematic of the eighteenth-century regard for the interests of the

individual. Taking as unquestionably "self evident" the idea that "all men are created equal;

that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these

are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the Declaration makes the rights and potential

of the individual the cornerstone of American values. The fact that these lines from the

Declaration are among the most quoted in all of American letters testifies to the power and

resonance of this commitment to individual freedom in American culture. In 1996, SeymourMartin Lipset resonated the words of the Declaration, opining that the American Creed

explicitly stresses that each individual should enjoy equality of opportunity and respect, but

not necessarily equality of result of condition, and that people should be treated primarily

as individuals in this regard, not as members of collectivities. (Lipset, 1996)

By the nineteenth century, a measure of Americans was becoming more radical in

their commitment to individualism, and a growing concern over the people left out of the

American Dreamfueled reform movements designed to extend individual rights to thehistorically disenfranchised and oppressed. Calls for the abolition of slavery, Native

American rights, women's rights, and help for the impoverished, challenged American

society to make good on its proclamation that all are created equal. As social critic Albert

Brisbane put it, "Monotony, uniformity, intellectual inaction, and torpor reign . . . society is

spiritually a desert." (Brisbane, 1844) Ralph Waldo Emerson agreed, warning that "society

everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members ... the virtue in

most request is conformity." (Emerson, 1841)

Evidently, history is rife with manifestations of the individualistic nature of

Americas people and continues to be a pervasive element of her people in and out of the

workplace in modern America today, with numerous studies and reports espousing the verysame dominance of individualism manifesting itself in contemporary American society.


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In 1989, Christopher Earley, an American management researcher, gave 48

management trainees from China and a matched group of 48 management trainees from

America an in-basket-task consisting of 40 separate items (Earley, 1989). Half of the

participants from each country were given an individual goal of 20 items; the other half were

given a group goal of 200 items to be completed in one hour by 10 people. In addition, half ofthe participants from either country, both from the group and from the individual goal

subsets, were asked to mark each item with their name; the other half turned them in

anonymously. The Chinese participants performed best when operating with a group goal and

anonymously. They performed worst when operating individually and with their name

marked on their work. The individualist Americans performed best when operating

individually and with their work attributed to them personally, and performed very poorly

when operating as a group and anonymously.

Moving closer to modern day, we analyze a study provided by the Hofstede Centre in

2010. The Hofstede Centre conducts one of the most comprehensive studies of how values in

the workplace are influenced by culture. The report ranks countries based on various driversof their culture, of which America ranks most highly on Individualism amongst other drivers.

With a score of 91 out of 100 for individualism, the US claims the pole position for the most

individualistic country in the world. Professor Geert Hofstede claims that the United States

has a highly individualistic culture, which translates into a loosely-knit society in which

the expectation is that people look after themselves and their immediate families. He goes

on to say that in the business world, employees are expected to be self-reliant and display

initiative, with hiring and promotion decisions based on merit or evidence of what one has

done or can do. (Hofstede, 2010)

There is nothing inherently wrong with being individualistic. After all, in his most

famous work The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith offers a timeless economic perspective: It

is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our

dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their

humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their

advantages. Truly, the greatest driving force of the economy and indeed the most efficient is

an innate self-interest to grow ones wealth. It is through this simple market mechanism

driven by self-love and self-interest that the economy can and has grown to what it is today;

had the American economy or any economy tried anything different, it would never have

grown to its current monolithic size. The question to explore however, is the importance and

relevance of said enduring idea in contemporary society via an comparable analysis with

other non-individualistic countries.

Singapore receives only a score of 20 out of 100 for individualism, on the same

report, almost 77% lower than the score that US received and ranked 39 thout of 41 countries.

(Hofstede, 2010) Yet it would be difficult to argue that Singapore has been performing any

less spectacularly than what the US had achieved in the short span of 48 years since it she

achieved independence. Singapore is correctly and strongly dubbed a collectivist society, the

polar opposite of individualism, where a clear emphasis is placed on the team spirit and a

subordination of ones needs to the wholes greater good. A famous Chinese idiom

encapsulates the ideology: . The idiom literally means sacrificingones self for the completion of the goals of the larger body, and a Singaporean who places

his needs above others is considered amoral, a misfit, or social deviant. (Craig, 1994)


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Businesses in Singapore, not including MNCs that bring with them the culture of the

countries from which they came from, are typically very characteristically close-knit and

team-oriented. It is not uncommon to see companies going for team building activities such

as Dragon Boating, joining the Outward Bound School (OBS) for weekend courses, weekend

retreats, and more informally it is not uncommon to see employees from the same companyoccupying a large table of 10 to enjoy lunch together. It is simply part of our heritage and

tradition to be collectivistic, with its roots tracing to our upbringing and the predominantly

Chinese culture. (Liu, 2007) An ability to work independently is valued, but an ability to

work synergistically in a team is prized. Singaporeans have the ability to function

competently in their individual roles, but there is a clear preference for people to be working

harmoniously and an innate desire to be on good terms with one another. (Liu, 2007)

While a collectivistic culture has fostered harmonious working relationships which may or

may not have been the cause of our stellar economic growth, a culture as such inadvertently

fosters a groupthink mentality at times where a desire for conformity results in an incorrect or

deviant decision-making outcome. This phenomenon is less common in the higherhierarchies of the top companies, but one may argue that those top spots are typically

occupied by foreign expatriates who bring with them their own culture and work ethics.

Another key complaint, or admittance, of the Singaporean government, is the somewhat

lacking creativity or entrepreneurial spirit of our people. While the individualistic culture of

America has given us the technology giants from the Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship is still

oft frowned upon by the older generations in Singapore as non-conforming and an unsafe

career path, revealing a preference for stable career paths such as banking, or medicine. In

the famous words of Kiyosaki, In America, if you work for a large company for a long time,

people ask why. In Singapore, if people leave a large company, people ask why. This is a

huge difference. (Kiyosaki, 2011) This has resulted in a dense population of highly

intelligent, capable and educated youths, few of which delve into the arts and even less who

venture into entrepreneurship. In light of such a climate, our Prime Minister has called for our

youths to bravely venture across Singapore shores, to seek fortunes abroad, to expand our

horizons and do our nation proud. (Lee, 2011) One cannot help but draw a parallel to the

mission of the Virginia Company of London of 1607, but contemplate the actual effect those

inspiring words had on our youths.

As with everything in life, moderation is key. I believe there are synergies to be

harnessed from a less individualistic, more collectivistic, team-oriented structure in America

which allows her to tap on her highly diverse and multi-ethnic labour force, leveraging on the

unique and distinct traits and qualities each individual bring to the table. In the increasinglyglobalized world we live in today, businesses cannot afford to remain individualistic.

Countries, which do so at their own peril, will no doubt see their competitors gaining on their

previously unassailable leads and in no time, surpass them.

It thus becomes imperative for America to find unity in individualism; indeed, unity is

as far removed as possible from individualism, but unity in individualism is not an

oxymoron, unity and individualism are not mutually exclusive, and to strike the delicate

balance in between is Americas most imperative task today.


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BibliographyLipset, S. M. (1996). Equality and the American Creed: Understanding the Affirmative

Action Debate.

Earley, C. (1989). Taking Stock in Our Progress on Individualism-Collectivism: 100 Years

of Solidarity and Community.

Brisbane, A. (1844). The Bay State Democrat.

Emerson, R. W. (1841). Self-Reliance.

Hofstede, G. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind.

Lee, H. L. (2011). National Day Rally 2011.

Liu, Q. (2007). Core Culture Values and Beliefs in Singapore.Newcastle University.

Craig, J. (1994). Culure Shock! Singapore.

Kiyosaki, R. (2011). Entrepreneurship in Singapore.

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