An Exploratory Study On Cultural Values Of Chinese And American College Students

Along with the popularity of cross culture communication, more and more researcheshave been conducted to explore the differences of culture values all over the world.This thesis intends to conduct a comprehensive comparative study on culture values.The subjects are the college students from Huazhong University of Science andTechnology in China and Confucius School of Wayne State University in America. Theculture instrument employed is VSM08of Hofstede.The study is carried out in two phases. In the first phase, the similarities anddifferences on seven culture dimensions between Chinese and American college studentsare explored. Moreover, this paper also compares the results with previous findings byHofstede and Minkov. In the second phase, the effects of gender, major, abroad experienceand marital status on culture values of American students are investigated.Findings in the first phase show that compared to American college students, Chinesecollege students get a higher score in IDV, LTO and PDI but a lower socre on dimensionlike MON, IVR and UAI. Regarding MAS, Chinese students and American students are inan equal level, which matches Hofstede’s findings.In the second phase, the research subjects are American college students. Results inthis phase demonstrate that gender has little influence on IDV, MAS, LTO and IVR. Boththe female and the male students score similarly on these dimensions. However, genderdoes affect culture values like PDI, UAI and MON. Major has no significant differenceson MAS, IVR, IDV and MON but does affect PDI, UAI and LTO. Oversea experience haseffects on all other six dimensions except for MAS. Marital status has significant influenceover PDI, UAI, MAS, LTO, IVR and MON but minor effects on IDV.