Socio-Cultural Change
in Post-Communist Societies: Some Implications for
Business |
This contribution deals with the
interdependence of eastern and western Europe in the present
historical developments. It emphasises the importance to
destinguish analytically between the social and the cultural.
Pointing out an increasing neglect of the social in theory and
research particularly with respect to the post-communist
societies of Eastern and East-Central Europe. As social structure
is the one element which has been changing the fastest in these
societies, the theoretical insights about its relation to culture
is most significant. Given this point of the theoretical approach
it becomes obvious that every assumption of a more or less
coherent Central European culture or from another point of view
post-communist mind must be misleading. Behind both one can
suspect a too holistic under-standing of culture. If we however
assume that every cultural pattern requires certain
socio-structural support the post-communist situation appears
rather as a set of different cultural dimensions than a cultural
system homogeniously organized around coherent principles.
Josef Langer - University of
Klagenfurt