文化冲击对教育服务出口的国际贸易影响

1、文化冲击对教育服务出口的国际贸易影响1. Introduction1.1. Research backgroundThe study of international trade could be considered as the starting point wherethe study of economics as a discipline began (Krugman, et al., 2012). For this reason,the economic theory around international trade is abundant and there are innu

2、merableconcepts, studies and models to describe how countries trade with other countries. Eventhough international trade literature has approached almost every aspect related tohuman behaviour, there are still some gaps that need to be filled with new research thatprovides more evidence on other fac

3、tors that can play relevant roles. Among thesefactors, some intangible barriers can be identified, and one of these is precisely theculture. Many studies have shown the relevance of culture both as an enhancer and abarrier for international trade (Demes & Geeraert, 2013; Nyahoho, 2011; Selmer, 1

4、999).For this reason is important to have a better understanding of how culture differencescan have a positive of negative impact or how far reaches the influence of culture ininternational trade relationships.Moreover, the specific case of China deserves a special mention. With its rapideconomic de

5、velopment and its rise as an economic power in the last decades, Chinashas started to become a key player in the global economy. Therefore, is crucial forChina′s long-run economic ambitions to face the challenges that become a country withworldwide influence brings with. Due in part to its anc

6、ient history and in part to a –more recent – isolation period in the first stages of the New China and a later verygradually opening to the globalization process, China has preserved its culturestructures distant from the westernized global culture. Even though every year more andmore Ch

7、inese get integrated to western culture through the media, the learn of otherlanguages and an increasing international tourism industry, at the present there are manysigns that evidence a strong difference from Chinese way of thinking to a more western-oriented culture.1.2. General Introduction of A

8、nalysis Method and Research FrameworkIn Section Two of this paper, an extensive literature review will be deployed todescribe the concepts and characteristics of culture and its relation to international tradeas well as the definition of education services and the role of education in economicactivi

9、ty. The Section Three section will develop a brief description of the culturaldifferences between China and the rest of the world and an overview of educationservices exports in China in the last years. Several statistics will be described andcontrasted with the existing literature. The Section Four

10、 will describe the methodologyused for the survey that was carried out in this study and present the results. Section fivewill analyze the output of the survey and test the results with an econometric model tofind relations between variables. Section 6 takes the results found from the econometricmod

11、el and contrast them with the theoretical background of the literature review and the empirical data from education services exports in China to determine whether there isan impact of culture shock on education services exports or not. Finally, section 7provides the conclusions and recommendations o

12、f this research.2. Literature review2.1. The cultureIt is impossible to determine a unique definition of culture. Numerous authorspresent different concepts of culture. Hofstede (1984) defines culture as a collectiveprogramming of minds that differentiates the members of a human group from another.H

13、e also thinks that culture is a pool of values, beliefs, behaviours, habits and attitudesthat distinguish societies. On the other hand, Kuazaqui (1999) argues that culture couldbe considered as a sum of symbols, behaviours, beliefs and habits that are deliveredfrom one generation to another. It can

14、be analyzed as a phenomenon that surroundseveryone all the time and is constantly represented and recreated by our interaction withother people or societies.While there is a long list of definitions of culture along different disciplines,most of them conceive the concept of culture as the sum of the

15、 beliefs, rules, techniques,institutions and instruments that characterize human groups. In other words, cultureconsists of common patterns of behaviour that are learned from the members of aparticular society, which represents the particular lifestyle of a specific group (Gelles,2000). Most anthrop

16、ologists also agree that:Because every person in the society has a culture, it is practically impossible totalk about people without relating them to their culture (Rodriguez, 2007). Also, everysingle country in the world has a culture that differentiates it from others. This is a keypoint to unders

17、tand the importance of culture in human relations. Since all humaninteractions are, somehow, influenced by the culture, the outcome will be also indirectlyinfluenced by it. The culture is also one of the most difficult aspects to chance.2.2. Education as Human CapitalThe issue of human capital as an

18、 input into economic development was raised asfar back as 1776 by Adam Smith. In trying to explain the cause of prosperity of nations,he isolated two factors: one, the importance of economies of scale and two, theimportance of skill formation and human qualities. The second factor is more popularkno

19、wn as human capital . Thus it is the comparative advantage in human skill, whichgives nations an edge while trading with others, rather than just a difference in physicalendowments and the amount of factors of production. (Simagby, 2008)The traditional economic perspective has been emphasized as the

20、 scaleadvantages and gains from specialization (Solow 1957). The widely known and studiedneoclassical model specified by Solow found a large residual in explaining economicgrowth. This was maybe one of the most significant contributions to addressing the roleof education from an economic perspective

21、. From this perspective, is easy to understandthat education will influence economic activities especially from an increase inproductivity.This crucial link between human capital and economic progress implies that therole of public policy in expanding education should be focused on productive activi

22、tiesand the ones that are more related with the competitive advantages in every country. Inrespect of education, the issue of the provision is closely linked to the nature of theservice, i.e. whether education is a public good or a merit good and how to ensureadequate provision. Let us briefly addre

23、ss this issue before going further.3. Culture shock and education services in China. 193.1. International trade in education services . 193.2. Culture differences between China and the rest of the world. 203.3. Characteristics of educational services exports in China . 204. Methodology. 234.1. Data

24、source . 234.1.1. The questionnaire . 234.1.2. The implementation of the survey. 244.2. Results . 245. Relation between culture shock and education services exports. 375. Relation between culture shock and education services exportsBefore analyzing any results, is important to describe the character

25、istics andlimitations of the data displayed in the previous sections. First of all, given that themethodology used in this study involved the development of a survey, the outcomeobtained is directly linked to the quality of the sample. Therefore, considering the sizeof the population and the resourc

26、es available, it was impossible to undertake a surveywith a sample that fulfils the parameters (such as size and randomness) needed to reflect100% accurate the reality. For this reason, is important to understand that the results ofthe survey don′t represent the real universe but they are good

27、 enough for be used as areference and to give some guidelines and trends. Even though the results can′t acceptor reject direct relations between variables, they are consistent enough to achieve theirmain objective: to serve as an empirical evidence of the existence of culture shock.Taking this

28、 into consideration, the data from the survey evidenced two clearbehaviours that were confirmed by a descriptive analysis of the distribution of the answers as well as a linear regression. The first one is a market difference betweenAsian students and the rest of students coming from different regio

29、ns. In average,students from Asian countries showed a lower culture shock index than any other region.The following graphic illustrates the different score for each question between Asianand non-Asian students.ConclusionsThis research has provided empirical evidence of the existence of culture shock

30、in expatriate students in China. Considering that the methodology applied in this studyfaced limitations, especially regarding the available resources for developing a surveythat accomplishes all the technical requirements for a target group with suchcharacteristics, is important to stress that the results described before should beconsidered more like reference information than confirmed facts. Ho