Competition and cooperation in Hong Kong: exploring the influences of collectivism and instrumental harmony

Abstract

We examine the relationships between cultural values (harmony, collectivism and individualism) and behaviours (competitive and cooperative). Instrumental harmony is distinguished from value harmony to discriminate between harmony as the end goal of interaction and harmony as a means to some other end. Hong Kong businesspeople respondents' evaluation of cooperative and competitive scenarios is used in a correspondence analysis model to map cultural values onto competitive and cooperative behaviours. The results show that the instrumental harmony cultural value is the most significant cultural value for explaining competitive and cooperative behaviours. The often researched collectivism and individualism values had little significance in explaining competitive and cooperative behaviours.