About national character and "a model person" to be taken into account in management

Abstract

In scientists’ opinion, national character study within one or another society must be expressed in investigation of some personal characteristics incidence, while “a model person” is such a type, to which the majority of given society members must belong. It is believed that totally different types are represented in each nation, but one of them are of frequent occurrence and others are seldom or very rare. Despite the fact that in some cases empirical data confirm hypothesis of modal persons’ existence, it became obvious that there should be much more intracultural differences (between different population classes and strata) than intercultural ones. On other side, it turned out that “modal person: is a complex of distinctive signs peculiar to one part of nation, in opposition to its other part and respectively, question of national character as a unity of behavioral, emotional and other characteristics peculiar to each member of nation, either had to be taken off or raised in completely different manner. This fact led Inkeles and Levinson to pessimistic conclusion: “With the current limited state of knowledge and research methods, it cannot be asserted that any nation has a national character”. The situation was aggravated by the fact that when speaking about national character, some people imply temperament first of all, while others pinpoint attention upon personality traits and still others emphasize value orientations etc. Consequently, despite the existence of different approaches to this problem and more than six decades of research, there are currently totally different views not only on what the national character is, but also on its existence at all, whether it is a more important trait than those elements of personality which unite all the people worldwide, or those which distinguish even the individuals, which are the most similar to each other. As a result, despite the existence of different approaches to this problem and more than sixty years of research, there are currently completely different viewpoints not only on what national character is, but also on whether it exists at all, whether it is a more important trait than those elements of personality that unite all people in the world, or those that distinguish even the individuals most similar to each other.