The Hansea-What?
Honestly, not many people would understand what I am talking about if I just address the rest of this post by talking about the Hanseatic Countries. For an easier understanding, the Hanseatic Countries are also known to be countries of Northern Europe. The Hanseatic League was an alliance for trading that established a trade monopoly along the coast of Northern Europe during the late middle ages. Hanse is made up of 190 cities in 16 countries. These countries consist of: Belgium, Germany, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russa, Scotland, Sweden, and Belarus. Hanse is still active today, and set out its principles for its activities in 2000; which are: exchange of culture and tradition, transfer knowledge, social activities and information, strengthening of economic and trading contacts, inclusion of young people, and public relations activities underscoring aspects common to the Hanseatic cities.
Hofstede, a Dutch business researcher developed framework from surveys administered to global IBM employees in the late 1960s. After collecting these survey results, he constructed five dimensions which differentiate cultures: individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity-femininity. To compare a few Hanse Countries, individualism (IDV) is the idea of a preference for a social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate family. Collectivism is the opposite, and represents a framework in which individuals can expect their relatives or groups to look after them in exchange for loyalty. The Netherlands have an IDV score of 80, Belgium 75, France and Sweden 71, Germany 67, and Estonia 60. The vast majority of the cultures in the Hanse League lean towards individualism.
On the other hand, the same cannot be said for Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS). These countries have very diverse results when being compared in this dimension. The Masculinity side represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and reward for success. The opposite is femininity, which stands for a preference for cooperation, modesty, caring, and consensus-oriented. Germany has a MAS score of 67, Belgium 54, France 43, Estonia 30, Netherlands 14, and Sweden 5. Frankly, the other three dimensions of Hofstede result in the same way, with very diverse scores for each dimension. Overall, these cultures prefer individualism, feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity, and may prefer a long-term oriented approach that is open toward societal change.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hanseatic_League
http://www.hanse.org/en/hanse-today/active-network/
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/4g88kt/eu28_countries_ranked_by_hofstedes_cultural/
Interesting approach to thinking about this collection of long-standing trading states. Of course, trade has been disrupted multiple times by wars, but the 'idea' of the Hanseatic players remains strong.
ReplyDeleteI honestly had no idea about the Hanesatic countries or the alliance that they have with 190 countries. This post gave some really great background and insight on the topic, can't wait to read more about this.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this blog post. I had no idea what the Hanseatic countries were and this blog post was very informative about information that I did not know much about. I like that you included that there are 190 cities and 16 countries that make up the Hanseatic countries. I look forward to reading more about these countries. You did a fantastic job.
ReplyDeleteI like this post a lot. I really had no clue about the Hanseatic countries until taking this class. I think you did a really great job explaining and clarifying what it actually is.
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