Declaration of Brugges: Cultural Diversity, The Economic, Democratic and Cultural Foundation of Europe 2002
"Culture as a Motor for the Economy:
For a long time in the science of economics and in European diplomacy, culture was presented in a noble and valuable element of the society but one that contributed more costs than benefits. "Culture" was and is seen too much as derivatory in the economy by trade and industry, by the governmental authorities, and by the economists. This can also be noted in the European project where cultural diversity is experienced as a brake on integration and where the cultural dimension is always thrust aside because of economic and political considerations. This is gradually changing. In trade and industry, the academic world, and the government, people are beginning to comprehend more and more how enormously important the cultural component is for our society.
Prof. Garelli of the IMD Business School in Geneva, who is also director of the DAVOS competitiveness index, declared at the Flemish Quality Congress on November 18th that "the cultural diversity of Europe is its greatest economic trump card"! According to Prof. Garelli, the ability to manage cultural diversity in the 21st century constitutes a competitive advantage over Japan and the USA because of increasing internationalisation. The USA, with its "melting pot" situation, is not sufficiently capable of approaching the markets sensitively and of working efficiently with partners from other cultures. The melting-pot society has made the Anglo-Saxon culture even more dominant, and this attitude of American managers and policy people will generate increasing resistance in the rest of the world. Japan, Korea, Taiwan have built their economic power from the safety of their homogenous domestic markets. This cultural model, too, will cause strategic handicaps in the approaching of other markets.
"Dealing with other cultures" in the organisation of production, in the approaching of the markets, in the concluding of partnership agreements, and in working with the various authorities from so many countries will become a 'know-how' with an ever increasing surplus value in the coming decades.
Hence, also from the economic standpoint, Europe has every interest in cultivating the 'management of cultural diversity' instead of striving for an American dominance model of falling back on an Asiatic homogenous model out of misunderstood motives of efficiency.
This 'intercultural management knowledge' as a trump card fits into the wider, new economic management theory of Davos, where the 'value system' of a company and a country becomes a decisive determinant in the competitive struggle. In fact, 'culture' is becoming the hitherto underestimated and underexploited production factor, joining labour, capital, raw materials and technology.
Indeed, the cultural value system describes:
a. why in one country the same amount of capital becomes "RISK" capital and in the other country "RENTIER" capital;
b. why the same labour potential in two countries differs in commitment, motivation, flexibility, solidarity, etc.
c. why countries with equal amounts of raw-material resources either invest in bold vertical integration or are content with cashing in on their reserves;
d. why technological innovation is pushed over there by a drive for education and creativity and elsewhere it is only nodded to, pro form.
In our world economy, the cultural factor will represent an ever larger share of the added value. Europe must draw its conclusions from this, and rethink its economic policy from this point of view.
By introducing this cultural dimension explicitly and consequently in all facets of the European economic policy, a new dynamism can be launched.
Source: Note 3, Cultural Driven Market Economy by Kris Rogiers
Con etiqueta:
arts, culture, culture management, diversity, intercultural management
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