Argentina and Culture - Soccer as an indicator?

                

 

Every country is unique in a certain way. And to understand the culture of a country you must have experienced this culture. Culture is something that is so extent, that in order to opinion about it you need to be very focused. For example, by comparing one specific aspect of the culture with the culture you know best -- that of you native country.

Without this focus, Argentinean culture would give an enormous amount of views. Ask for example someone in the street about Argentina and you will hear: Tango. And maybe also, Buenos Aires, Evita, Military Coups, Borges, Once one of the Wealthiest countries or ... Maradona, Soccer.

Culture is about what keeps people together in a community or society (the internal aspect). How strong is this internal binding? But culture is also about how this group interacts with others groups and cultures. For the first aspect it is important to know that Argentina is a country with a very high historic immigration level:

• "In the peak period of the world?s oversee migration, 1821-1932, six countries absorbed 90 per cent of the total, and among these six, Argentina ranked second in the number of immigrants, with a total of 6,405,000. Between 1857 and 1958 the main source of immigrants to Argentina were Italy and Spain accounting for 46 and 33 percent, respectively, of the total. (www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1990/1/90.01.06.x.html)

Despite this high level of immigration, the Argentinean culture is quite (and comparatively) strong. For the second element -- the interaction of the group with / against others -- Argentina is very much a competing culture, whereas the Dutch culture is much more consensus based and cooperative. The fighting spirit -- so to say -- is much more part of the Argentinean culture that that of the Dutch.

Argentina won the world cup twice. The first time they could celebrate in 1978 (against The Netherlands) and the second time in 1986, they were too strong for West Germany. Holland participated twice in the world cup finals. In both cases they finished second best. This is where they could learn from the Argentinean Culture.

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management tools. Have a look at some of our free management tools