Pawel & Andrew & Girts
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Featured
Get to know the guys.
Andrew is a 19 year old student who grew up in Germany with an Italian mother and a Scottish father. He now lives in the Hague studying ISPM at the university of applied sciences. He is keen to learn about new cultures and is starting with Latvia learning about it from Girts. Girts is a 24… Read more
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Conclusions
To conclude our blog we have plotted all cultural dimensions if both us and our countries on a graph. We were curious to see how our dimensions compared to those of our countries and, having spoken a lot about the individual countries, we wanted a visual representation of the differences and similarities in our cultures.… Read more
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Leadership and decision making
The environment in which people work is highly dependent on where they are and how leadership and decision making is viewed in that culture, may it be the culture of the country or of the business. We spoke about this and decided it comes down to three variables that, in general, decide the way a… Read more
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feedback
Even though Latvia, Scotland and Poland end up on the same end of the scale for the High and low context ideas of Hofstede we discussed how they are rather different when it comes to feedback and how they prefer to receive negative feedback. In Latvia it is very important not to openly criticize colleagues… Read more
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Language
Language is a key component. Basic background of Latvian language. Latvian language is the official language of Latvia with around 1.3 million native speakers and 100 thousand abroad. Although Latvia has around 2 million inhabitants only 62% percent used it as their primary language at home. Latvian has some dialects, but you can barely hear… Read more
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Country Comparison via Hofstede Insights
Using Hofstede insights we discussed our countries and our cultural differences. The results were not that surprising for the guys to be honest. Both Andrew, Girts and Pawel knew that all nationalities are individualists by them self. The masculinity gap were a little surprising but we came to conclusion not every nation can be like… Read more
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Week 1
Brief Introduction.
Andrew
Andrew is a 19 year old student who grew up in Germany with an Italian mother and a Scottish
father. He now lives in the Hague studying ISPM at the university of applied sciences. He is keen to learn about new cultures and is starting with Latvia learning about it from Girts.
Girts is a 24 year old student from Riga, Latvia. Born and raised in Latvia but since age of 19 have lived all over the world. He is an former professional basketball player who has lived in multiple countries such as United States of America, Italy, Ireland, Latvia and now the Netherlands. Girts is interested to learn about Scottish culture and especially their whiskey.
Scotland
Scotland is a country very well known for its beautiful landscapes and of course for its Whisky. Scotland is the most northern of the United kingdom with a population of 5.4 million and there has always been a rivalry with their English neighbors in the south with wars dating back to the
formation of Scotland, illustrated in the very famous film Braveheart which tells the story of William Wallace leading the Scot rebellion against the English. This portion of history is rather important as Scotland is still not independent despite almost 1000years of on and off war. The Scots are also known for their interesting food, clothes, music, dancing and excessive swearing. It is also the home of the Loch ness monster, nicknamed Nessie by the Inverness locals. Many inventors like sir Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered penicillin; Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone; and many other inventions like the television, Bicycles, and the steam engine.
Latvia
Riga is the capital of Latvia. Country of Latvia just turned 101 years old. Latvia is a former soviet union country and has been independent since 1991. Latvia has ethnic and linguistic ties to Lithuania, but not Estonia. Estonia is actually has more in common with Nordic countries than Baltic ones. 44% of Latvia territory is forested. Latvia ranked the 2nd tallest nation in the world.Latvias internet speeds are among the fastest in the world –13.8MB/s. Latvia produces more female models per capita that almost any country in the world.
Language
Latvia and Scotland Culture Blog 