East Asia: cultural fundamentals and market paradigms

Although the current globalization eliminates and blurs differences between cultures in various regions, historically grounded thinking inclinations and preferences of various cultures play important role in attitudes to solutions of many world problems. Differences of cultural fundamentals between East Asian and Western countries are mirrored in numerous concepts, worldviews, hierarchy of values and are reflected in different social constructs, organization models, governance schemes as well as in economic systems and business culture. They are present both at individual and systematic approaches. Scale of dividing lines of their socio-cultural identification is so great that we can talk about different “geography of thoughts”. The paper explains historical circumstances and basic factors that have subscribed to these divergent concepts and elaborates on their manifestations in market mechanisms and economic activities of these countries.