Culture, values, and economic development: analysis of some concepts

The article gives an overview of some concepts (L. Harrison, M. Grondooni, M.Porter, J.Sax) concerning the influence of culture, values on economic development. The concept of “economic culture” as a set of values, representations, beliefs, habits, stereotypes of behaviour, which are realized in the economic sphere of the society and related to the economic activity has been singled out. Different levels, basic factors, and the typology of values have been described in the economic culture.

It has been revealed that values, customs, traditions are the basis of the whole, around which the institutes of management are formed, act indirectly through the structure of incentives and manifest themselves in the long-term period. Values are formed and transformed in the historical development of the society. These processes are associated with changes in various spheres of human activity and their time scales do not coincide with the scale of socio-economic, political and other changes. In the process of socio-economic transformation of the country, the crisis covers the economic development. It can be overcome by creating the climate favourable to investment, competition and innovation in the country. A nation will do this if its value system is dominated by values that contribute to such a climate. This can not be achieved by inclining, administrative pressure. It is shown as a possible way — through the mutual influence of cultures, gradual, reasonable borrowing, through the development of civil society, through awareness of the active minority of the society of the need for changes in this direction and the inducement by their own example of the rest of society, the authorities can change them to move in this direction.

The idea has been formulated that it is difficult to separate the behaviour induced by culture from the behaviour, which is strengthened or encouraged by the economic system — there is an interplay between cultural and economic factors. The study of the sources of economic growth will be more thorough if we introduce other factors into the model — geography, politics, globalization.

Keywords: culture, values, economic culture, economic development.