International and Comparative Human Resource Management Essay - 2

International and Comparative Human Resource Management - Essay Example Through the cluster analysis, Sparrow together with other fellow researchers was able to cluster the countries of the world into five distinctive cultural zones. The identified clusters were cultural Island 1, 2, and 3, Anglo-Saxon cluster, and Latin cluster. Cultural Island 1 cluster comprised of France, cultural Island 2 comprised of Korea, and cultural Island 3 comprised of Japan. The other two remaining clusters of Anglo-Saxon and Latin comprised of UK, Australia, Canada, USA, Germany and Italy for Anglo-Saxon cluster and Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico for Latin cluster. This academic paper will categorically look at distinguishing cultural characteristics of Korea and UK. The two selected countries fall under cultural Island 2 cluster and Anglo-Saxon cluster respectively. Culture of the United Kingdom The cultural classification of United Kingdom comprises of patterns of symbolism and human activity, some of the cultures which were practiced in the UK are; Language As in the case of other nations and states, the language of the UK is English. This language is spoken by close to 90% of the total residents. Some countries which form the framework of UK like Wales at times use their national Welsh language more so in schools (Calder, 2007 pp.21). Use of languages like Gaelic has also been popularized in countries like Scotland; however, English has remained the official language in the entire UK. Arts UK is known for arts in terms of literature where some of the renowned poets like William Shakespeare hail from this great country. The culture of literature was inherited from countries like England and Scotland. The earlier existing written literatures were drafted in languages like Celtic and Anglo-Saxon. Theatre Dating back to 1707, UK was able to inherit theatre culture from Scotland and England and they were able to create a theatre district called West End (Calder, 2007 pp.31). This district was found in West End of London and it was the home of known thea tre halls like Theatre Royal and Convent Garden. Music Use of patriotic songs like Rule, Britannia and the national anthem of God Save the Queen are some of the songs that are dominant in the UK. UK has many music composers and use of several genres like jigs, hornpipes, and dance songs were some of the customary components of the folk songs. Film was also one of the UK cultures where it had some of the most skilful films actors and producers like James Bond. Religion Protestant is the religion found in the UK; moreover, Anglican Christian is dominant in this country followed by other religions like Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Sikhism (Calder, 2007 pp.47). Culture of Korea Korea was divided into two countries North and South Korea; however, some of the distinguishing cultures of Korea are Traditional arts Traditional arts comprise of the traditional dance, painting, crafts, and ceramics, all these categories played an important role in the traditional arts. Dance Korea h ad two distinguish dancing styles which are folk and court dance. Some of the dances are jeongjaemu and ilmu dance which were performed in banquets and rituals respectively. Jeongjaemu dance was auxiliary distributed into instinctive dances such as jeongjae and dangak and the two styles were inherited from Asia and China. The common dance of Ilmu was also divided into munmu also called civil dance and mumu also known as military dance (John, 2002 pp.170). During the dancing festivals, traditional clothing called genja was worn, Genja clothing had several