An Exploratory Study On The Cultural Values Of China's Post-1980s Generation-Examining The Effects Of Nationality, Employment, Gender And Age With Hofstede's Latest Vsm08

China's post-1980s generation, a generation group born in the rapid social transition, has long been a controversial topic in various newspaper and publications in the Chinese mass media, yet academically the cultural value constructs of this specific group doesn't seem to have had enough attention. Therefore, the thesis research is set out in an attempt of filling the gap in academic studies concerning the values of China's post-1980s generation as a specific cultural group and deepening people's understanding on the values of this specific generation.The effects of nationality, employment, gender and age were examined in two phases using the latest VSM08 instrument developed by Professor Hofstede. Post-survey interviews were conducted for the purpose of reconfirm the findings while testing and exploring the background reasons and social factors which might influence their choices.Results in the first phase show significant difference on individualism and masculinity from respondents of different nationality. Compared with past findings, Chinese are still more toward the collectivism pole than the Americans, yet the distance between the two seems to be shortened. China also gets a higher score on masculinity than their American counterparts, which reveals a tendency of the Chinese towards the masculinity pole. On the other five dimensions, China scores higher on PDI and UAI, lower on LTO, and appear to be on a similar level on IVR and MON compared with the US, which, in comparison with past findings, indicate a decrease on power distance and long-term orientation in China, an increase on uncertainty avoidance, indulgence and monumentalism.Results in the second phase show that whether the people in the post-1980s generation have an employment does not have a significant effect on their value orientations. The effects of gender on value orientation were found on the individualism index only, where males score significantly higher than females. The effects of age were found on the long-term orientation index only, where the younger group scores much higher than the elder group. No significant difference was found on all the other six dimensions, which shows the consistency of value orientations of people in the same age group.