On Cultural Value Orientations Of Contemporary Chinese College Students In The Light Of Hofstede's Value Dimensions

Increasing globalization and intercultural communication are gaining more attention every day. As the core of intercultural communication study, cultural values directly influence both the process and results of communication. With different cultural backgrounds, Chinese and Western cultural values are not the same. We admit such differences, at the same time, we should take the dynamic features of cultural values into consideration, giving emphasis on the development trend of Chinese and Western cultural values. With the newest and the most advanced thought, the cultural value orientations of contemporary college students can represent the development trend of cultural values. This thesis make an analysis on the cultural value orientations of Chinese contemporary college students in the light of five value dimensions developed by Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede.This thesis falls into seven parts:Introduction; Chapter One Literature Review; Chapter Two Theoretical Background; Chapter Three Research Design; Chapter Four Data Analysis; Chapter Five Findings and Implications; and Conclusion.Introduction points out the significance of the study and the meaning in the study of the cultural value orientations of contemporary Chinese college students. Chapter One begins with a general explanation of the definition of cultural value orientation. This is followed by review of previous studies on the theory. Then, Chapter Two makes a detailed introduction to Hofstede's five value dimensions. The following section talks about the applications of the value dimensions. Chapter Three introduces the research questions, purpose, subjects, method and procedure respectively. Altogether,400 participants have taken the survey and 10,400 survey items have been collected for data analysis. Chapter Four analyzes the data according to the perspective of five value dimensions. Chapter Five investigates the cultural value orientation of Chinese contemporary college students and concludes the implication for the third culture. Based on the four chapters, the last part arrives at the conclusion that the integration between Chinese and Western cultural values lays foundation for the third culture.