ABSTRACT
The standard view of culture: a set of practices In the sociological tradition, the notion of culture was long linked to the notion of community, in the sense given to this term where one compares community (Gemeinschaft) – in which each individual’s existence is governed by a set of inherited beliefs and standards that impose themselves on the individual – to society (Gesellschaft) – a free association of individuals attached to their interests and masters of their values (Tönnies 1887; Weber 1922). Culture is then seen as being on the side of community. It is assumed to be associated with customs, traditions, and the inherited values that legitimate them. Even when social sciences place the emphasis on the role of actors (agency), they continue to associate the notion of culture with clearly defined behaviours.
Thus, A. Giddens’ structuration theory (1984) is oriented in this direction. The existence of habitual ways of acting, of routines, is at the heart of the theory. Actors are seen as generally following these routines and likely to modify them constantly. Hence, culture is seen as largely created by actors. The classic approaches to the relationship between culture and development have been inspired by such a vision. Thus, for North (1987: 421), culture is linked to ‘communities of common ideologies and of a common set of rules that all believe in’. And, for Douglas (2004), culture is ‘a way of thinking that justifies a way of living’. Yet, the observation of how companies operate, in both developed and developing countries, reveals another dimension of culture: a framework of meaning that is both inherited and compatible with very diverse practices.2 This plays a large role in questions of economic efficiency, and thus of development.
