Cultural determinants in Chile – the land of great ambitions

Chile is commonly described as “the best student” in the Latin America class. In 1985 Harrsion with his publication Underdevelopment is a state of mind [Lawrence, 1985] started research on the significance of cultural determinants in economic development. Having based his research on two examples, he proved his thesis that culture is a determining obstacle in the development of Latin American states. Causing many discussions, he initiated a wide range of socio-economic research, the aim of which was to present to what degree and what kind of cultural factors shape political and economic development, and which ones lead to social stagnation. Further research by Harisson and Huntington which was published in their work Culture matters [Lawrence, 2000] presented a wide spectrum of interconnections of culture with civilization development, institutions and geographic conditions. The scientific discourse includes the phenomenon of cultural changes promotion as an element of the pro-development policy as well as anthropological considerations on the influence of “cultural imperialism” of Europe and the States in the globalization era on the preservation of societies’ cultural identity. Many publications in the area of research on cultural conditions in management and negotiations appeared in the 1990s. This scientific discourse has gathered its own momentum as the amount of research brings about the increase of connections of interdisciplinary cultural determinants.