3 December, 2025 ___________ This week’s class was about politics, a topic I find especially interesting because I follow politics in the Netherlands. Over the last few years, many people, including me, have lost trust in how politics works in my country. Before elections, politicians say nice and hopeful things, but too often those promises are forgotten afterwards. The political system in the Netherlands works with a democratic, plural-party system: there are several major parties and voters choose between left, center, or right. For more than ten years, right-leaning parties were often in power. Over the last one and a half years, a more extreme right party gained influence, but they still failed to deliver on many promises, eventually a centrist-left coalition won with a narrow margin of about 30,000 votes. In class I also learned something surprising about citizenship law in Japan. Many people (myself included) thought that if your family bloodline has no Japanese ancestor, y...
30 September - Week 2 _______ We discussed this session mainly about the differences in work culture and everyone's perspective on what they prefer and expect from their work (culture). I answered some questions during the session about: the amount of hours I want to work, work-life balance, company cultures values etc. For me the most important parts are the pay & benefits, as that is my motivation to go to work, but also nice colleagues/atmosphere at the company to have at least fun time at work. The remarkable point is that there is a big difference between the Dutch and Japanese work culture, for example the Dutch work culture is more socialized and mostly informal, while the Japanese work culture is more formal and working a lot independently. The video showed a daily life of a salaryman in Japan, working in an international company. He works in a small office, with 7 employees. Remarkable is for example the coffee rule/habit, either a woman does it before she star...
8 October - Week 4 ____________ Today we looked into Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, focusing on power distance, which is the extent to which people at the bottom of an organization accept that power is distributed unequally. What stood out to me was the idea that power distance doesn’t actually lie with those at the top, but with those at the bottom. In other words, leaders can only lead if the people below them allow it. This really changed how I view hierarchy, but it is not just about authority, but about acceptance and trust from both sides. Hofstede explained that in large power distance cultures, people think inequality is normal, that is just how society works. In smaller power distance cultures, like in the Netherlands, we believe everyone should be treated fairly, and that power should be used responsibly. I recognize this in Dutch work culture: we call our managers by their first name, and we like to make decisions together instead of just being told what to do. The int...
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