Abstract
Societies are often categorised based on cultural values, as researchers use
universalised scales to quantify them. Two prominent cultural values are social selfconstrual
(SSC; categorised as individualism versus collectivism) and time
orientation (TO; categorised as monochronism versus polychronism). It is regularly
assumed that individualistic (INDV) cultures are also monochronic (MONO), and
collectivistic (COLL) cultures are polychronic (POLY). However, compartmentalising
societies into rigid categories ignores cultural diversity. Qualitative nuances of a
culture can easily be overlooked, and unique variations or orthogonal cultural value
groupings often do not get sufficient attention. By analysing cultural values, I quantify
the similarities and differences between various cultures through the use of informal
scales, contributing to better cognisance of cultures and, consequently, crosscultural
interactions. The preceding is important, as conflict can arise when
individuals with different cultural values interact.
In this thesis I establish the novel claims that the dominant categorical groupings of
the cultural values of TO and SSC (viz. MONO+INDV and POLY+COLL) are not the
only groupings that present and that orthogonal groupings (viz. MONO+COLL and
POLY+INDV) and context-specific value variations (viz. Afro-polychronism) manifest
in multi-cultural South Africa (RSA). I theoretically introduce Afro-polychronism as an
amalgamation of Ubuntu (COLL social self-construal) and African time (POLY time
orientation). I show how the correlations between TO and SSC specific to Afropolychronism
contrast with other unique species of the genus POLY+COLL, viz. the
Arab culture and Chinese culture. Furthermore, I aim to develop a scale to measure
Afro-polychronism. I subsequently develop two different scales, viz. the Ubuntu
Inventory and the African Time Inventory. Additionally, after I identify the TO and
SSC values present in the RSA, I illustrate which conflicts tend to arise between
individuals holding diverse values and how one might minimise such conflict...