WTO Entry. A Cultural Perspeсtive

<p>A common English clich&eacute; states: &ldquo;When in Rome, do as Romans do&rdquo;. This collective wisdom breaks down, however, when faced with a globalization, i.e. when &ldquo;Rome&rdquo; comes to our life in England.&nbsp; Nevertheless, national cultures are still strong to protect themselves from integration. In this paper we will try to define factors that facilitate globalization, and factors that don&rsquo;t by analyzing the impact of Hofstede&rsquo;s Cultural Dimensions on the WTO entry.</p><p>To enter WTO each applicant country should sign bilateral agreement with each existing WTO member. Due to different national cultures the issue is very difficult. Hofstede&rsquo;s model helps to define cultural indices on certain cultural dimensions.&nbsp; We have tried to define the sign of impact of each cultural dimension on the time that a country needed to enter WTO since the foundation of this organization on the 1^st January, 1995.</p><p>We used linear model, pooled panel binomial model and survival analysis. The results are as follows. Cultural factors affect the WTO entry as well as their interaction with economical factors. Statistically significant factors are: power distance, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term vs. short-term orientation, indulgence vs. restraint. Power distance affects negatively on the entrance to WTO (i.e. the more is power distance the more time a country will need to enter WTO since the 1^st January, 1995), the rest of the mentioned factors affects positively. Also we showed that the cultural diversity among current WTO members has its impact on the entry for new members, as it really expands the time to entry WTO as the more members with different culture the more time needed for signing bilateral agreement with each of them.</p>