Tracing back and forth from the doctoral dissertation abstract

One of the assignments Prof M R Dixit gave us on the Management paper was to trace back and forth from a paper. I prepared the following one.

It was on

Tracing back and forth from the doctoral dissertation abstract
“Do as the Romans?
Intercultural influence processes in Intercultural Work Relationships”

By Donald L. Ferrin
Department of Strategic Management and Organization
University of Minnesota

Introduction


The most important boundaries in the world today are often subtle but all pervasive differences in cultural perspective that shape how managers from different societies conceive their role and their work.

Culture is a concept in the realm of Anthropology and Sociology. It has a material facet and a non material facet. It has an unchanging element as also a changing element. It permeates our lives every moment whether we are conscious of it or not. It is an important determinant that distinguishes an individual from another individual. Culture is the personality of the community. It is also the collective programming of the mind; in which sense it has tremendous influence in determining the personality and behavior of the individual.

Many nations harbor different cultures within it; on the other hand many cultures are now spread in different nations. Many nations share a common cultural bond; also many nations share a common culture across the borders more common than many a culture in some remote corner of the same nation. There can be subcultures within the mainstream culture as well.

What happens when two cultures meet? One can imagine a certain remote tribe on a remote island which has never been in contact with any other culture as also the modern ‘organization man’ shuttling across cultures with considerable ease.

Between these two is the fuzzy area where the ambiguities presented by differing cultures leads to functional or dysfunctional relations. Modern

industrial culture is distinguished by its uncanny desire to configure itself and retain the patterns into the most functional one in line with its predominant themes of value addition, continuous improvement and gain.

Cross cultural management is a form of negotiation, whereby persons in interactions acquire participative competence for working in a multicultural team.

Culture: definition and metaphors

Culture refers to the distinctive collective mental programming of values and beliefs within each society. It is the shared ways of thinking, feeling and reacting; shared meanings and identities; shared socially constructed environments; common ways in which technologies are used; and commonly experienced events. It is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another. In the broad sense it refers to the social context within which humans live. Culture has been defined as a fuzzy set of attitudes, beliefs behavioral conventions and basic assumptions and values that are shared by a group of people and that influence each member’s behavior and his/her interpretation of the other people’s behavior.

The predominant metaphors used are the ones of programming and the lens. The former was proposed by Hofstede and the latter by Triandis. Triandis opined that “our collective experiences within our culture provide a lens through which we see the world. This cultural lens is a metaphor of being able to put on special goggles that show the world as it appears to someone from a different cultural group”.

Culture and trade relations

Culture has been a relatively new addition to the OB literature. Increasing world trade and recent trends towards globalization has necessitated new ways of dealing with the cultural differences in business settings. The trend in the colonial days was towards cultural subjugation or least of all, an indifference towards the host culture. An attitude of ethnocentrism by the colonial power was counterbalanced by the compliance/acceptance or incipient reaction by the subject.

Modern day commerce and business involves democratic ways of negotiation, dialogue, confidence building and workable relationships. These necessitate understanding major differences and nuances of the culture of the other and hence an interest in cultural studies.

The place of Ferrin’s dissertation in the literature on culture:
It is the concern with greater understanding for the sake of functionality that drives many a researcher to the study of processes within and across organizations. Ferrin has chosen the common assumptions in the intercultural research literature to test whether cultural norms do indeed influence, influence processes in leader- subordinate relations.

An understanding of intercultural processes gains all the more relevance in the context of increased mobility of organizations and people brought about by the irreversible trend of globalization. Organizations are more and more likely to be populated by people from different nationalities and culture. Organizations are to negotiate and enter into contract with each other from different cultures. Insights into cultural nuances of the interacting cultures both at the stage of contract building as also subsequent maintenance of the contract relations would help organizations in eliminating costly misunderstandings.

In a very broader sense any insight into interacting cultures are likely to bring about long term benefits in the sense of cultural understanding and exchanges even outside organizations in the arena of world integration. This could prevent belligerent posturing that many a nation has entered into. Many attribute the emergent fundamentalist trends to a dissatisfaction with the onslaught of western culture that globalization has subtly brought in.

Content analysis of Ferrin’s dissertation.

The area of study for Ferrin is the “subtle region of interpersonal influence tactic at the intersection of cultures in dyadic intercultural environment”. Most intercultural studies examine how managerial beliefs, norms and behaviors differ across cultures, but Ferrin examines how people perceive individual beliefs and culture norms in intercultural settings, and how their perceptions are manifested in their behavior.

Inter personal influence is a key element of leadership which in turn involves compliance from another person. It is natural on human’s part to desire to reduce the uncertainty inherent in any setting and especially in a new setting. In the intercultural context, the uncertainties are accentuated by the new behaviors that might be “required or expected and old behaviors that would be considered unacceptable or inappropriate”.

Ferrin used the following ‘appropriateness cues’ and set out to study which of them actually emerged in the intercultural dyadic situation:

Individual’s beliefs. Norms of individual’s national culture.

Interaction partner’s beliefs. Norms of interaction partner’s national culture.




Findings

The options available to an actor in the intercultural setting are intercultural adjustment, interpersonal adjustment or no adjustment.

Findings from Ferrin’s study indicated that ‘people focus on balancing their own beliefs with their counterpart’s beliefs. People consistently view adjustment in their intercultural relationships as balancing own and other’s beliefs rather than own and other’s cultural norms’.

Further, ‘people in dyadic cultural work relationships inhabit coherent, socially constructed worlds in which they view behavior as a function of their own and the other’s beliefs, not their own and the other’s cultural norms’.

This supports , according to Ferrin, an earlier perspective advanced by Mc Call and Simmons ‘that people do manage to attain some fumbling consensus on the situation and thus go on to conduct their respective businesses’.


This reminds one of the situation in a train compartment, where people come together from different walks and after the initial withdrawal get on well till the end of the journey in certain tacitly accepted ways. In other words there develops certain norms of space, courtesies and boundaries till the end of the journey that is sufficient for the immediate purposes of the travelers.

‘All that is needed is a sufficient lack of disagreement about one another for each to proceed in some degree, with his own plans of action’.

Ferrin’s major contribution is breaking the assumption of adjustment being conforming to foreign culture norms or simply intercultural adjustment.

In its place the study finds out interpersonal adjustment and no adjustment as alternatives in the repertoire of behavior available to the culturally different superior and subordinate. In other words the study finds out that in inter cultural relations, ‘behavior is a function of one’s own and the other’s beliefs, not one’s own and the other’s cultural norms’.

In a way, Ferrin’s findings negate the influence of culture almost completely and leaves the individuals themselves in dyadic settings to work out an acceptable space and culture of their own to pursue their goals.

The place of culture’s influence in Management and OB literature: the past


In general all study can be traced as an attempt to provide clarity with the ultimate objective of efficiency and eliminating waste by the use of the

insights gathered from the study. This can be traced to the scientific management spirit of finding a better fit, better approach etc. However culture in organizational theory belongs to the realm of management of people.

The human relations school in particular looks at interpersonal behavior and group dynamics and its influence on organizational processes. With increasing instances of interacting cultures it has been observed that culture is a major variable influencing the domain of human relations. Specially so, since cultural environment is a determinant of personality and is in turn defined as the collective programming of a community, implying culture is the personality of the community.

Understanding the relationships leads to better prediction and control over situations involving intercultural interactions. Culture can also be related to the inductively arrived at classic fourteen principles of management, proposed by Fayol.

Some of the principles of Fayol may be related to culture by hindsight although Fayol may not specifically have linked them to culture.

For instance developing sensitivity to the importance of cultural differences creates greater understanding and therefore order as against haphazardness among practitioners. By creating the least friction possible due to cultural insensitivity there can be created an environment for greater espirit de corps. Greater discipline may also be achieved by an understanding of the human and cultural processes at work

Even culturally equitable processes and rewards may be extrapolated by hindsight. Further studies may also relate cultural determinants of initiative, another principle enumerated by Fayol.

Also by hindsight were we not watching certain (sub)cultural processes at work during the Hawthorne experiments where the group under study developed norms distinct from those set by the supervisors, when they developed terminologies such as ‘rate buster’ and ‘rate chiseler’ ?

We see therefore rudimentary references to culture and its implications implicitly in Fayol and Hawthorne experiments.

Culture per se
Hofstede’s dimensions of culture

The legacy of culture being studied as a specific management concept begins with the seminal work of Geert Hofstede in the 70s. Hofstede conducted extensive studies in IBM company spread over nearly 50 countries and arrived at the four dimensions which he claimed universal and comprehensively explaining the domain of culture. These dimensions are as follows:

Power distance: Refers to the extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. The basic problem involved is the degree of human inequality that underlies the functioning of each particular society. In high power distance cultures power and authority are accepted as part of life and consequently high value is placed on obedience to superiors and following orders. In low power distance culture, individuals value equality and may question the orders of superiors before following them.

Uncertainty avoidance: Postulates that a fundamental dimension of any culture is the level of tolerance it has for uncertainty and ambiguity. It is the extent to which a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising and different from usual. Cultures high in this dimension value conformity, maintain rigid codes of belief and behavior and do not tolerate deviation, while cultures low in the dimension maintain a more relaxed atmosphere where deviance is more easily tolerated. Basic problem involved is the degree to which a society tries to control the uncontrollable.

Individualism-Collectivism: It is the degree to which individuals are supposed to look after themselves or remain integrated into groups, usually around the family. Individualistic cultures place emphasis on the achievements, initiative and goals of the individual, while collectivistic cultures subordinate those to group membership and the goals of the group. Positioning itself between these poles is a very basic problem that is faced by all societies.

Masculinity-Femininity: This dimension addresses the fundamental issue of the way a society allocate social roles to the sexes. Cultures high in masculinity tends to maximize the social differentiation between the sexes. Men have outgoing and assertive roles and women have caring and nurturing roles. Culture high in femininity tended to minimize the social
differentiation between the sexes. Women can take assertive roles and men can take the caring roles. Fundamental problem is the distribution of emotional roles between the genders.

A fifth dimension long term vs short term orientation was also introduced recently. This refers to the extent to which a culture programs its members to accept delayed gratification of their material, social and emotional needs.

Culture: an alternative framework by Edward T. Hall

Three important dimensions about cultural differences that Hall described include: time, context, and space.

Time: "Time is one of the fundamental bases on which all cultures rest and around which all activities revolve. Understanding the difference between monochronic time and polychronic time is essential to success..." Monochronic time is characterized as linear, tangible, and divisible. In monochronic time, events are scheduled one item at a time and this schedule takes precedence over interpersonal relationships.

Polychronic time, on the contrary, is characterized by "the simultaneous occurrence of many things and by a great involvement with people".
Context: High and low context refers to the amount of information that a person can comfortably manage. This can vary from a high context culture where background information is implicit to low context culture where much of the background information must be made explicit in an interaction.


People from a high context culture often send more information implicitly, have a wider "network," and thus tend to stay well informed on many subjects. People from low context cultures usually verbalize much more background information, and tend not to be well informed on subjects outside of their own interests.

Space: Here, space refers to the invisible boundary around an individual that is considered "personal." This sense of personal space can include an area, or objects, that have come to be considered that individual's "territory." This sense of personal space can be perceived not only visually, but "by the ears, thermal space by the skin, kinesthetic space by the muscles, and olfactory space by the nose"

The grip of Hofstede’s dimensions on the cross cultural management literature is almost complete. In the many academic programs dealing with cross cultural studies Hofstede is essential reading and Hall is recommended reading.

Culture’s influences: other studies

One of the fundamental and dominant themes in OB, motivation, has upon empirical validation, suggested cultural influences. Motivation is one of the basic processes at the individual level. Yet upon examination has been found to vary in detail across cultures.

For instance the ‘self actualization’ postulate of Maslow hinges heavily on the idea of the individual and the self as something that is sacrosanct and unique and something that should be driven towards actualization. However, the actualization of the individual in some cultures different from the milieu

from which Maslow himself comes, was found to be viewed as something to be subordinated to the collective interests. Indeed, had Maslow come from a collectivistic society, he would not have chosen the individual as the unit of analysis, but the collective! In studies conducted among Japanese for instance, the belongingness needs were found to be preponderant over the esteem needs.

This implied that the universality of the theories emanating from the individualistic west was suspect and some other factor moderated the hierarchy or precedence of motivating factors (and possibly other aspects of behavior) and clearly this factor was the context of the individual namely, culture. Therefore culture became something as fundamental as the individual himself in understanding and predicting human behavior.

Another effort which studied motivation in the context of culture was that of David Mc Clelland. He studied achievement motivation and postulated that the same leads to success in business. Carrying the notion forward he suggested that the same is true for the economy a country or the world as a whole. He summarized his findings in his book titled “The Achieving Society”. Mc Clelland’s methodology was a content analysis of children’s books.

In a replication study of Hofstede on relationship between national culture and Customer Relationships Management (CRM) training in aviation industry conducted among 9000 male commercial pilots in 18 countries, power distance and uncertainty avoidance were identified as the most correlated with theoretical predictions.

In the same study, individualism scores were higher than the respective country scores. Explanation being that modernization may have produced shift towards more individualistic values in their countries or may be only pilots because of the self selection of pilots into a very individualistic profession. Also some supports were established for the perception that pilots the world over share the same values. In all countries pilots are at the forefront of their culture with regard to technology and global communication.

Hofstede’s dimensions have also been used as a guideline for first contact situations with foreign law enforcement agencies across cultures for special agents of the Air Force office of special Investigations(AFOSI) during military contingency operations.

For instance, law enforcement agencies high in uncertainty avoidance may establish tight network of reliable informants. Conversely law enforcement forces willing to tolerate a great deal of uncertainty and ambiguity may assume a more reactive posture.

The above illustrates a few instances where the study of culture was made to provide practical tips to practitioners. Almost in all the studies, the grip of the Hofstedian dimensions is palpable.

Hofstede’s main contribution is in providing a theoretical framework for applying the influence of culture in managerial phenomena across countries. Before Hofstede, until 1980 most of the work were atheoretical, simply comparing managerial phenomena in different countries.


The underlying assumptions of culture studies

One of the interesting features of the dominant paradigms in cultural studies is the assumption that the whole gamut of culture with its innumerable diversity is possible to be captured in just four or five dimensions. Does it not leave out many other aspects that may still need explanation?

Application of culture in the work context implicitly assumes that people do not abandon their societal values and attitudes upon entering the office or the factory. While what is implied in the concern with compartmentalistion of modern man’s existence is to some degree the opposite.

Another strong assumption, almost a truism, is the recognition of international management as an activity which has evolved into some form of work requiring interactive global networking, team working and organizational learning.

The unfilled gaps: themes for the future

An analysis of culture studies suggests the following themes for the future of the domain.

1.Future work should bring about better theories about culture identifying which aspects of Management phenomena are “universal and which are culture specific”.

Much work remains to be done in developing cultural dimensions in such a
way as to serve as parameters to describe specific phenomena such as

leadership so that one is able to predict, say, X leadership style fits well with Y culture. Similarly fit between person, task and managerial phenomena with culture can also be developed.

2.The development of a new paradigm which can be more easily amenable to practical application is warranted. Indeed one of the comments on Hofstede is that the work is too broad as to be open to more day to day applicability.

There is an ever louder voice among the practitioners for a ‘shift from the essentialist approach of Hofstede which make it hard to develop new approaches and therefore a plea for new cultural frameworks’.

For instance there is a vague precipitation around the idea of knowledge and an emanating explicit distinction between the more self seeking American styles of learning, knowledge sharing and the Asian and continental European cultures whose practices are group based.

One new dimension which probably is relevant is the doing orientation vs being orientation.

3.The cross cultural studies still originate from the individualistic west. More studies from the rest of the world should throw better light on cross cultural aspects. The individualistic west still sees through the individualistic goggles.

4.The discourse on culture is “preoccupied with the properties of individual

elements than with the product of their combinations, assumption being that end result in combining is something unpleasant”. Increasingly it has been observed that such situations produce a third culture which is a functional cultural hybrid. Study of individual cultures is comparative whereas what is warranted is a study of the hybrid. This would require an “embracing of culture in all its diversity as a resource rather than a threat for responding to the demands of a global economy and for reaping the full benefit of cross boarder alliances and for enhancing organizational learning”.

This would also necessitate a study of the elements of culture and the development of a “cultural periodic table” in much the same way as the periodic table of chemistry, from which it should be able to predict the characteristics of the hybrid.

5. Increasingly a third culture cutting across ethnicities, languages and religion is precipitating around the youth at the technical and modernized forefront of different nations. This is distinct from the subcultures within societies. In fact members of this third culture tend to gravitate towards each other and away from their cousins in their own culture. More studies need to be done in this area.

6.What about the cultures that are outside the purview of the industrial– business complex? Most studies are concentrated around these. Will the marginalization of the rest create newer issues for the world or is the world moving irreversibly towards a dominant business culture where efficiency in work and consumption are the only concerns?


Within the industrial – business complex there is an increasing need to regard actors against concrete background of organizational functions, real industries and real problems away from the broadly definable cultural terms of Hofstede.

7.It is high time for a new paradigm for explaining more subtle differences within a large country such as India. Some of the dimensions tentatively put forward are:

Entrepreneurial orientation,
Intellectual orientation,
Progressiveness vs conservatism,
Isolation vs assimilation,
Individual orientation vs social orientation
Toughness.

8. In terms of practical application cultural studies still hover around the nominal differences rather than the systematic divergence region. An example of the nominal differences problem is that of the name NOVA given by general Motors to one of its products and sent to Mexico. Inquiries on the reason for poor sales revealed that in the Spanish language the name means “it does not go”.

The emic-etic dilemma is inherent in cross cultural research as to be cultural requires the emic perspective and cross requires the etic perspective. However both offer their own problems.



The emic perspective implies one looks from one’s own paradigm much like the fish looks at himself through the medium of water. The etic perspective means the perspective of the outsider.

The natural born who looks at his own culture from the outside lives the precarious life of an outcast. Whereas the fish analogy implies that the fish is aware of the water only when it is out of it!

Till such time such problems are resolved (which is indeed difficult), the cross cultural research will have to content with resolving problems of the nominal differences rather than the systematic differences.

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