The work on culture by Geert Hofstede is something that I’ve covered a few times on this blog over the years. He proposed various dimensions along which culture can be analyzed, one of which is the power dimension.
He created a Power Dimension Index, along which countries would be placed, from small to large. The index contains various characteristics that typically pertain to cultures at either end of the scale, and I’ll outline some below.
These cultural differences are believed, he says, to explain around 50% of the difference in reaction to various situations by managers.
A researcher from the University of Missouri would beg to differ however. In a recent study, they find that culture actually plays a small part in the behavior of managers.
Cultural management
“We all want a higher quality of life, a desirable workplace environment and meaningful work — no matter our home country,” they say. “In management theory, we focus more on leaders’ differences rather than their similarities. By analyzing the data in a new way, I found that managers across country borders and across cultures are more alike than different.”
The study saw over 6,500 managers analyzed from over 14 countries via management development seminars conducted around the world. Each student was given a series of case studies and asked for their response to the scenarios presented to them.
Each case ranged from quite simple to quite complex, with the aim being to test the participants in a range of situations and gain a better understanding of how they would behave in any situation. When the data was analyzed, it revealed that managers typically respond in the same way, regardless of the country they were from.
“We have all worked for managers that are more autocratic or more participative,” they say. “Newer research is discovering that the differences we see in these types of managers are more determined by the circumstances at hand than individual or cultural differences. Leaders, it seems, vary their responses to certain situations. Up until now, the study of these various scenarios focused on cultural differences and not necessarily on our ‘sameness.’ This interpretation not only exists in the U.S. but also in other countries where management styles are studied.”
Of course, Hofstede isn’t the only person that has spent time exploring this issue. The application of this kind of thinking is something that Russell Ackoff has devoted his life to. He suggested that power relationships in an organizational context can best be applied along two axis. The axis would allow managers to explore both the ends and the means of their particular organization.
He believed that a social system, of which of course an organization is one, can best be defined by how they sit along these two scales. Lets look at each of the four possible states:
- Ends autocratic/means autocratic – in this kind of environment, it’s common for one person to be all powerful and make decisions that affect all employees. This is best typified by dictators/monarchs, so it’s perhaps hard to visualize many organizations like this.
- Ends autocratic/means democratic – here, the ends are passed down to employees from executives, but the means of achieving those aims are more collaboratively determined. Autonomous work groups for instance are a well used example of this kind of approach.
- Ends democratic/means autocratic – this approach is not so common in the private sector, but is more so in social welfare organizations such as hospitals. After all, the patients have next to no control over the means of their treatment. Such an approach assumes that people don’t know the best means of achieving an outcome, therefore need ‘experts’ to decide for them.
- Ends democratic/means democratic – the final approach sees democracy applied throughout. This is very much the model applied in servant leadership style organizations.
There have also been studies however that suggest our employer is likely to be a bigger influence on our style than our nationality. In other words, we self select employers with our kind of behavioral norms, so an Apple employee in America is likely to be similar to one in Italy or Japan.
Given the complexity of the topic, it’s perhaps not too surprising that, to an extent, the jury remains out, but culture remains a hot topic in our organizations and so it’s undoubtedly one that will retain a lot of interest from theorists and practitioners alike.
