In relation to organization and management of people, I have included only the aspects of managerial work on which managers have a direct influence. The respondents were asked to prioritize 16 managerial tasks on which they put emphasis in their daily work. We found that all four cultural dimensions seem to correlate strongly with about half of these tasks.
In order to further our understanding of the groupings of the various managerial tasks, a factor analysis was performed from which four factors emerged:
1. Bureaucratic management, i.e. tools such as development and implementation of new routines and work methods as well as ensuring that rules and regulations are followed. This factor includes providing guidance to subordinate staff and supplying the mayor with technical advice. These preferred management activities do not include attempts to influence the decision-making since this item loads negatively in this factor.
2. Management activities oriented towards the organizational process are loaded together in a second factor. Preferred tasks are ensuring that resources are used efficiently and attracting resources from external sources.
The factor includes tasks in relation to the management of affairs, accounts and budgetary control as well as the formulation of ideas and visions.
3. A third factor covers preferred managerial activities towards cooperative relationship management such as solving human relationships and giving the mayor political advice. The factor also includes tasks such as information
about the citizens' viewpoints, but also includes cooperation between departments and the formulation of ideas and visions.
4. Management tasks regarding norms in respect to the proper roles of politicians and cooperation between departments are normative aspects of management.
Table 6-4. Four Ways of Managing Develop and implement new routines and work methods
Ensure that rules and regulations are followed
Guide subordinate staff Give the Mayor technical advice influence decision-making processes
Bureaucratic Process Cooperation Normative .94
.82 .81 .60 -..67
Attract resources from external sources .86 Promote and encourage new projects in the .76 community
Manage economic affairs, accounts and .70 budgetary control
Formulate ideas and visions .65
Solve human relationships .75 Give the mayor political advice .72 Be informed about citizens' viewpoints .64 Cooperation between departments .62 Formulate ideas and visions .58*
Norms concerning the proper roles of .91 politicians
Cooperation between departments .59*
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Loadings beyond .55 are shown in the table for simplicity.* second loading
Table 6-5. Dimensions of National Cultures and fours ways of managing people
Power Distance Uncertainty Individualism Masculinity Avoidance
B ureacratic N: 14 Process N:14 Cooperation N: 14 Normative N: 14
,30 ,03 -,28***
-,30
,30**
-,19 -,23 -,56*
-,52*
,03 ,42*
,17
,47*
,17 ,08 -,25
* Kendall's tau correlation significant at the 0.01 level
** Kendall's tau coUelation significant at the 0.05 level
*** Kendall's tau coUelation significant at the 0.10 level
116 Chapter 6
To sum up our findings, we can recap the propositions. In proposition 1, we stated that if employees have a high tolerance for authority and a high degree of uncertainty avoidance, then we would expect to see a preference of managers to select direct supervision and formalization or standardization as a means of coordination.
We found that traditional tasks of management, including formalization and direct supervision tasks, were positively correlated with power distance and even stronger with uncertainty avoidance. Correlations with the two remaining cultural dimensions indicate that relations which were not included in the propositions may be at stake here. This is particularly the case of the positive relationship between masculinity and choice of traditional ways of managing people.
In proposition 2, we stated that if employees have a low tolerance for authority and a low degree of uncertainty avoidance, then we would expect to see a preference of managers to select a low degree of direct supervision and mutual adaptation as a means of coordination.
We found that politicking, i.e. using influence as a managerial task, was negatively correlated with power distance and uncertainty avoidance. If a low degree of power distance and a low degree of uncertainty is present, then managers tend to have a preference for politicking.
6. INFORMING THE THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
This chapter has mainly been data driven. The analysis of the data has helped to enlarge the contingency theory. This analysis has provided a rare insight into the interplay between differences in national cultures and variations on some dimensions of management behaviour.
Our data from the UdiTE project is a strong source of information, like the respondent was at the very same organizational apex in 14 Western countries (large, closely matched sample), providing information about values; management behaviour and organizational characteristics form the same organization (rich data). Our results were supported by results from other smaller studies of often partial nature.
The nature of causality related to culture is, however, still not clearly understood. A way to pursue this relation is to study national culture within multi-contingency theory. This expectation is based on the results of this study as well as earlier research.
7. INFORMING THE PRACTICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
The chapter informs the practice of organizational design in a number of ways. For instance, using fits between cultural dimensions and management behavior may turn out to be conductive to organizational performance as misfits may turn out to be counterproductive. However, the choice of fit between cultural characteristics and forms of management behaviour may turn out to be a sound choice as point of departure in a global business context, where the time to learn new cultures is limited, as most important markets have to be addressed simultaneously. In short, a fit between culture and other variables is a good thing to work toward in the global business context. A misfit should consequently not be a good thing and should be avoided.
Moreover, it may turn out to be tricky to use fits and misfits in the practice of organizational design. If you distinguish between values and practices in respect to using this information on culture in practice, values are assumed to be relatively more stable than practices. In other words, we are embedded in the values of the national culture in which we spent the years of primary education, either by birth or by parental choice.
However, organizational practices can be learned. Learned practices may fit or misfit with cultural values. We are, as it was formulated in a BBC review of Hofstede's Culture's Consequences (1980), imprisoned by our national culture (Jacobsen, 1981). Managerial and organizational practices may change more freely than cultural values
Also, the concept of fit and misfit is likely to act differently in relation to culture in comparison to other situation variables. Because of the nature of culture, cultural differences cannot be equated with complexity, i.e. as cultural differences increase then complexity tends to increase. The dynamic nature of cultural variables makes it more difficult to account for an effect on other managerial variables, making it harder to deal with in practice in comparison to e.g. size or level of experience.