irrespective of the political party or parties elected into executive office. And it can continue to do its work because, in a democracy, it is almost impossible that one or a few career civil servants can acquire the power of a dictator with the exception perhaps of those in a military capacity. We reiterate that in democracy it is more difficult for those in power to use bureaucracy toward their own ends; in other words, bureaucracy is the “scaffold” that makes democracy work.
It has been suggested that democracy has biological, organic roots as well. Just like apes, people accept subordination when it is the only available alternative to being isolated from the group. But democracy is different.
Consider the following:“If everyone really wouldliketo be omnipotent and therefore the one dominant individual, and if really no one can be omnipotent, then people would rather compromise by being equal than by beingsubordinate.If the opposite were true—if people and/or monkeys preferred to be subordinate than to be equal—then there would be no morefights for top or middle positions.”(Davies, 1986, p. 360; emphasis in original) The desire for democratic government is based on the premise that all people are created equal, and that it emerges when other and higher-priority needs can be satisfied without accepting subordination to a ruler. This intertwinement of democracy and bureaucracy is characteristic for modern societal culture, and we saw already in Chapter 5 and shall see again later that bureaucracy has more exploitative features when it is operated in a less or nondemocratic environment.
anthropologist Edward Hall, the Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede, and the Swedish political scientist Jon Pierre.
In a study about the nature of time in different societies E. Hall suggested that governments and businesses in the Western world are characterized by monochromic time. In such M-time cultures, as he called them, time is strictly regimented. People carefully schedule their activities and can plan a specific amount of time, days, weeks, even months ahead in an agenda. How it is possible to know what amount of time is needed for a certain discussion is not clear, but start and end time of a meeting are scheduled. All sorts of language and phrases indicate how valuable time is considered to be: It can be“wasted,”it can be“saved,”it can be“spent,”it can be “made up,” and it even can be “lost.” Clearly, none of these are literally possible, but it is how people in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands think. Inpolychromic timesocieties (P-time) people are not very strict with scheduling, they may do different things simultaneously, and they have certainly a much more relaxed sense of time. The difference between M-time and P-time societies also translates into the extent to which people need trust before they can interact in a meaningful way.
Hall suggests that P-time cultures arehigh-context cultureswhere people first need to get to know each other and establish trust before they can work together and/or do any business. By contrast, low-context cultures do not require such deep interpersonal knowledge, and personal life and work are very segregated. As a consequence, detailed background information is necessary, and is even formalized as in, for instance, Charles Lindblom’s
“partisan analysis.”In P-time cultures people are also more patient than those in M-time cultures (Hall, 1983, p. 45–47; Hall and Hall, 1990, p. 9). Policy evaluation is less important to public servants in P-time cultures, because it is considered not in sync with the sense of harmony between people. They rely more on intuitive understanding, while their M-time counterparts pursue policy evaluation and do so upon fact-based analyzed reasoning. Norway and Sweden are considered P-time cultures, while the United States is basically an M-time culture (Christensen and others, 2003, pp. 57–58). Germany and the Netherlands are also more M-time cultures, while Mediterranean countries (perhaps with the exception of Israel) and many developing countries can be more easily characterized as P-time cultures.
Hofstede’s work is an excellent example of how a societal culture can be captured in dimensions and subsequently measured. The dimensions he developed out of a large survey of IBM employees in the late 1960s are illustrated in various settings (family, school, state, and workplace). We shall
briefly discuss each of hisfive dimensions with examples of the role and position of the state.
Thefirst dimension,large or small power distance,refers to the extent that supervisors and subordinates are separated. In countries with a low power distance index (PDI), the relationship between boss and employee is one of interdependence and consultation, and authority is based on expert knowl- edge and formal position rather than on kinship, friendship, and charisma.
In large power distance countries governments are often more oligarchic or autocratic. Northwestern Europe and North America are prime examples of areas with a small power distance where hierarchy exists but basically because it is convenient. Open displays of power and status symbols are“not done.” Organizations with small power distance tend to emphasize decentralization. The number of managerial levels is less than in large power distance countries. With regard to government, small power distance countries tend to change their political system more commonly in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary way. There is more discussion and much less violence in politics; and they tend to have pluralist govern- ments based on majority voting. Finally, countries with a small power distance are also among the wealthier in the world and with a strong and large middle class. Generally, in most low power distance countries income differentials are relatively small, tempered by a progressive tax system. The United States, though, is different, since income differences are very large, and the tax system not very progressive. Examples of low PDI countries include Austria, Germany, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and Anglo-American countries. In large power distance countries, the situation is quite different. Officials show their status; organizations are much more top-down structured with clear boundaries between supervisors and subordinates. The political system is much less easy to change unless through revolutionary force. Politics in general tends to be more violent, and political party competition is more limited. This is a situation more characteristic of developing countries (Hofstede and others, 2010, p. 83).
Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American countries have high PDI. In Table 6.1 we have listed the PDI and the rankings of the countries discussed in Chapters 9 to 12.
A second dimension of organizational and societal culture is the degree ofuncertainty avoidance,which is defined as the extent to which members of society feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations (Hofstede and others, 2010, pp. 191 and 223). Do people experience job stress, do they rely on organizational rules rather than on each other in case of conflict, and do people stay with one company throughout their career (Hofstede and
others, 2010, pp. 190)? In countries where uncertainty avoidance is high, the workplace is generally populated by people with long tenures, while in countries with low uncertainty avoidance turnover or attrition is much higher. With regard to government, high uncertainty avoidance countries such as Greece, Portugal, Latin American countries, and Japan have a bias in favor of precision and punctuality and thus, for instance, emphasize detailed laws. Many civil servants have a law degree. In low uncertainty avoidance governmental cultures civil servants have wide-ranging educa- tional backgrounds, and examples include Israel, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, and Anglo-American countries.
It is also observed that high uncertainty avoidance countries generally have a negative attitude toward political and administrative officials and the legal system. That being said, how can it be that the United States is characterized as a low uncertainty avoidance country while having a very high distrust of government? The answer is simple. We must keep in mind that these dimensions of culture are generalizations. The ranking of countries in each of these dimensions suggests a rigidity that in reality does not exist.
The third dimension is that ofindividualist and collectivist cultures,where the designation “individualist” denotes a society where the ties between individuals are loose, where people are expected to take care of themselves (ibid., p. 92). It will not come as a surprise that the United States was ranked highest on individualism. Individualist societies pay more attention to the task at hand than to the relationships between employees and between employees and supervisors. The nature of the subordinate–manager rela- tionship is one based on a labor contract, and it is certainly not perceived like an extended family as is the case in more collectivist countries. In individualist countries, government is supposed to play a restricted role in the economy. Government also is expected to treat everybody as equal under the law, while at the same time individual freedom is regarded higher than the ideology of equality of condition. Nearly all wealthy countries score high in individualism. However, it is suggested that pure individualist and pure collectivist societies do not exist.
In collectivist countries the individual is not as important as the cohesive in-group or as the society at large. Government is also less inhibited and adopts an interventionist role for the good of the whole. It is irrefutable that the United States has developed significant elements of a collectivist society.
The policy and service reforms of the 1930s with regard to social security and employment and the 1960s changes concerning civil rights are illus- trative of this. The welfare states of Western Europe are more collectivist
than the United States, yet they do protect individual freedoms to a considerable extent. Japan is like a Western welfare state but considerably more collectivist than Western European countries are. While industrial- ized countries tend be more individualist, there is no strict link between the two. Indeed, despite industrialization East Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea are still quite collectivist.
Less democratic developing countries are generally leaning more toward collectivism. Overall, collectivist societies outnumber individualist societies (Hofstede and others, 2010, p. 94). One characteristic of organizational culture and climate in the public sector is that at the middle and higher levels in most countries it is not very representative of the composition of the population. While governments in the Western world have led by example and consciously pursued efforts at increasing the representativeness of women and of minorities, this is still far from realized. This issue relates to the degree to which organizations and countries havemasculine or feminine cultures(Hofstede and others, 2010, p. 180). In a masculine organizational culture gender roles are clearly defined: The male holds the main job, holds a position of authority in the family, and is expected to be more assertive;
the female may hold a clerical job requiring her to serve others or may simply be expected to be an at-home mom, and she is also expected to be more caring and tender.
In feminine organizational cultures, gender lines are blurred or even nonexistent, and males and females can both perform the same functions.
Hofstede’s research placed the United States among other masculine countries such as Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and Poland, while the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are highly feminine countries.
To be sure, this means that men also change diapers and do the laundry, while women may change the tires and paint the house. With regard to govern- ment, masculine societies support the strong competitor, are more focused on correcting behavior, and embrace an adversarial political-administrative system. Public-sector organizational culture in the United States has features of a marketplace where only the strong survive, and its bureaucracies have overlapping competencies and must compete for the budget.
Onefinal dimension of societal culture is itsshort- or long-term orientation.
Short-term cultures seek immediate gratification of needs, demand mea- surable value for money, and subject organizations that implement policies to extensive performance measurement. The electoral cycle may focus on the short term and, in that case, elected officials will not be inclined to think too much beyond surviving the next elections. With respect to electoral cycle, the United States is among the shortest in Western countries. What
impact does a short-term orientation have upon policy? One example can clarify this. In countries with a short-term orientation, the purpose of punishment is expressed in the degree to which people and their govern- ments tend to lock their criminals up and keep them apart from society. In individualist countries, the criminal is sooner considered a problem because of personal behavioral deviancy than because of societal circum- stances. Among Western countries the United States ranksfirst by far with regard to violent crimes such as homicide, rape, and robbery, and its incarceration rates are also considerably higher than in any other country.
Private organizations in short-term orientation countries tend to focus more on the bottom line and on this year’s profit. Politics and administration focus more on promises that can be achieved in a short span of time.
However, some of the largest government projects in the United States have taken decades to unfold, so it is not as if short-term orientations automati- cally prohibit long-term policy and projects (Light, 2002). It is necessary to point out that we have defined short- and long-term differently. Hofstede defines short-term orientation as focused on fostering virtues oriented to future rewards (through perseverance and thrift), while long-term orienta- tion fosters virtues that are related to the past and the present (such as respect for tradition, preservation of face, and fulfilling social obligations Hofstede and others, 2010, p. 239). China, South Korea, and other East Asian countries as well as Puerto Rico score high on long-term orientation, while Colombia, Iran, and Argentina score low (see Table 6.1).
It is important to keep in mind that how these dimensions manifest themselves over time is subject to change. A group of scholars replicated Hofstede’s survey of the late 1960s 25 years later and found that the United States had simultaneously become more feminine as well as much stronger on uncertainty avoidance, while rankings for power distance and individualism had not changed much (Fernandez and others, 1997). It is equally important to emphasize that the value dimensions, and thus administrative cultures, vary from country to country; every government nowadays operates through sizeable bureaucracies (that is, structure), but how these bureaucracies function internally (their culture) is much more determined by features of bureaucracy as a personnel system than as an organization (see Chapter 8).
The third characterization of societal culture is represented by the distinction Jon Pierre made between the public interest and theRechtsstaat models of the political-administrative system (1995). In the public-interest model the emphasis is on pragmatic andflexible decision making; it also allows for radical reforms that stress managerial change. In this model the role of the state is less extensive than that in countries with more of a
Rechtsstaat model system. Public-interest states are more performance driven and market oriented, and examples include Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011, p. 73). TheRechtsstaat modelis one where legislative authority is the primary mechanism upon which government works. Any effort at managerial reforms must fit the legal framework, and so these systems are slower to reform (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011, p. 63).
In this section we have characterized societies as a whole and noted that these characterizations are not static. Organizations are embedded in their society, and their functioning and culture is generally in sync with that of their society. However, there are distinct differences between organiza- tional cultures.