The Council of Europe and the European Union: different roles, shared values
SPOTLIGHT 3.1 SPOTLIGHT 3.1
A European Union poster celebrating Europe Day
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Concept 3.1 European cultures
59 Some historians have maintained that a much more united Europe existed in the Middle Ages (from around the ninth to twelft h centuries) when a number of its countries shared common features of a feudal society. With no strong central authority, political power was dispersed among lords who in turn granted vassals authority over particular lands. Th ose peasants who tended particular landholdings were obliged to supply the lord with labour and/or part of the land’s output. Th is was a system essentially based on man-to-man relations, the one depending on the other, in an agrarian economy with limited money exchange. Th ere was a clear convergence of civilisation and culture as those travelling on business felt at home, in Lübeck, Paris, London, Bruges, Cologne, Burgos, Milan or Venice (Braudel, 2008).
Member states of the European Union are shown above. Candidate countries (FYROM, Turkey) are depicted in grey.
Figure 3.1 The European Union
Source: The European Commission ©.
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As Morin (1987) declares, the political, economic and cultural Europe of today is the result of the disruption of this feudal system and the ensuing confl icts. Th is, as well as the both complementary and confl icting cultural heritage of, Greek, Roman and Judeo- Christian cultures, is what makes Europe unique.
Th e regional diff erences mentioned earlier have a lot to do with the infl uences that events in history brought to daily life. Th e Roman Empire with its strict hierarchies and its codifi ed system of laws was one; the later invasion of the Vikings who maintained local, largely independent communities with their own laws and hierarchies was another.
Th ese two infl uences will be the starting point for classifying the peoples of Europe in diff erent clusters , in line with the terminology of the GLOBE project. However, in order to make clearer the diff erences between Western and Eastern European business cultures – especially on the economic level – the composition of the original GLOBE clusters has been modifi ed.
Western Europe
Greece
Why is it not possible to talk about Europe without mentioning Greece? Historically speaking, Greek civilisation had a strong infl uence on the Romans and through the Latin language the Western world absorbed Greek culture (Duroselle, 2004). In contemporary terms, Greece, which became the tenth member of the EU in 1981, featured heavily in a recent major economic crisis involving the banking sector. Greece would have been bankrupt in 2011 if the states of the Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had not procured it fi nancial assistance. Such help refl ects the principle defi ned by Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, in his speech in Munich (February 2013), with regard to EU countries which cannot succeed on their own: ‘Th e ethical imperative when we see others in need is to help. It is to do what we can to limit their hardship’.
To try and understand why Greece ended up in this extreme situation we can refer to the analysis of Greek culture made by GLOBE, in particular concerning the ‘perceived’
and ‘desired’ results for several dimensions (see explanation of the methodology in Chapter 2 , concept 2.2). Th ere is a marked diff erence between the scores for organisa- tional practices as perceived by managers and the scores for the personal preferred values of the organisation. In comparison with other countries, there is a substantial gap between what is happening now (‘As Is’) and what should be happening (‘Should Be’), while both scores are low compared to the other cultures studied (Papalexandris, 2008: 780). Th is is refl ected in the attitude towards the future orientation dimension where the Greeks are shown to be unwilling to make long-term plans. Nonetheless, when Greece was integrated into the EU and the European currency system, its government was asked – without respecting (or knowing) this cultural particularity – to adapt its practices in order to act in a more future-oriented way!
Latin Europe
Managing and organising in societies characterised by Romance languages close to Latin, by Roman-style legal systems and strong Roman Catholic churches, still diff ers from other
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Concept 3.1 European cultures
61 societies where the Romans held little or no sway. Th e Roman Empire had the greatest eff ect on countries below the river Rhine. In Latin Europe, there is a more personal approach to managing and organising. Th ere may be a highly developed bureaucracy present in Latin countries, but the layers of hierarchy and the procedures involved in getting things done are so formalised that working round them is quicker and in the end more effi cient.
Th at is why there is a reliance on family and personal relationships and connections to work around the system, to bend the rules.
Nevertheless, the boss is the boss, and the authority of that person rests on the need of a country’s people for strong rule. Th ere is oft en a tension between this dependence on and loyalty towards authoritarian fi gures and a distrust of authoritarian systems in general.
Prominent fi gures may exploit this tension by showing their ability as leaders to impose their stamp, their will on unwieldy closed hierarchies.
As Boisot indicates (1993: 222) in his article on management in Spain:
The need for a strong leader and a hierarchical leader, however, does not necessarily give the enterprise manager the kind of mandate that would allow him to play a proper co-ordinating role.
Managers lack the legitimacy to perform their role eff ectively and can be perceived as devious exploiters of the economic system. Th is problem of managerial legitimacy is one, he believes, prevalent in Latin culture because the economic dimension is perceived to be little more than an expression of the political culture.
In her book on Italian management, Vidal (1992) distinguishes two types of business leaders in Italy. A company is run by two people, a couple as it were, who share each other’s confi dence and complement each other. Th e one plays the role of leader and spends most of his time with external contacts in search of information that will allow him to adjust company objectives. While doing so, he keeps an eye on what is happening inside the company. Th e other assumes the role of manager in the traditional sense, focusing his attention on what is happening within the company while still keeping an eye on the world outside.
A leader in France, however, is alone at the top. Such power involves not only fulfi lling contractual obligations, but also preserving the status of the position. If he is not moderate when enacting his power, if he lacks breadth of vision or is seen as mean-minded, then he is seen to belong to what Segal (d’Iribarne et al. , 1998) calls the category of ‘little bosses’, and so risks losing his status.
French leaders are tempted to apply the Anglo-Saxon management tools coming from American consultants, such as ‘delegation’ or ‘team work’, while it is obvious that the culture of power is the dominant element of the corporate culture in France.
France
Unlike the other countries in Latin Europe, France was formed by a wide range of peoples, consisting at the start mainly of Celts (the Gauls), Romans and Germans (the Franks). Th e country came into being aft er the separation of Francia Occidentalis (the West Frankish kingdom, now France) from Francia Orientalis (the East Frankish kingdom, now Germany).
In the eighteenth century, France became the model of European culture, not only through the dissemination of the universal values – liberty, equality and fraternity – proclaimed during the French Revolution, but also through its language. It is perhaps the historical role
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of France as the upholder of universal cultural values that has made it reluctant to envisage a plurality of cultures, or to talk of one culture for one people. In any case, the French idea of universal culture and its concept of a unity of cultural communities within French society, contrasts strongly with the notion held in other European countries of a national culture essentially based on compromise (d’Iribarne et al. , 1998).
Another distinctive feature of France – compared to its neighbours – lies in its history as an old immigration country. Although European people migrated to various parts of the world to populate the colonies and the new countries, France took in more emigrants than the number of French people who went abroad. Nowadays, almost a quarter of the popula- tion has at least one of his/her four grandparents born in a foreign country. Th erefore, it is diffi cult to talk about the ‘identity of France’ without referring to the cultural diversity of its original and immigrant peoples.
In the economic sphere, the number of companies with a state-owned majority shareholding – such as Renault, Air France and France Telecom, as well as the number of employees working in a public company have been declining in all sectors in the last decennia. Indeed, it has oft en been necessary to privatise enterprises to facilitate their growth through acquisitions or mergers with other European and global private companies. Th e state used to develop regulations concerning foreign ownership either to protect some large industrial companies against a hostile takeover bid or to preserve their ‘national character’.
Currently, although its participation already has greatly diminished, the state continues to sell its shares, particularly those in state-owned enterprises.
Examined in terms of the cultural dimensions put forward by House et al. (2004), the Latin European cluster is characterised as being low in terms of humane orientation prac- tices, although humane orientation scores in terms of values more closely resemble those of other European clusters. Th is humane orientation construct addresses the degree of concern, tolerance and support extended to others. As a cluster with low humane orienta- tion practices, self-interest is high, as is lack of consideration for others. However, in terms of consideration for family, the countries concerned are collectively inclined, showing greater loyalty and cohesiveness to their family. As will be seen later in concept 3.2 in this chapter, when looking at Latin America, the family concern is even more in evidence in the Latin countries of the New World.
Nordic Europe
Th e presence of the Vikings who swept down from Scandinavia and settled on a large part of northern Europe – occupied by Germanic peoples who maintained important trade relationships with the Romans – is still felt. Both merchants, sailors and warriors, they helped to reinforce the contrast between the cultural characteristics of the Northerners and those of the former Roman Empire. Th ey had no overriding hierarchy, no elaborate systems of control. Instead, they maintained large independent communities, each with its own laws and governing bodies.
Th e Viking heritage of self-suffi ciency, fairness, egalitarianism and democracy is refl ected in the way present-day business is carried out in Scandinavian countries, i.e. in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, also including, broadly, Iceland. In most companies, bosses are seen more as team leaders and group facilitators as opposed to being decision- makers who delegate tasks to others. As such, employees are oft en encouraged to express
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Concept 3.1 European cultures
63 their opinions freely at meetings and everyone’s opinion is given consideration when making decisions. However, the fi nal decision oft en lies in the hands of the team leader.
Th e countries of Nordic Europe share one distinctive feature – their approach to authority.
Th eir inhabitants do not regard those in authority as remote persons whose word is to be accepted unquestioningly. Th ey face up to them, question their decisions and expect to be consulted on issues aff ecting them. Th ose managing and being managed are less far apart socially than in Latin Europe, with more emphasis put on the job being done than the position in the hierarchy. Managers are not regarded as being expert in all matters but are expected to make eff ective use of the expertise among their co-workers. Th ese characterisations are refl ected in the position of Nordic European countries on the cultural dimensions relating to ‘power distance’ as described in Chapter 2 .
However, on a socio-economic level, there are some diff erences between the Scandinavian countries. While Denmark, Finland and Sweden are state members of the European Union and the last two also of the Eurozone, Norway and Iceland are members of another organisation – the European Free Market Institution – and maintain a more complicated relationship with the EU. (See Table 3.2 .)
Germanic Europe
House et al. (2004) admit that the cultural separation of Germanic and Nordic Europe is not as great as among other clusters. Along with the Nordic countries, Germanic countries show lower power distance than their other fellow Europeans. Th is is refl ected in a general preference for company employees to work in groups rather than making solo eff orts.
However, this does not mean that, for example, the Germans are as informal as the Dutch (included as well as Austrian and Swiss German in the Germanic cluster) in their behaviour towards each other. In Germany, the hierarchical positions are not as easily separated from the persons occupying them as they are in the Netherlands. A respectful formality tends to prevail between company employees operating on diff erent levels and in diff erent areas of responsibility. Th e concern for detailed codes and written rules could be seen as refl ecting not only the concept of ‘universalism’ as described by Trompenaars (see Chapter 5 ), but also Hofstede’s dimension of uncertainty avoidance. German companies rely heavily on experts and their knowledge to minimise insecurity and, for the same reason, tend to adopt a longer-term perspective when making strategic decisions.
Table 3.2 Scandinavian relationships within Europe Nordic
countries
Council of Europe
EU member
Joined EU in
EFTA member
Schengen area
Euro currency
Denmark Yes Yes 1973 Yes No
Sweden Yes Yes 1995 Yes No
Finland Yes Yes 1995 Yes Yes
Iceland Yes No – Yes Yes No
Norway Yes No – Yes Yes No
Source: adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association#EFTA_and_the_European_Union
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