Motivation, Leadership, and Organization : Do American Theories Apply Abroad?

Do American theories apply abroad

Author Geert Hofstede , in his article Motivation leadership and organization : Do

American theories apply abroad ? discusses the various tools by which a culture can be

defined and discusses whether the management theories related to motivation , leadership

and organization are universally true or not ? This essay describes the tools which gauge

the culture and briefly deals with two aspects of this article , motivation and

organization

The author has based this article on a large research project conducted by him over p

six years , and studied 40 national cultures . He tried to `determine empirically the main

criteria by which their national cultures differed , and he found four such criteria . These

are , Power-distance , Uncertainty-Avoidance , Individualism-collectivism and Masculinity-

Femininity . The author cautions , that ` characterizing a national culture does not mean that

every person in the nation has the characteristics applied to that culture . Therefore , in

defining national cultures we refer to the common norm- but we are not describing

individuals . These criteria are named as dimensions by the author

The first dimension is called the ` power distance . It indicates the extent to which a

society accepts the fact that power in institutions and organizations is distributed

unequally . It is reflected in the values of less powerful members of the society as well as

the more powerful ones . A few characteristics of the two extremes would be that in a

large power distance nation , the power holders are entitled to privilege , superiors are

inaccessible , and latent conflict exists between the powerful and the powerless . In contrast

in a small power distance nation , all have equal rights and privileges , superiors are

accessible and latent harmony exists between the powerful and the powerless

The second dimension is ` uncertainty avoidance . It indicates the extent to which a

society feels threatened by uncertain and unambiguous situations and tries to avoid these

situations , by providing greater career stability , establishing more formal rules , not

tolerating deviant ideas and behaviors , and believing in absolute truths and attainment of

expertise . Nevertheless , societies with strong uncertainty avoidance are characterized by a

higher level of anxiety , and aggressiveness that creates , among other things , a strong inner

urge in people to work hard . Few characteristics of a nation with weak uncertainty

avoidance dimension are that time is free , and hard work is not a virtue . Whereas , in a

nation with strong uncertainty avoidance , time is money and there is an inner urge to

work hard

The third dimension is ` Individualism- Collectivism ` . Here individualism implies a

loosely knit social framework , in which people are supposed to take care of themselves

and of their immediate families only , while collectivism is characterized by tight social

framework in which people distinguish between in-groups and out-groups . They expect

their in-group ( relatives , clan , organization ) to look after them and in exchange for that

they feel they owe absolute loyalty to it . A few characteristic of a collectivist nation are

that the identity is based in a social system , and the involvement with the organization is...