The Impact of Culture Upon Managerial Attitudes, Belifefs and Behaviour in England and France

Abstract

THE literature of cross-cultural comparisons of business management is remarkably short of predictive models of behaviour. It has proved extremely =cult to link business behaviour in different countries with the culture of those countries. A field theoretical approach to managerial behaviour is apt to be short-circuited by disagreements concerning the presence and validity of organizational gods, and by the conflict between organizational goals and personal strategies.' The matter is further complicated by the introduction of cultural bias. In some cultures this may perhaps be ignored, especially if the business sub-culture is a strong element, as in theunited States, or if the super-culture of the multi-national f i r m is predominant, as in foreign subsidiaries of ethnocentric companies in developing countries. But for English managers, on the brink of even closer conflict and co-operation with European management systems, such an answer is clearly inadequate. The following study is a first attempt to present behavioural theories for two European cultures, in the hope that it will lead to the construction of further theories, so providing common ground for the interpretation and prediction of business behaviour. Research ToolsUdyz has linked the business to the social setting, by stating that 'holding the nature of the task constant, administrative structure is a h a i o n of both expectations present in, as well as roles available in, the social setting'.In order to test this hypothesis cross-culturally we chose three very similar light electronic engineering factories, large ones in France and England, and a small one in Scotland, and applied three research tools to a sample of managers consisting in each place of the factory manager along with his superiors and all his subordinates in the plant hierarchy. A total of sixtyseven managers were involved; nine in Scotland, twenty-seven in England and thirty-one in France. We selected the tools on three bases: 1 Van Dyck, J. J. J., 'Understanding the organization Process via the Management Game', ] d of Management of w a f i o n r , Chicago: Rand, McNally and CQ., 1961. I 972 ATTITUDES, BELIEFS AND BEHAVIOUR IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE 4 1I . Accepfabilio to the managers. We felt that managers would dislike research with no pay-0% hence the tools were designed to help them analyse their own and other managers' roles and interactions.2. Differing degrees of statistical reliabilio. NathS has argued that research using only one tool is insufficient for real understanding, because statistical reliability sacrifices human values, while anthropological reality is indefinite.

Comparative Public Administration Is Back In, Prudently

“…Attempts by comparative national studies sought to determine how much of the variation in organizational management is caused by attributes of national culture. Findings of such research are often conveyed in terms of the impact of culture on managerial attitudes, beliefs, and behavior (Graves 1972;Hofstede 1980), with the other organizational variables either implied or neglected.…”

Experimentelle Organisationsforschung

“…Vgl. ferner Graves (1972) Bruns (1969);Dyckman (1969); American Accounting Association (1969), S. 44; Churchill et al (1969), S. 247 ff. ; Pondy/ Jensen (1966); Church ill /Coop er (1964); ferner die bei Coenenberg (1969) und analysierten Experimente und die Hinweise bei Picot (1974a) , vol.…”