Management Essay：文化管理理论

Management Essay：文化管理理论
The Cultural Management Theories 

领导阶层似乎是一个普遍现象。目前没有一个社会发现完全缺失的地方或者文化规范已经完全代替它。为领导提供各种定义的多样性露面,领导可能需要和内部文化和组织。Bass (1990)提供了一个极好的领导各种观点的总结:

这过多的领导关于领导力的定义表明,在奖学金有许多不同的理解什么是领导力。继续努力建立理论,结合不同的定义和相关理论方法来领导,但有限的成功(高堡&索伦森,2006)。因此,我们开始寻找领导在其他文化的意识的复杂理解领导的文化内进行搜索。

此外,文化不是静态的,它们是动态的和不断发展。这种演变因文化而异,不时在相同的文化。相关的信仰、价值观、文化和其他元素在单个时间点未必是相同的在稍后的时间在同一个文化;因此检查领导在不同文化的非常复杂的任务。

跨文化关系的一些研究寻找因素帮助人们相处(匹廷斯基,2009)或文化因素推动差异和冲突(柯林斯,1998)。领导力和文化的讨论也使用小额信贷单元分析的例子,团体或组织文化(协议&肯尼迪,2000)或文化差异组在同一地理边界。胡安娜borda(2007),例如,概述了文化维度的种族和族裔群体在美国产生改善建议的理解和实践领导力。

伯纳德•巴斯(1990)指出不同单位的分析研究领导力和文化:国家内部和国家之间、组织和团体。

This plethora of leadership definitions suggests that within the scholarship about leadership there are many disparate understandings of what leadership is. Efforts continue to establish theories that incorporate different definitions and related theoretical approaches to leadership, but with limited success (Goethals & Sorenson, 2006). Thus, we begin our search for leadership within other cultures with an awareness of the complex understanding of leadership within the culture of those conducting the search.

Furthermore, cultures are not static; they are dynamic and continually evolving. This evolution varies from culture to culture and from time to time within the same culture. The associated beliefs, values, and other elements of culture at a single point in time may not necessarily be the same at a later time in the same culture; hence the immensely complicated task of examining leadership across different cultures.

Some studies of intercultural relationships look for factors that help people get along (Pittinsky, 2009) or for cultural factors that promote differences and conflict (Collins, 1998). Discussions of leadership and culture also use units of analysis in their work-for example, group or organizational culture (Deal & Kennedy, 2000) or cultural differences among groups within the same geographic boundaries. Juana Bordas (2007), for example, outlines cultural dimensions of racial and ethnic groups in the United States to suggest differences-and improvements-in the understanding and practice of leadership.

Bernard Bass (1990) pointed out different units of analysis in the study of leadership and culture: within and among countries, organizations, and groups. Moreover, he underscored the importance of understanding cultural differences between countries. Studies have borne out Bass's attention to cultural analysis at the national level: The interdependence of global economic, social, and political arrangements requires citizens of one nation to collaborate with citizens of another. Since Bass's comments, further study has shown that the success of the work of one nation's citizens in another culture is dependent upon understanding cultural differences, including the variations among attitudes toward and the practice of leadership.

Yet there are rewards for this effort to understand a changing phenomenon from different and conflicting perspectives. Bass posed intriguing questions for the effort to determine the cultural components of leadership: How much can we generalize about leadership from one culture to another? Are some elements of leadership universal while others are culturally relative? The internationalization of business and the global village prompt these questions, for managers educated and experienced in one country and culture must know what decision-making practices and leadership styles are best suited for another country and culture.

Naturally, these questions and needs pervade political and civic leadership concerns as well. Civil society is global as well as local and national. Nongovernmental organizations and international government agencies are multinational organizations as much as some corporations are. International understanding and cooperation as well as misunderstanding and war may depend, in part, on how well we understand our similarities and differences.

Nancy Adler surveys scholarly definitions and reasserts the synthesis that Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn derived from 164 definitions of culture. In some ways, anthropologists, such as Margaret Mead, pioneered the cross-cultural, comparative study of leadership as authority. As Bass pointed out,

Mead's a€| anthropological comparisons clearly showed that what it takes to be a leader varies across primitive culturesa€|. The aggressive, efficient, ambitious Manus leader in Oceania would have been rejected by the Dakota Indians, who valued mutual welfare, conforming to the group, generosity, and hospitality. (Bass, 1990, p. 785)

Knowing the cultural expectations that group members have themselves, and person in authority provides one avenue of understanding the leadership. While the scholarship of leadership and authority within a particular culture continues, other research looks for patterns among national cultures or common patterns that may be used to analyze, compare, and differentiate national cultures. Associating countries by cultural affinities permits the creation of clusters, thus reducing the number of units to analyze.

The clusters permit a summary that displays cross-cultural similarities and differences and allows for a preliminary sketch of leadership patterns found among a group of nations. History, geography, language, religion, the stage of technological development, and related factors contribute to the formation of these clusters. In addition, countries are clustered according to factors such as leadership style preferences, autocratic or democratic, interpersonal values-conformity, recognition, and benevolence-and the like (Bass, 1990, p. 763).

One early synthesis of cross-cultural leadership studies found eight clusters roughly corresponding to geographic proximity-Arab, Near Eastern, Far Eastern, Latin (Spanish) America, Latin Europe, Nordic, and Germanic. The eighth cluster, Anglo, was far more geographically dispersed but tied together by a common language and colonial background. Nations in this cluster included Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Four countries seemed to fall outside any cluster. Brazil was too Portuguese, indigenous, and African to be part of Latin (Spanish) America. India was too Eastern and Anglo to belong to either cluster. Japan differed greatly from other Far Eastern cluster countries because of its early adoption of Western technologies.

In addition, Israel was too European and Anglo to fit in with Arab cluster countries (Ronen & Shenkar, cited in Bass, 1990, p. 764). Subsequent work also uses clustering, with some variations in the assignment of countries.

霍夫斯泰德和民族文化的维度——Hofstede and the Dimensions of National Cultures

Another scholar, Geert Hofstede, who took on the challenge of cross-cultural comparative study, argued that the comparison of leadership in different nations requires a theoretical framework. Hofstede insists that any comparison across nations of the values and attitudes related to leadership is in some way a comparison of apples to oranges. It is a fruitless effort, Hofstede remarks (extending the metaphor further), without the proper "fruitology. Hofstede initially developed his five dimensions of national cultures during a large research project into differences across managers in IBM's subsidiaries in 64 countries. Subsequent studies of students in 23 countries, elites in 19 countries, commercial airline pilots in 23 countries, up-market consumers in 15 countries, and civil service managers in 14 countries eventually refined these five dimensions. Eventually, Hofstede indexed many nations of the world on each of these dimensions.

1. Power Distance Index (PDI):

This index measures the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more vs. less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that the followers as much as the leaders endorse a society's level of inequality. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society, and anybody with some international experience will be aware that all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others.

2. Individualism (IDV):

Individualism opposes collectivism, or the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualistic side, we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: People are expected to look after themselves and their immediate family. Collectivist societies are those in which people from birth are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts, and grandparents) that continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word collectivism in this sense has no political meaning; it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one and regards all societies in the world.