Beak reviews 249

G. Hofstede, Culture’s cu~~eq~ences: inter~~tion~~ difference in work related vulues~ Sage, London and Beverly Hills, 1984. pp. 325, E33.00 (hardback), $13.25 (paper).

This a valuable, occasionally vexing book. Its central path leads through an empirical comparison of the socio-cultural values most relevant to work in over 40 countries. All these systems, Hofstede argues, can be analysed in terms of four underlying dimensions (Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Indi~dualism, and Masculinity). A value profile is constructed for each country in terms of overall scores, derived from questionnaire data, on each of the dimensions. These characterisations are validated by reference to data from 38 indepen- dent cross-cultural studies, which show a high degree of correspon- dence, and Hofstede presents some interesting evidence linking cultural forms to economic development, political institutions, and (less plausi- bly) geography. An abridged version of a massive and expensive report published in 1980, the monograph still provides enough data and documentation for readers to evaluate most of its detailed conclusions without resort to the exhaustive (and exhausting) original source.

Besides its unpretentious and easy-going tone, this book has an admirable structure, with summaries of chapters as well as of the overall thesis, numerous clear and accurate section headings, a mass of helpful diagrams and figures, and an excellent bibliography. Moreover, Hofstede’s passing comments on technical or substantive questions in ant~opology, psychology, and sociology are always helpful, while the wider theoretical and me~odologi~l issues underpinning his discus- sion, which are of critical importance, are sensitively and instructively negotiated - more of this shortly. So what is wrong? Most people who look at this book will gain something from it. Many will gain a lot. But why will some people find parts of it irritating?

The first reason is the empi~cal material. This was mainly derived from a self-administered questionnaire completed by a total sample of 116,000 people drawn from the global workforce of a large multina- tional business organisation, code-named HERMES, Let us take the instrument first. It contained less than 40 items, most of them attitude statements scored on Likert-type five-point scales. How justifiable is it to base conclusions about the degree of Power Distance (sense of unequal possession of and access to power resources) for a whole society on a sample mean score for answers to the question ‘How

frequently, in your work environment, are subordinates afraid to ex- press disagreement with their superiors? Is it justifiable even to do so for HEROES itself? What about the problems of translating English- language terms into even rough equivalents in Japanese, Swiss German, and Pe~vian Spanish~ The national samples were not matched, thou obviously individuals within them could be matched in terms of age, sex, edu~tion, and their job in HERMES. The real problem is that all samples shared memhers~p of a self-consciously unique multinational compauy which promotes its own corporate culture.

HERMES is not just any old company. It is International Business ~ac~nes. IBM is noted for the global reach of its house ethos and, worldwide, it imposes st~ngent policy rules for employee relations practice - one is detested refusal to r~o~ise labour unions - aithough it enjoins local controllers to identify with the host country and its laws. fn rich Western countries IBM’s ‘compeusat~o~ package’ is widely coveted. In Developing Countries to be taken on by it signals entry into an elite: even its blue-~llar workers are thus set apart from

neral run of ~ono~c actors. And IBM is always very choosey about whom it employs, whether we are talking about technical

qualifications or social and psycho1 cal ones. May not organisational membership be a variable that modifies the in~uence of national culture in possibly drastic ways?

Hofstede recognises this, but discounts the risks, As the former social research chief of IBM-Europe his judgment on the maintain strength of cultural factors amongst IBM employees should by no m~aus be discounted. At the same time it can only arouse professional scepticism. The HORDES study defined and measure some sys- tematic and significant differences between cultures. These seem suffi- ciently important for us to leave aside - or at least, to leave to subsequent research - the question of how accurately the study reveals real national differences. (Hofstede in any case deploys a mass of publish~ secondary anthropolo~cal, and s~iological d~uments on the different counties.}

And some results are counter~i~tuitive. To take an example at ra~dom~ France tugs out to have a high rating for Power Distauce~ falling amangst such developing Countries as Turkey, Hong Kong, or the Phillipines. Finally, the discussion and conclusions of the more empirical s~ti~ns of the book must be treated with reserve. But they are intertwined with a very different sort of discussion, which can be

seen as deriving from a fundamentally distinct task; and, in tackling it, Hofstede has some most interesting things to say, above all about the methodological and substantive issues of cross-national investigation as an activity in social science.

These urgent metbodolo~cal issues are often camouflaged as an empirical issue, perhaps complex but essentially danger-free: are all societies becoming more similar under the pressure of industrialism as a way of iife? For those who subscribe to this ‘Convergence thesis’, the ultimate cause of any increasing homogeneity is the worIdwide drive to apply technology effectively (Kerr et al. 1960). Until recently, many of those holding this view have believed that technical rationality imposes upon the designers of production systems or work organisations unique solutions to the problems of getting tasks done eff~tively. This view- point, increasin~y under challenge over the last twenty years (Brossard and Maurice 19X4, derives in part from the intell~tual expansionism of engineers earlier in the century but also from a ~sreading of some of the classics of social science by teachers of administration and management science.

For example, this expectation runs through the writings of the sociologist Max Weber on the one hand, and the principles of ‘scien- tific management’ canvassed first by Frederick Winslow Taylor. Hofstede does not explore this aspect of the matter as expficitly as he might have. It is worth doing so here.

Weber predicted the predominance of the rationalising spirit in social organisation on theoretical grounds. In Taylor’s scientific mana- gement movement it entered the everyday world in the most direct way imaginable. Both Taylor and Weber were impressed - too much so .- with the ac~evements of the natural sciences. Early contributors to, or observers of, Scientific Managements perhaps understandably, muddled their ideas and their messages. The American engineer had stridently pr~laimed the existence of a scientifically dete~nable ‘one best way’ to organise any work-task efficiently. The German professor had speci- fied a structure for an organisation in which rationality (which is not the same as efficiency) became the guiding principle.

If this ill-assorted pair of gurus was right, it seemed, economic development must mould, in any country seeking to follow the Western economic lead, a distinct type of ‘modern’ social life and personality structure. As industrial technology and organisation spread to non- Western countries, would not the modal personality structure also

approximate that allegedly best suited to ration~ised work in the Western industrialising experience? Did not the technical requirements of both machines and organisatio~ constitute a u~i~e~sa~~s~~g force, ma~ng for eventual worldwide unifor~ty?

As the management movement began to utilise psychology and sociology, Weber’s commentary on the spread of ratjonalisation through bureaucratic forms of organisation was assi~lated by it, but often in second or third hand versions. For a certain type of management theorist, it can unde~rite m~nage~aIist aims, and, to such people, Weber’s exa~nat~on of bureaucratic procedures s~mingly offers a number of worthwhile technical proposals. While or~anisation theory has a lengthy prehistory (Warner 1984), around the turn of this century its practitioners began to orga~se themselves as the core of an acade~c discipline as well as a body of consultants on work organisation. Growth in numbers of large organisations and in the role of govern- ment partly account for this. But, in the abstract as it were, it can be portrayed as the outcome of a value stress on rationality, one that would become more insistent. In the event, the growing body of orga~isation practitioners and ad~n~strative tinkers came eventually to adopt Weber as their most presti~ous founding father. As adminis- tration and business management courses opened in universities, need for academic reputability intensified the tendency to merge Taylor’s ideas with Weber’s.

Weber’s work was important to most early organisation theorists, but hardly any of them had read a word of it. Apart form his

~~~t~stant Ethic, Weberian ideas were known through s~onda~ sources. This enabled people to put words into Weber’s mouth, and suppose that bur~ucracy would be adopted universally because it would sustain org~isational efficiency. Or8anisatio~ thinkers who doubted this usually believed that Weber underwrote the concept of a ‘one best way’, to be adopted universally. So, a~thou~ bureaucracy might not embody the technically ‘best way’ to organise administration it pointed to the reality of the hunt for the ‘best way’.

Weber’s ideas about ‘efficiency’ were utterly different from those att~buted to him {A~brow 19~~). Firstly, Weber had listed several real-world forms of effective bureaucratic or anisation: his ‘ideal type” largely coincides with one of these - though he did call it the ‘most rational’ form. Yet he never provided any general definition of bureaucracy, while his most explicit specifications concern the position

of the staff in a modern bureaucracy. Then again, Weber denied any direct connection between these forms and efficiency. (Weber always wrote ~effici~ncy’ within inverted comma.) Finally, he maintained a sharp distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘substantive’ rationality. The former is a property inherent in structures and pr~edures, while the latter is a property of outcomes. And rational procedures may block rations outcomes: the r&s of “due process’ in law, for examples when ~gorously applied, may delay the just treatment they are intended to ensure. C~~~~~~ of obtaining substantively ratiunal outcomes may be enh~~d by high formal ratio~aiity. It cannot guarantee them.

Belief in universal ‘best ways’ of organ~sation was also weakened by the d~umentation by Human Relations researchers of networks of personalised relations~ps in workplace which often obst~ct~d pursuit of formal goals. For many who began listing the Dimensions of ‘infor- mal organisation’, its prevalence showed how important solida~stic work motiva~ons rem~ned for the mass of employees~ ~n~l~i~g out the technical rationality of the scientific managers (Rose 19%). How was the average worker, a ‘socia1 man’ with apparently ‘eon-rational’ and anti-utilitarian drives, to be integrated successfully into work organisations or into a wider s~iety permuted with a t~h~ically rationalist spirit? Still more damaging material for anybody who be- lieved that organisation tended to take on a single worldwide form was soon to be derived from examining the structure of samples of work

isations and relating this config~at~o~ to their eff~tive~ess in ing their named goals. Did such samples approach the bureaucratic

model? No, they didn’t. Did they neverthel~s clearly reflect other ‘ universalist’ p~nciples? No again.

One of the b~t-k~o~ e~q~~es exarni~~ manufa~tur~g firms in Britain in the early fifties, testing stru ptions taken from the manuals of ‘organ~sationa~ science’ 1958). No associa- tions between effective operation (measured by profitability, growth etc.) and the application of the supposedly ‘ universally valid’ p~ncip~es of good organisation could be demonstrated. The results were also bad news for anyb~y who expected effective work orga~sations increas- ingly to embody key features (or what were taken for them) of the Weberian model. Other research in organisations had an~ay throws into question the logic behind his paradigm (Merton 1952). Focussing on the question of how impersonal rules gove~ing performance are actually devised and applied, one researcher had shown how often they

254 Book revkws

can result in systematic effort evasion by signalling to workers what constitutes minimal acceptable compliance.

It also showed how the scope of authority may be determined by negotiation between interested parties. This goes right against the grain of the Weberian ideal type: in formulating it, Weber had in mind the practices of the traditional Prussian state - hardly a template for democratic conflict resolution. One of these researchers shows how contextual factors always limit the ability of organisation designers to impose rules unilaterally and to constrain compliance by subordinates through strict discipline. The expectations of the work force, the character of a local community, and the unpredictable or dangerous conditions under which some work is performed exclude any ‘punish- ment-centred’ rule-structure (Gouldner 1954). Like other studies, it demonstrated the permanence of social, cultural, and psycholo~~al structures which, in theory - or rather, in some theories - industrialism eradicates.

These findings applied to societies long exposed to industrialism and to increasingly advanced technology. Any universalising forces of tech- nology should, presumably, make their heaviest impact in such coun- tries. But if the institutions, social structure, or culture of such coun- tries are not converging, convergence between such countries and non-Weste~ developers becomes very unlikely indeed. Nothing points to such an outcome in recent research comparing ‘industrial rela- tionships’ in west European societies, despite increasingly heavy penetration by multinational business and a quarter century’s shared membership of the European Community (Maurice et al. 1980).

But are we to say that long established cultures can resist any universalising forces? Tradition compromises the ways technology is used or work organised. Nobody is going to dispute that. But what precisely do we mean when we talk about ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’? Often we mean characteristics which appear in exaggerated forms in some countries but could appear in many, or even in all. High commitment to open government is part of American culture. Other countries nevertheless also have a high one. Closer analysis allows us to start a process whereby much of the ‘culturally specific’ mrns out to be reducible to generally applicable theoretical variables (Przeworski and Teune 1970). It may be very difficult to do this. There may be no great gain in pushing the effort beyond a certain point. But unless some such attempt is made we are liable to miss achieving full explanatory

potential. Culture amounts to more than ‘the collective programing of the mind’ - a definition Hofstede adopts from Kluckhohn, acknowl- edging that it is “not a complete definition.. . but covers what I have been able to measure’ (p. 21). The culture of open government is not just a group disposition to distrust official secrecy but laws about free access to information and an inquisitive press.

Otherwise, Hofstede hammers the cultural relativists. For the anthro- pologist Mali~o~s~, an item in a culture cannot be understood in isolation but must be considered in relation to all other items in that culture. Thus items from two different cultures, even though they appear identical, cannot legitimately be compared. Comparative re- search, however, sometimes seeks to define precisely what elements in a culture are irreducibly unique. Once accept the M~nows~an rule, however, and the observer must be no less suspicious of apparent differences than of apparent si~larities! Maybe pairs of institutions or practices, apparently quite dissimilar, actually possess, within their separate and ‘non-comparable’ cultures, identical significance? If we follow Malinowski, we simply refuse to answer such questions, wallow- ing in a self-satisfi~ purist scepticism, affirming the unity of human culture as a whole while simultaneously denying our ability to demon- strate the parameters of that entirety (Rose 1985).

Hofstede has evidently thought long and hard about these difficul- ties, and, as a guide to them, comes into his own. How precisely the HERMES material defines differences in economic values between countries remains uncertain. The overall shape of their profiles in terms of the measures used is probably reliable. For the foreseeable future at least, the practical consequence for economic policy makers, corporate planners, and day-to-day m~agers ought to be greater readiness than they have sometimes shown to take more account of local peculiarities, and to keep at arm’s length any supposedly transnational ‘best ways’. Such cultural relativism in the ~ruct~ca~ world is thorou~ly consistent with a scientific commitment to a principle of theoretical universalism. The weaknesses, of the studies which the book reports fade into in~ons~uenti~ity beside its superb handling of the dilemmas and options of the researcher who views economic life in an inte~ation~ perspective and with internationalist sympathies.

Michael Rose Center for European

Industrial Studies university of Bach

Bath BA.? 7A Y, U.K.

References

Albrow, M., 1970. Bureaucracy. London: Macmillan. Brossard, M. and M Maurice, 1976. Is there a universal model of organisatton structure?

International Studies of Management and Grganisation 6. 11-45. Gouldner, A.W., 1954. Patterns of inducted bureaucracy. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Kerr, C., J.T. Dunlop, F. Harbison and C.A. Myers, 1960. Indust~alism and industrial man.

Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Maurice. M., A. rge and M. Warner, 1980. Societal differences in organising manufacturing

units: a c~rnpa~~~ of France, West ~rrn~~y and Great Britain. aviation Studies 1, 59-86.

Merton, R.K., t952, ‘Bureaucratic structure and personality’. In: R.K. Mcrton et al. (eds.), Reader in bureaucracy. Glencoe. IL: Free Press.

Przeworski, A. and H. Teune. 1970. The logic of comparative enquiry. New York: Wiley. Rose, M., 1975. lndust~~ behaviour: theoretical development since Taylor. London: Allen Lane. Rose, M.J., 1985. ~niv~~ism, cuitur~~srn and th ” promise and problems of a

societal ~~p~aeh to economic institutions. Euro Sz Review 1.65-83. Warner, M., 1984. Organisations and exp~m~nts: designing new ways of managing work.

C~c~ter: Wiley. Woodward, J., 1958. M~ag~t and t~h~ol~. London: HMSG.