Organizational Behavior across Cultures

A global economy is now a

reality, many organizations now

do business in more than one

country, and these

multinational organizations

add powerful new dimensions to

organizational behavior.

In a South American nation, a

consultant from the United States was

called upon to study why the West

German machinery in a cellophane plant

owned by South Americans was not

operating properly.

South American

United States

West

German

When the consultant arrived, he studied the situation for several

weeks. His conclusion was that nothing at all was wrong with the

machinery. It was of excellent quality and perfect adjustment. The raw

materials and other supporting factors were entirely satisfactory.

The real problem, in the consultant’s opinion, was the

supervisors, who had a father image of the patriarchal mill manager

and were unable, or unwilling, to make operating decisions without his

approval. When something in the mill went wrong, they waited

indefinitely for his decisions before correcting the problem. Since he

had other business interest, he is frequently out of the mill often for

more than a day, they permitted the continuous-production machinery

to produce scrap cellophane for hours or even days because of some

minor maladjustments which they could have corrected.

The mill manager tried to delegate decision making on these control

matters to his supervisors, but neither he nor they were able to

overcome this powerful custom of deference to authority which existed

in their culture. The consultant finally summarized the situation this

way:

SocialLegal and Ethical

PoliticalEconomic