How do differences in cultural practices affect global management style? Do highly structured societies nurture more humane leaders?

Ongoing research since 1993 by the GLOBE Project (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) is investigating the relationship between cultural practices and values, as well as leadership effectiveness. The GLOBE project involves over 150 researchers who surveyed 18,000 middle managers in three industries (food service, finance and telecommunications) in 62 societies, along with analyzing other measures of prosperity and well-being of countries and cultures. The findings from two phases of the project are reported in Culture, Leadership and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies published by Sage Publishing, Inc. in April.

One of the GLOBE researchers and a contributor to the book is Thunderbird’s Dr. Mary Sully de Luque, assistant professor of management and research fellow in the Garvin Center for Cultures and Languages. A specialist in organizational behavior, her expertise is “uncertainty avoidance,” one of nine cultural dimensions defined by GLOBE research (see sidebar). Uncertainty avoidance (UA) is the extent to which members of a society seek orderliness, consistency, structure, procedures and laws to alleviate the unpredictability of events and situations. According to the GLOBE results, high UA countries are Switzerland, Singapore, Germany and China; low UA countries are Venezuela, Hungary and Russia. India, Mexico, the U.S. and Japan fall in the middle.

Societies that score high in UA tend to favor legal contracts, meticulous records, formal business meetings, and written rules. While their aversion to uncertainty limits innovation (unless done with strict oversight), new product implementation tends to be easier because of tight controls and documented procedures. The results show that most of the countries with high reported UA practices are technologically developed and those with low reported practices are technologically developing countries. In other words, “Technology seems to be the underlying element of distinction between the two groups,” de Luque said.

According to de Luque, a society’s practices predict its culture, while its values determine leadership style. A society’s values and practices don’t necessarily coincide, she noted. The GLOBE research seeks to show how differences in a society’s cultural dimensions relate to leadership characteristics.

“We asked managers in the 62 societies questions about how things are ('As is') and how they would like things to be ('Should be'). The former indicates practices and the latter indicates values. Our findings suggest that cultures reported in the GLOBE survey as having strong UA values have weaker UA practices (with a few exceptions). In contrast, the cultures reporting UA only modestly in their values tend to exhibit this cultural characteristic rather strongly in their practices. (China reported high in both values and practices, suggesting that having certainty in their society is immensely important.)

”All things considered,” de Luque said, “it appears that the difference between the practices and values scores is a reflection of the current national level of uncertainty caused by unresolved issues. For developing nations, the difference implies that members of these societies perceive themselves as being on the road to, but not quite accomplished in, reducing the uncertainties in their lives. As they acquire more sophisticated technologies, over the long term, this difference between their practices and values scores may grow smaller. For most of the developed nations, however, the negative difference implies that members of these societies see excessive structure in their environment, perhaps resulting in a desire to have less structure in their lives.”

According to de Luque, who was lead author of the Uncertainty Avoidance section in Culture, Leadership and Organizations, GLOBE project research found a high correlation at the societal and organizational level between UA and leaders who are team-oriented, humane (compassionate or supportive) and self-protective (self-centered or self-oriented), while societies that practice UA are less likely to value charismatic and participative leadership styles.

A personal interest of hers is the impact of UA on innovation. There’s been little research on this topic, she said. Phase 3 of the GLOBE Project may take her toward this goal; it will investigate the characteristics and differences between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial CEOs in 20 countries.

Dr. Mary Sully de Luque received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior and international management from the University of Nebraska’s College of Business Administration. Her research has been published in several scholarly journals and in 1999 she won the Best Paper Award from the Business Association of Latin American Studies (BALAS). She can be contacted at sullym@t-bird.edu.

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