Impacts of Cultural Differences on Aspects of Behaviour and Interpersonal Relation
Cultural differences are said to have substantial impacts on aspects of behaviour and interpersonal response, as evidenced below in a summary of findings from selected articles covering discussion from general aspects to leadership, performance and trust. For example, Chinese in Taiwan are less compliant than Chinese in Singapore in response to friends’ requests, but they are more tactful in refusing compared with Singaporean Chinese (Bresnahan et al. 1999). Hungarians are more willing to engage in self-disclosure to partners, friends, and parents than Russians and Georgians, but less so to acquaintances (Goodwin et al. 1999). In dealing with conflict, Americans (individualists) use more assertive tactics, whereas Japanese (collectivists) use more avoidance tactics (Ohbuchi, Fukushima & Tedeschi 1999). More illustrations from this area of research follow.
Western and Eastern cultures are different in various aspects (e.g., Scarborough 2000; Yoon, Vargas & Han 2004; Yuki et al. 2005). In particular, there are cultural differences in perceptions of levels of job satisfaction, job tension, and interpersonal relations with superiors and peers (Harrison 1995). Job satisfaction is lower, job tension higher, and interpersonal relations poorer for managers in
Singapore (high power distance, collectivist) than for managers in Australia (low power distance, individualist). Also, there are differences in choices of decision process (Chu, Spires & Sueyoshi 1999). Compared with Americans, Japanese are less likely to invoke compensatory decision processes8, which involve conflict-confronting assessment of trade-offs among attributes. Again, there are differences in effective routes to persuasion (Pornpitakpan & Francis 2000). Whereas source expertise has a greater impact on persuasion in the Thai culture (high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, collectivist) than in the Canadian culture (low power distance, low uncertainty avoidance, individualist), argument strength has more influence in the Canadian than in the Thai culture.
In the same vein, there are significant cultural differences in preferred approaches to emotional support provision (Burleson & Mortenson 2003).
Americans (being more individualist) will evaluate comforting messages high in person centeredness9 more positively than will Chinese, whereas traditional Chinese (being more collectivist) are more comfortable with less person-centered messages.
Moreover, there are differences in causal attributions (Maddux & Yuki 2006).
Compared with Westerners, East Asians make broader/more complex causal attributions, and hence are more aware of how individuals and events are interrelated. More specifically, Westerners have a strong tendency to explain behaviours in terms of an actor’s characteristics, whereas East Asians are more inclined to explain behaviours in terms of situational factors influencing the actor.
Similarly, there are differences in perceptions of the consequences of events (Maddux & Yuki 2006). People from East Asian cultures are more aware of the indirect, downstream, distal consequences of events than do people from Western cultures.
Further, cultural differences can influence leaders’ and subordinates’
perceptions concerning leadership. In particular, preferences of business managers’
8 Compensatory decision processes involving trade-offs between attribute values are confronting, whereas noncompensatory processes not involving explicit trade-offs are conflict-avoiding (Chu, Spires & Sueyoshi 1999).
9 “In comforting contexts, person centeredness is manifest in terms of the extent to which messages explicitly acknowledge, elaborate, legitimize, and contextualize the distressed other’s feelings and perspective. Thus, messages low in person centeredness deny the other’s feelings and perspective by criticizing the other’s feelings, challenging the legitimacy of those feelings, or telling the other how he or she should act and feel” (Burleson & Mortenson 2003, p. 115).
explicit behaviours to successfully guide and motivate employees vary across countries (Ittrell & Valentin 2005). Argentine managers have greater preference than their U.S. counterparts in adopting Effective Leadership Practices - Challenging the Process, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Enabling Others to Act, Modelling the Way, and Encouraging the Heart (Aimar & Stough 2006). Certain personality traits positively associated with transformational leadership behaviour in the U.S. context are not evident in the Chinese environment (Shao & Webber 2006). Ranking of the importance of effective leadership behaviours differs significantly across countries (Russette, Scully & Preziosi 2008). Gender differences in leadership styles (consideration vs. initiating structure) are predominantly present in western societies with female managers around the world using more consideration style (Van Emmerik, Euwema & Wendt 2008). Preferred leadership prototypes held by leaders vary across countries, cultures and industries (Paris et al. 2009). Finally, culture and leadership interact in different ways in diverse contexts such that culture influences leadership styles because people have different beliefs and assumptions about characteristics that are deemed effective for leadership (Jogulu 2010).
Moreover, cultural differences can influence international alliance performance. In this respect, organisational culture differences tend to be more disruptive than national culture differences, and differences in the professional culture most relevant to alliance value creation are most disruptive (Sirmon & Lane 2004). Studies in this area appear to yield inconsistent results on the impact of cultural similarities and differences on strategic partnerships (Meirovich 2010).
Some suggest that partners must possess cultural similarities in order to succeed while others reveal that cultural differences have a positive impact on both the efficiency and competitiveness of partnerships. More recently, Calza, Aliane &
Cannavale’s (2010) study indicates that Algerian culture is characterized by a low degree of performance orientation and a low degree of assertiveness, with strong implications for foreign managers. Such a national culture discourages local workers to reach higher standards and to improve performance, and impacts on foreign managers’ capability to motivate local workers. Hence, the involvement of local managers is crucial in overcoming these problems.
In addition, cultural differences can have significant impacts on trusting relationships. In investigating the impact of cultural differences on trust relating to business strategy and control in the multinational corporations’ headquarters–
subsidiary relationships, Horng’s (1993) study suggests that while trust may promote the pursuit of desired strategy, trust can also facilitate the use of strategic control versus financial control. In the service industries, customer trust in the service provider generally depends on customers’ beliefs about service providers’ ability, benevolence, predictability, and integrity (Schumann et al. 2010). However, customers differ in the way they build trust in their service provider across cultures.
While the effect of ability on trust is robust across countries, the effects of the other three trust drivers differ across countries due to moderating effects of the cultural values of the target group.
Similarly, cultural differences can influence one’s inclination to trust or distrust others (Scarborough 2000). Christianity (embedded in Western cultures) emphasizes that people are born with the stigma of original sin and thus are condemned unless saved (i.e., changed). In contrast, Shinto (the indigenous spirituality of Japanese) makes little distinction between deities and people. The extent to which one’s attitudes and beliefs are shaped by one of these positions can affect one’s inclination to trust or distrust others. Finally, there are cultural differences in the process of trust formation (Yuki et al. 2005). Americans tend to trust people primarily based on whether they share category memberships (e.g., they trust in-group members more than out-group members), whereas Japanese tend to trust people based on the likelihood of sharing direct or indirect interpersonal links.
Taken together, cultural values differ across countries (Hofstede 1980,2001;
Hofstede & Hofstede 2005), and such cultural differences can have substantial impacts on aspects of behaviour and interpersonal relation (e.g., Harrison 1995;
Scarborough 2000; Yoon, Vargas & Han 2004; Yuki et al. 2005). Since trust is primarily an interpersonal phenomenon (e.g., Mayer, Davis & Schoorman 1995), cultural differences may also have impacts on trusting relationships.
The above line of reasoning suggests that research findings for the resolution of the broad research problem may have a geographic boundary of generalisability as
findings for a high power distance (PD), low individualism (IDV) nation may be different from those for a low PD, high IDV nation. For example, previous research findings about interpersonal relations with superiors for managers in Singapore (high PD, low IDV) are different from those for managers in the low PD, high IDV Australia (Harrison 1995). However, given a large number of nations that have the cultural characteristics of either high PD/low IDV (East Asians) or low PD/high IDV (Anglo-Americans), research findings for Singapore and Australia may also apply to a substantial number of East Asian and Anglo-American nations, respectively.
Following this line of arguments, it is logical to infer that research findings, if replicable across culturally different countries, are possibly generalisable to other settings.
This section of the literature review offers insights into the methodology alternatives that allow research findings for the resolution of the broad research problem to be validated for their generalisability across culturally different countries.
Specifically, the literature indicates that a two-country study design, involving one country characterized by high PD/low IDV and the other by low PD/high IDV, is required to make such a validation possible.
SUMMARY
The broad research problem addressed in this study prompted relevant literature searches to unearth specific research questions for its resolution. Accordingly, four research questions gradually emerged out of the foregoing discussion of literature across different theoretical areas. Some salient points follow.
Firstly, the concept of trust was thoroughly reviewed and discussed in order to have the fullest grasp of the concept. This was then followed by the discussion of the parsimonious trustworthiness factors, and the key tenets of Mayer, Davis &
Schoorman’s (1995) trust model. From the discussion of various issues, including the moderating effects of referent of trust and the inconsistent research findings on antecedent–trust relationships, emerged the first research question:
RQ1. To what extent are employee perceptions of top management’s ability, benevolence, and integrity related to employee trust in top management?
Secondly, while the social context (e.g., groups) for trust has been thought to be important (Shamir & Lapidot 2003; Wekselberg 1996), it has been neglected in the most widely accepted definition of trust by Mayer, Davis & Schoorman (1995).
Given this limitation (gap) in the authors’ theory, the role of groups in the formation of trust in organisational authorities, including the effects of group processes on employee perceptions of superior’s trustworthiness, and group cohesiveness and its consequences were reviewed and discussed. From the discussion of this topic emerged the second research question:
RQ2. How does group cohesiveness influence employee perceptions of top management’s trustworthiness?
Thirdly, four important organisational outcomes, namely affective commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intention, and intention-to-return (a newly developed concept) were examined and discussed in respect of their important consequences for organisational performance and effectiveness, and the pattern of their relationships with trust in organisational authorities. From the discussion of various issues, such as the moderating effects of definition of trust and referent of trust that may vary the trust–outcome relationships (Dirks & Ferrin 2002), emerged the third research question:
RQ3. To what extent is employee trust in top management related to each of the important organisational outcomes, namely affective commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intention, and intention-to-return?
Finally, it has been argued that trust, alone, is an inadequate condition for certain desirable outcomes to occur (Hwang & Burgers 1997). It is something (i.e., the moderator) that provides the conditions under which certain trust–outcome
relationships will be more or less pronounced (Brockner et al. 1997). Given this controversy, the potential moderating effects of role-modelling on the trust–outcome relationships were examined and discussed. As well, the linkage between role-modelling and shared values, and the linkage between shared values and trust were discussed. From the discussion of this topic emerged the fourth research question:
RQ4. How does role-modelling of senior manager influence the relationship between employee trust in top management and each of the important organisational outcomes, namely affective commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intention, and intention-to-return?
In addition, driven by the notion of cultural differences having substantial impacts on interpersonal relations (e.g., Harrison 1995), and the theories suggesting trust is primarily an interpersonal phenomenon (e.g., Mayer, Davis & Schoorman 1995), cultural differences and their impacts were examined and discussed. From the discussion about the origins of cultural differences, and the impacts of cultural differences on aspects of behaviour/interpersonal relation, it is suggested that a two-country study design is required to validate if research findings are replicable across culturally different countries.
The next chapter describes the theoretical framework, the operational definitions of all constructs, the analytical model of the theoretical framework, and the research hypotheses that guide the rest of the study.