September 2002
Volume 4 • Number 4
Contents
Supporting Details for The Impact of National Cultural
Factors on the Effectiveness of Process Improvement Methods:
The Third Dimension
(These did not appear in the print version of the article.)
A value system is the deepest of four layers of culture considered
in social anthropology. Layers and dimensions of national,
organizational, and other group cultures have been identified
by thorough scientific research. Layers of national culture
from the most superficial to the deepest are briefly summarized
here (Hofstede 1994):
- Symbols: Words, gestures, pictures, or objects
that carry a particular meaning that is only recognized
by those who share the culture.
- Heroes: Persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary,
who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a
culture, and who thus serve as models for behavior.
- Rituals: Collective activities technically superfluous
in reaching desired ends, however socially essential.
- Values: Broad tendencies to prefer certain states
of affairs to others.
The first three layers are visible to outside observers;
their cultural meaning, however, is invisible. The fourth
layer, that is values are acquired so early in people's lives,
that they remain for the most part unconscious. Therefore,
they are not normally discussed, nor can outsiders normally
directly observe them.
To illustrate the impact of value systems on views about
the right management of organizations that are the subjects
of process improvement, the authors refer to (Hofstede 1994)
lining-up four distinguished scholars from France, Germany,
the United States, and China. The authors first observe the
differences in their value systems reflected by their views.
They then briefly present Hofstede's model of national cultures,
which they validate on its power in predicting the previously
observed differences. The authors examine the impact of national
cultural value systems on the effectiveness of process improvement
models in general and on Capability Maturity Model IntegrationSM
(CMMI) in particular, whose continuous representation
is compatible with the ISO/IEC 15504 Software Process Improvement
and Capability dEtermination (SPICE) model. The authors propose
a third cultural dimension in addition to the process and
capability dimensions of the existing models. Finally, they
observe the generic practices of CMMI from the cultural dimension.
It is obvious that the effectiveness of process improvement
methods is also influenced by organizational culture. Nevertheless,
the focus of this article is on national culture.
VIEWS ABOUT THE RIGHT MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONS
Henri Fayol
Henri Fayol (1841-1925) was a French engineer. His key work
was Administration Industrielle et Generale, 1916. He belongs
to the classical school of management theory and was writing
and exploring administration and work. The following quotation
is from (Fayol 1916) translated by Hofstede (1994):
"We distinguish in a manager his statutory authority
which is in the office, and his personal authority which consists
of his intelligence, his knowledge, his experience, his moral
values, his leadership, his service record, etc. For a good
manager, personal authority is the indispensable complement
to statutory authority."
It is clear that in Fayol's value system a person is a good
manager if his power is both accepted by people and formally
assigned by its organization.
Max Weber
Max Weber (1864-1920) was a German sociologist. He was the
first to observe and write on the bureaucracy that developed
in Germany during the 19th century. He considered it to be
efficient, rational, and honest, a big improvement over the
haphazard administration it replaced. A quotation from (Weber
1921):
"The authority to give the commands required for the
discharge of duties should be exercised in a stable way. It
is strictly delimited by rules concerning the coercive means...
which may be placed at the disposal of officials."
In Weber's value system the management of an organization
is good if it is strictly governed by rules. This is the original
meaning of bureaucracy without the negative sense attached
to it nowadays.
Mary Parker Follett
Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) was a U. S. pioneer of organization
theory. In the 1920s, her comments and writing on leadership,
power, law of the situation, conflict integration and circular
behavior, empowerment, teams, and networked organizations,
importance of relationships within and among organizations,
authority, control, and so on were way ahead of her time.
She writes (Metcalf and Urwick 1940):
"How can we avoid the two extremes: too great bossism
in giving orders, and practically no orders given?... My solution
is to depersonalize the giving of orders to unite all concerned
in a study of the situation, to discover the law of the situation
and to obey that.... One person should not give orders to
another person but both should agree to take their orders
from the situation."
According to Follett an organization is well managed if it
is governed by neither accepted nor formal power but the market
situation in today's terms.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen
Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) was a revolutionary ahead of
his time. He devoted his life to bringing democracy to China.
He extensively studied the political systems of European countries
and America in formulating the Three Principles of the People:
Nationalism, Democracy, and Social Well-Being. After failing
on several attempts to unite the people to revolt, Sun finally
succeeded with the Wuch'ang Uprising on October 10, 1911,
leading to the successful overthrow of the Ch'ing government
and the establishment of the Republic of China.
Sun was a contemporary of the other scholars even if he did
not address industrial but political organizations. The government
structure of Taiwan builds on his ideas integrating the western
separation of executive, legislative, and juridical powers
with the Chinese tradition by making all of these dependent
on the president, and adding an examination and a control
power supposed to audit the government.
Return to top • Return
to article
