EDO 818 Module 2 Frameworks for Comparing Cultures Example

One Review Form for Three Countries? A Critical Review of Frameworks for Comparing Cultures, Tested on a Performance Review Decision

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Doctor of Education Program, Aspen University

EDO 818: Leading Across Contexts and Cultures

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

One Review Form for Three Countries? A Critical Review of Frameworks for Comparing Cultures, Tested on a Performance Review Decision

Clearbrook Water Systems, an invented Minnesota manufacturer with plants in Brno and Penang, plans to bring all three sites onto one performance review system next year. The Minnesota system asks each employee to rate their own performance, collects written comments from three peers and holds an annual conversation in which employee and manager agree on a final rating. Human resources leaders in Brno and Penang have expressed doubts. The company's chief human resources officer has asked whether cultural research can help decide. This paper reviews two major frameworks for comparing cultures and tests what they can tell her. The company and its people are invented.

Hofstede's Framework and Its Record

Hofstede's model, which began with attitude surveys inside one large firm's foreign subsidiaries, compares national cultures on dimensions such as power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity, with later additions. Kirkman et al. (2006) reviewed research published over twenty-five years that used Hofstede's framework. They found it had been applied to many outcomes, including organizational structures, leadership, human resource practices, teams and individual attitudes, and that cultural values often related to these outcomes in expected ways. They also identified recurring problems: studies frequently assigned country scores to individuals as if everyone shared the national average, sampled few countries, ignored other cultural dimensions and treated scores from decades-old surveys as current. They urged researchers to measure values directly where possible and to consider culture at multiple levels.

How Much Do Values Predict?

Taras et al. (2010) conducted a meta-analysis of studies relating Hofstede's dimensions to a wide range of outcomes. They found that cultural values were related to many outcomes, with effects strongest for emotions, attitudes and perceptions, such as organizational commitment and team-related attitudes, and weaker for behaviors and job performance. Effects were stronger at group and country levels than at the individual level, and cultural values predicted some outcomes better than demographic characteristics such as age and gender, while predicting others less well. They concluded that culture matters but that its effects vary by outcome and level, and they cautioned against using country scores to predict individual behavior.

A Theory-Based Alternative

Schwartz (1999) proposed a theory of cultural value orientations derived from an analysis of the basic problems all societies must address. He identified three dimensions, each with two poles: conservatism, in which people are seen as embedded in collectives (a pole he later renamed embeddedness), versus autonomy, in which they are seen as independent; hierarchy, in which unequal distribution of power and roles is legitimate, versus egalitarianism, in which people recognize one another as moral equals; and mastery, in which people actively change their environment, versus harmony, in which they accept and fit into it. He tested the theory with surveys of teachers and students in many countries and discussed implications for work, such as the meaning of work and the importance of various work goals.

Comparing the Frameworks

Testing the Frameworks on the Decision

Both frameworks raise the same risks for the review system. Self-ratings and negotiation over a final rating assume that employees and managers are equals who can bargain, an egalitarian assumption. Peer feedback in writing assumes that criticizing colleagues openly is acceptable. In societies higher in power distance or hierarchy, such as Malaysia in Hofstede's data, employees may defer to the manager's rating and avoid criticizing peers. In the Czech Republic, higher uncertainty avoidance suggests employees may want clear, documented criteria rather than a negotiated outcome.

But the evidence limits how far these predictions go. Taras and colleagues show that national values predict attitudes better than behavior, and individuals less well than groups. The frameworks can identify where problems are likely; they cannot say how a particular Penang technician will respond. Clearbrook's own pilot data help here: when the Brno plant tried the system with twenty engineers last spring, self-ratings were consistently lower than managers' ratings, the opposite of Minnesota's pattern, and in Penang several employees left the self-rating blank.

What the Frameworks Cannot Settle

Neither framework addresses a question the chief human resources officer raised directly: whether a common system is needed at all. Clearbrook wants comparable ratings across sites so that promotion to regional roles is fair, and that goal argues for some shared elements whatever the cultural risks. Cultural frameworks describe differences; they do not weigh them against a company's need for consistency. That judgment belongs to leaders, informed by the frameworks but not dictated by them, and it is why the recommendation below separates what must be common from what may vary.

A Recommendation

The review system should be hybrid. Common elements across sites: the company's goals, the same five-point rating scale and the requirement that every employee receive a documented conversation each year. Site choices: in Penang, peer feedback can be gathered verbally by the manager rather than in writing, and self-ratings replaced by a guided reflection; in Brno, rating criteria should be written in detail before the year begins, and ratings decided by the manager after the conversation rather than negotiated. Each site's human resources lead will review the first cycle's results.

Conclusion

Hofstede's framework offers familiar comparisons and a large body of research, which Kirkman, Lowe and Gibson show is often misapplied; Taras, Kirkman and Steel show its dimensions predict attitudes better than individual behavior; and Schwartz offers a theory of why values differ. Used together, the frameworks identify the risks in exporting Clearbrook's review system, and local evidence decides how to adapt it.

References

Kirkman, B. L., Lowe, K. B., & Gibson, C. B. (2006). A quarter century of Culture's Consequences: A review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede's cultural values framework. Journal of International Business Studies, 37(3), 285-320. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400202

Schwartz, S. H. (1999). A theory of cultural values and some implications for work. Applied Psychology, 48(1), 23-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1999.tb00047.x

Taras, V., Kirkman, B. L., & Steel, P. (2010). Examining the impact of Culture's Consequences: A three-decade, multilevel, meta-analytic review of Hofstede's cultural value dimensions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 405-439. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018938