Drivers of Organizational Performance Across Cultures

If we join what we have learned about the assumptions of performance improvement approaches with knowledge about national cultural differences, we may conclude that drivers of organizational performance will vary in different cultural contexts.  In the next section, we suggest what performance improvement specialists might do specifically to adjust the delivery of performance improvement interventions to respond to these cultural differences.

Preliminary results of a recent study conducted in Austria, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands identified at least three principal drivers of performance that vary according to cultural contexts (Hofstede, 1998).  The first driver of performance, noted in France and Austria, is the skill or expert level of the manager.  Expert power stems from employees’ recognition that the manager possesses special technical and administrative knowledge about the business (French & Raven, 1960).  Performance improvement interventions in these countries might be more effective if they integrated some reference to expert or managerial influence.  This could motivate employees to go along with the manager’s recommendations, resulting in changes and improvement in individual performance. The recognition of the value of expert power is characteristic of Hofstede’s (1980) uncertainty avoidance dimension of national culture, and both France and Austria score relatively high on it.  This leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 1.  Performance improvement interventions that include reference to expert power or managerial influence will be more effective in national cultures that demonstrate high uncertainty avoidance.

The second driver of performance, identified in Hong Kong and China, combines the importance of family and clan relationships, national bonds, and respect for ethical norms with entrepreneurial creativity.  This might suggest that a collectivist approach to performance improvement might be effective in these countries, such that loyalty and identity is based on the clan system and strong social relationships.  This discovery is consistent with Hofstede’s (1980) earlier findings that Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian countries scored high on the collectivist dimensions of national cultural differences.  Of course, one intervention of HPT, called whole-systems change, involves a collectivist or "whole organizational" approach to performance improvement, rather than an individualist approach.  Thus, performance improvement specialists working in Southeast Asia would likely experience considerable success with this type of intervention.  This suggests the following proposition:

Proposition 2.  Performance improvement interventions that incorporate a "whole organizational" or systems approach will be more effective in national cultures that demonstrate high collectivism.

The third driver of performance, identified in Germany and the Netherlands, is the vision and the goals of the organization’s founder.  The finding is similar to the expertise phenomenon identified in Austria and France, yet it suggests the strength of a different type of expert power.  In this case, expert power is attributed to the founder due to his [or her?] historically superior knowledge of the business.  In these countries, a clear communication of the vision of the founder may be required to encourage many employees to improve their performance.  Performance improvement (PI) specialists would want to integrate that vision into the delivery of PI interventions, such that the founder’s goals become the expectations or principles of the organization.  Assuming the founder has considerable influence within the organization, the goals will serve as criteria for performance, and clear and regular reference to the goals would motivate people to improve their performance.  In cultures where the skill of the manager is the driver of performance, people can be motivated to improve performance based on the demonstrated expert power of the manager and/or his or her ability to control organizational resources (Pfeffer, 1992).  Interestingly, although expert power is generally associated with high uncertainty avoidance, Germany and the Netherlands scored moderate on this dimension (Hofstede, 1980).  A respect for expert power is also associated with relatively low levels of power distance, to the extent that people believe that the use of power should be legitimate -- instead of accepting that power is a basic fact of society.  Consistent with this view, both Germany and the Netherlands score low on the power distance scale (Hofstede, 1980).  This leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 3.  Performance improvement interventions that incorporate reference to a strong and legitimate vision of the founder/owner will be more effective in national cultures that demonstrate high uncertainty avoidance and low power distance.