Managerial values & human resource decision making : a cross-cultural study

Cross-cultural differences in managerial values, attitudes, systems and practices are an important theme in the contemporary management and human resource management literature, (Adler et al., 1986; Hofstede, 1980). This debate tends to be conceptualised in terms of two strands of argument. On the one hand a convergence thesis argues that managerial values, practices and systems will converge and follow a model found in the developed countries such as the US and UK (Adler and Graham, 1989; Negandhi, 1979; Schwartz, 1992). Commentators who subscribe to the convergence argument posit that advances in communication and transportation has brought with it cross-pollination of culture across all countries. The convergence argument is also reflected in the desire of multinational companies to become global organisations and develop a universal corporate culture. Corporate culture grows out of the values held by organisational members especially managers and it is argued that they will have similar values regardless of where in the world these individuals grow up and now work (Boeker, 1989; Chatman and Jehn, 1994). The question of whether managerial values are convergent or divergent is therefore an important issue because in order to create such a universal culture, the diverse individual values of managers from different geographic locations must converge with a common set of values to create the desired corporate culture.