Recently published as the Editorial in IJCCM 13(1) April 2013
Do please contribute to the discussion by leaving a comment.
There appears to be a continuing
debate between ‘culturists’ and ‘institutionalists’. Differences across nations
are either attributed to institutional arrangements, which are seen as
fundament; or, differences are attributed to cultural factors or, in Hofstedian
parlance, to differences in the ‘software of the mind’. Sorge (2004) believes
that the two approaches should be complementary. He cites Giddens (1986) in
saying that individual behaviour and social structure are reciprocally
constituted: that is, normative customs that are instituted to be binding are
kept in place by acting individuals. Sorge (2004) believes that such an
integrative approach will consider both the construction of actors, that is
people with values, preferences and knowledge, and the construction of social
and societal systems as reciprocally related to an extent that they cannot be
separated from each other. However, to see culturalist approaches as focusing
‘on the mind of the individual as the place where differences reside’, and
institutionalist approaches focusing ‘on wider norms and standards supported or
enforced by institutional machineries’ (p.119) may in itself be seeing the
issue from an institutionalist perspective.
Jack Goody (1994), a prominent
British social anthropologist, points to the dichotomy in the American
tradition of cultural
anthropology between ‘cultural studies’ concerned with symbols and meaning, and
the social (social structures, organizations). He maintains that in the
European tradition, of social
anthropology this dichotomy is not readily accepted, and has tended to treat
these two categories as virtually synonymous. Certainly this is reflected in
Tylor’s (1871) classic definition of culture constituting: ‘that complex whole
which involves knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs and other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’, and for
example Firth’s (1951) view where culture is seen as the content of social
relations, not as some distinct entity. Hence the institutional context both
shapes meaning, and is shaped by it. Both are what can be described as culture.
Institutions are cultural constructs with rules that are applied in society,
and they also shape and are shaped by values, which are part of the meaning
systems of society. This is different, for example, from the conceptualization
of the American cultural anthropologist Geertz (1973:89) who sees culture as
‘an historically transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in symbols of
inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means which men
communicate’, and distinguishes between cultural symbols as ‘vehicles of
thought’ and social structure as ‘forms of human association’ with a
‘reciprocal interplay’ occurring between them. Goody (1994: 252) therefore
maintains that ‘..attempts to differentiate the cultural from the social, or
the symbolic from other forms of human interaction, seem open to question. The
terms may serve as general signposts to areas of interest within a wider field
of social action..’ In terms of this debate Hofstede seems to be firmly in the
American camp, distinguishing ‘the software of the mind’ as meaning/value
systems and juxtaposing himself to the institutionalists.
However, integrating the cultural
and the institutional is not as straightforward as that. In societies that were
colonized by Europeans, there appears to be a clear distinction between imposed
institutions and local cultures. For example, Dia (1996) takes the view that
institutions were imposed on African societies during the colonial period. They
have largely remained and evolved through the post-colonial period, and mostly
are seen as still inappropriate to African societies and their context. Here,
rules seem to be at odds with values; institutions appear to be at odds with
symbolic culture.
The introduction of colonial
institutions into Africa appear to involve a number of elements: firstly the
(cultural) background of the colonizing countries; secondly the interaction of
colonizers with colonized societies and institutions (for example African
institutions such as chiefdoms were integrated into colonial administrations to
enlist the help of local chiefs to keep law and order and to collect taxes:
Gluckman, 1956/1970); and thirdly the wielding of (economic, military and then
ideological) power by the colonizers within the interactions with local
communities. There is no doubt also that these institutions have an influence
on African communities today, and that they have helped to shape modern and
urban African cultures. Through interactions these institutions have also been
shaped by African cultural influences that include African institutions
(Ayitter, 1991). This does not just apply to Africa, as so much of the Globe
had interactions with colonial powers, including today’s emerging powers such
as China, India, Brazil; and indeed continue to have interactions with global
powers that may be imposing ‘global’ institutions on local communities.
So, is this a false debate? Is
there really a distinction between institutions and culture? Anyone schooled in
British social anthropology may perhaps argue, as Goody, that there is not. Yet
my main point would be that as cross-cultural management scholars we perhaps do
not spend as much time as we ought in thinking about and conceptualizing the
ideas that we work with. The growing literature in the area of international
management appears to accentuate this dichotomy between ‘institutions’ and
‘culture’, to the extent that we appear almost afraid of treading on each other’s
toes, that we feel we cannot borrow from each other’s literature. This
dichotomizing might itself have a cultural (and/or indeed an institutional)
root, in the way subject disciplines have evolved slightly differently in
Western Europe and in North America, and cross-cultural management may have
taken, from the beginning, a distinctly North America turn.
References
Ayittey, G. B. N. (1991) Indigenous African Institutions, New York: Transnational
Publishers.
Dia, M. (1996) Africa’s Management in the 1990s and Beyond, Washington DC:
World Bank.
Firth, R (1951) Elements of Social Organization, London:Watts
Geertz, C (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books.
Giddens, A (1986) The Constitution of Society,Berkeley and Los Angeles:University
of California Press.
Gluckman, M. (1956/1970) Custom and Conflict in Africa, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Goody, J. (1994) Culture and its boundaries: a
European perspective, in R. Borofsky (ed) Assessing Cultural Anthropology,New York: McGraw-Hill, pp.
250-61.
Jackson, T. (2011) From Cultural Values
to Cross-cultural Interfaces: Hofstede Goes to Africa, Journal of Organization Change Management, 24(4): 532-58
Sorge, A (2004) Cross-national differences in human
resources and organization, Chapter 5 in A-W Harzing and J Van
Ruysseveldt, International Human
Resource Management, London: Sage, 2004, pp.117-140.
Tylor, E B (1871) Primitive
Culture, cited in C Levi-Strauss (1963) (Trans. Jacobson, C and B G Schoel), Structural Anthropology, Harmondsworth:
Penguin
No comments:
Post a Comment