CC - Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Organizations, Leadership, and Justice

Poll

How has this semester felt to you?

Working in Teams

A lot of work must be done in groups:

• People work differently alone rather than in a group.

• Social loafing: People don’t work as hard when they’re in a group than when they are alone.

  • More common with simple tasks than difficult

  • More common with groups of strangers than friends

  • More common with groups of all men than all women ones

Poll

Do you like working in teams/groups?

• Yes

• No

Social Loafing Versus Social Striving

• Less social loafing in collectivistic cultures

• Some developmental evidence on cultural differences in social loafing:

  • No differences in sixth graders

  • Ninth graders in America exhibited social loafing: 11.7% performed worse in a pair than alone

  • Ninth graders in Taiwan showed the opposite pattern (social striving): 8.7% performed better in a pair than alone

• Social striving: Working better when evaluated as a group rather than an individual

Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

Ethnically diverse teams have both pros and cons.

Pros

Cons

• Greater variety in viewpoints provides
  greater amount of information.

• People in diverse groups consider and process information more deeply and
  accurately than homogenous groups.

• Diversity can lead to enhanced creativity and informed problem solving.

• Diversity can cause friction, harming
  performance.

• Differences can lead to problems with communication and group cohesion.

• Differences can also lead to stereotyping, decreased trust, segregation, and negative work outcomes.

Creativity and Innovation

Creativity: The generation of ideas that are novel,
useful, and appropriate

Both novelty and usefulness are necessary components
of creativity.

These characteristics may be emphasized differently in
individualistic than in collectivistic cultures.

Draw

Express your creativity!

Creativity as Novelty

• Generating novel ideas appears to be facilitated by individualism.

  • Westerners show a stronger preference for novel objects than East Asians

  • Priming individualistic thoughts generates larger number of ideas than priming collectivistic thoughts

• Extremely novel creativity may be linked to mental illness in the West but appears to be less strongly linked in China.

Creativity as Usefulness

• Generating useful ideas appears to be associated with collectivism.

  • Collectivist cultures prioritize finding practical solutions that
    address social concerns.

  • People in Singapore elaborated more on the appropriateness of
    ideas in a pair rather than alone, but Israelis did not show this
    effect.

  • Koreans thought of more useful ideas but not more original ideas;
    Dutch came up with more original ideas but not more useful ideas.

• Cultures tend to produce different kinds of innovations

• East Asia tends to foster incremental rather than breakthrough innovations

Leadership

• What makes a good leader in different cultures?

• Different cultures may have various ideas of what constitutes good leadership.

  • Americans value leadership highly; American Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) earn more than CEOs in any other country.

  • Europeans tend to be more ambivalent about leaders.

  • Latin Americans prefer strong, autocratic leaders

  • Asians prefer leaders who are moral role models and guide others in their professional and personal lives

Types of Organizational Leaders (1)

Universally desirable types of leaders

• Charismatic/value-based leaders—inspire and motivate others while maintaining high standards based on core beliefs

  • Valued everywhere, but most in English-speaking countries and less so in the Middle East and North Africa

• Team-oriented leaders—emphasize team building and common goals

  • Valued everywhere, but especially in Latin American countries and relatively less in the Middle East and North Africa

Types of Organizational Leaders (2)

Culturally contingent types of leaders

• Humane-oriented leaders—supportive, considerate, compassionate, and generous

  • Highly valued in Southern Asia but not as much in Western Europe

• Autonomous leaders—have an independent and and individualistic style

  • Highly valued in Eastern Europe but not as in Latin America

• Participative leaders—involve others in making and implementing decisions

  • Highly valued in Northern Europe but less so in the Middle East and North Africa

Types of Organizational Leaders (3)

Culturally contingent types of leaders

• Paternalistic leaders guide others in a way similar to the way parents guide their children.

  • Viewed as effective in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East but less appreciated in individualistic contexts.

• Self-protective leaders ensure safety and security of the leaders themselves.

  • Usually seen as less effective but somewhat more valued in Southern Asia and avoided in Northern Europe

Poll

Would you describe yourself as a leader or a follower?

• Leader

• Follower

Cultural Traits and Influences (1)

Rational persuasion: Leadership trait that involves
obtaining evidence, conveying arguments, and
suggesting solutions as a way of exerting influence

Guanxi : Chinese concept of obligations inherent in
social connections and relationships

Wasta : Arabic concept of creating trust between
people via a mutual third-party connection

Cultural Traits and Influences (2)

Jeitinho : Brazilian concept for navigating hierarchies

Nemawashi : Japanese process of informally discussing
ideas before making a proposal

Recommendation for Effective Leadership

• Global leaders will be most effective in increasingly globalized companies with multicultural workplaces and diverse employees by:

  • Being nonjudgmental, tolerant of ambiguity, self-confident, and optimistic

  • Maintaining a global mindset and good knowledge of local cultures

  • Appreciating individual uniqueness within the context of cultural differences

Culture and Justice

• Distributive justice: socially just and equitable allocation of goods and services.

• Three principles of resource distribution:

  • Principle of need: based on determining whose circumstances would benefit most.

  • Principle of equality: sharing equally among group members.

  • Principle of equity: based on individual efforts and abilities.

Systems of Distributive Justice

• Meritocracy: social system that rewards individuals based on equity

• More common in individualistic societies

• Generally motivates individuals to work hard

• Breeds competition, potentially disrupting relationships

• Seniority system uses age or time spent as an employee as the basis of reward

• Example of a system using the principle of equality

• Much of the world uses the principle of equality to maintain distributive justice

• May decrease individual motivation but maintain harmonious relationships in some cultural contexts

Cultural Variations in Distributive Justice (1)

• In one study, Indian and American participants read In one study, Indian and American participants read about a manager deciding who should receive a bonus:
  

  • Employee 1: excellent work performance and adequate economic situation.

  • Employee 2: average work performance and poor financial situation, with illness in the family

How should the bonus be divided?

Why Do Cultures Differ in Distributive Justice?

• Just world belief: worldview that life is fair and people tend to get what they deserve.

  • Americans more likely to endorse this view than the French.

• Level of income inequality

  • Higher in the United States than in France.

• Preferred rewards

  • Good pay in Chile; interesting work and promotion opportunities in the U.S

Economic Games and Motivations for Fairness (1)

• Dictator game: economic game used to examine motivations toward justice and fairness.

• People everywhere who play the game feel compelled to give some of the money to the other person.

• There is wide cultural variation in the decision of how much to give.

Economic Games and Motivations for Fairness (2)

Public goods game: economic game used to examine
motivations involving fairness and cooperation

People tend to free ride (contribute less than they
receive) more after each round of the game.

Altruistic punishment, or the ability to punish people
who don’t cooperate, strongly increased cooperation.

If you were playing Monopoly, and you knew someone was stealing money/cheating, how would you react?

Failures to Cooperate (1)

• Antisocial punishment: using one’s own resources to punish another person, even if that person were
  cooperating

  • Behavior motivated by revenge or to prevent some players from making more than others

  • Negligible in WEIRD societies but very common in other countries with weaker norms for civic cooperation and the rule of law

  • Individuals may rely on alternate ways to meet their needs in societies with weaker cooperation norms

Predictors of Corrupt Practices

Poverty level

Economic inequality

Collectivism

Power distance: strength of social hierarchy and the
extent to which people low in power accept it

Open Ended

What do you think are some reasons for collectivism being a corrupt indicator?

Negotiation and Compromise

• Two strategies to pursue in
  negotiations:

  • Ignore the other side and fight for one's own cause

  • Seek compromise

Cross-Cultural Negotiating Strategies

• Collectivistic cultures

  • Tend to comply with others’ requests and seek compromise

  • Negotiators act on behalf of many: the company, government, and society at large

  • May view anger in negotiation as inappropriate and use apology to restore trust and resolve disputes

• Individualistic cultures

  • More likely to use strategies that involve making threats and accusations and ignore others’ positions

  • Negotiators accountable to fewer people

  • May express anger in negotiation to induce concession

Poll

Would you describe your family as more individualistic or collectivistic?

• Individualistic

• Collectivistic