Organizational behavior across cultures

1. Organizational Behavior
across Cultures

2. A global economy is now a
reality, many organizations now
do business in more than one
country, and these
multinational organizations
add powerful new dimensions to
organizational behavior.

4. In a South American nation, a
consultant from the United States was
called upon to study why the West
German machinery in a cellophane plant
owned by South Americans was not
operating properly.
South American
United States
West
German

5. When the consultant arrived, he studied the situation for several
weeks. His conclusion was that nothing at all was wrong with the
machinery. It was of excellent quality and perfect adjustment. The raw
materials and other supporting factors were entirely satisfactory.
The real problem, in the consultant’s opinion, was the
supervisors, who had a father image of the patriarchal mill manager
and were unable, or unwilling, to make operating decisions without his
approval. When something in the mill went wrong, they waited
indefinitely for his decisions before correcting the problem. Since he
had other business interest, he is frequently out of the mill often for
more than a day, they permitted the continuous-production machinery
to produce scrap cellophane for hours or even days because of some
minor maladjustments which they could have corrected.

6. The mill manager tried to delegate decision making on these control
matters to his supervisors, but neither he nor they were able to
overcome this powerful custom of deference to authority which existed
in their culture. The consultant finally summarized the situation this
way:

15. Social
Legal and Ethical
Political
Economic