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from the promote-them-to-where-they-can-do-the-least-damage dept.
Geert Hofstede's "Culture's Consequences" is one of the most influential management books of the 20th century. With well over 80,000 citations, Hofstede argues that 50 percent of managers' differences in their reactions to various situations are explained by cultural differences. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has determined that culture plays little or no part in leaders' management of their employees; this finding could impact how managers are trained and evaluated globally.
"We all want a higher quality of life, a desirable workplace environment and meaningful work -- no matter our home country," said Arthur Jago, professor of management in the Robert J. Trulaske College of Business at MU. "In management theory, we focus more on leaders' differences rather than their similarities. By analyzing the data in a new way, I found that managers across country borders and across cultures are more alike than different."
Crud. Does this mean you can't get away from PHB's no matter where you go?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:56PM
As several others have commented, this research doesn't pass the "smell test." As anybody who has worked with other cultures, employees are very different. Using a very wide sterotype brush (individual people and indeed countries may vary), you have the "never say no, even if I really don't know" of certain Asian regions, the laid-back "I'll get to it when I get to it" of certain tropical regions, the "if you aren't getting results, swear at them louder" of some militaries, the "management and workers can work hand-in-hand to improve everything" of some Western cultures, and the "management is the enemy" of other Western cultures.
Is this study really saying that the same management style is successful in interfacing with all of them?
That's like saying that "I don't care if I'm using Perl, Java, C++, Assembly, or JavaScript; it's all the same programming.
There is no way that a manager from the US, Japan, Germany, India, Brazil, Italy, Vietnam, and Nigeria could be interchanged successfully without retraining going on in between positions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:52AM
What a surprise: Prof. Jago has never worked outside of the USA. [missouri.edu] That explains how he can hypothesize something so far removed from reality.
Culture matters. It matter in how you interact with people, it matters in how people work, and it matters doubly as a manager: how you interact with the people who work for you. Sure, in all cultures you have the lazy and the ambitious, the detail-oriented and the superficial types. But the culture dictates the bounds of interpersonal interaction, which is rather central to management.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:43AM
Oh! Now I get it.
Maybe professor Jago studied management styles in different counties of Missouri. Possibly also a few from bordering states, just to see if the results extrapolate well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:32PM
"Prof. Jago has never worked outside of the USA."
What a Jagoff [wikipedia.org]!
/rimshot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:04PM
You left out the antipodean "she'll be right mate, no worries."