The third perspective: the psychological approach
The author investigated the work values of two Malaysian populations (Fontaine, 2004). Culture was the independent variable and work value was the dependent variable. The methodology reflected the lessons learnt. In particular,
(1)
As ethnicity and culture are different concepts, a scale measuring cultural values was a pre‐requisite.
(2)
The assumption that ethnic groups are not homogeneous meant that ANOVAs were not considered as ANOVA's can only be used when each category is homogeneous.
(3)
Two different samples were chosen to determine whether the findings can be generalized.
Some of the results were published in Fontaine and Richardson (2005). Another result of the study is summarized in Table II.
The surprise (which was not at all evident in the literature) was that contextual factors are more important in explaining variation in work values than culture. Contextual factors include national policies, organizational or individual factors.
A convincing theoretical framework to understand the relationship between contextual factors and culture exist in “multilevel theories” (Klein and Kozlowski, 2000). In their opening remarks, they observe that organizations are multilevel systems. However, “the system is sliced into organization, group, and individual levels, each level the province of different disciplines, theories and approaches. The organization may be an integrated system, but organizational sciences are not. Fundamental to the level perspective is the recognition that micro phenomena are embedded in macro contexts and that macro phenomena often emerge through the interaction and dynamics of lower‐level elements” (Klein and Koslowzki, 2000, pp. 3‐7).
Chao (2000) proposes a multilevel theory of culture. Her model revolves around three key issues:
(1)
Antecedents of culture and perceptions of other cultures.
(2)
The influence of higher‐order intercultural relationships on lower‐level interactions.
(3)
The subsequent sense making of these relationships.
Chao's effort is intellectually appealing but left the author confused. In practice, it is difficult to know how multilevel theories help “cross‐cultural managers” deal with issues at the workplace. At this stage, the author's perception was that focusing on culture was misleading. We cannot ask employees to change their cultural values but we can modify the context in which employees operate. In short, we can summarize cross‐cultural behaviour as: (Equation 1)
The behaviour of the group in the workplace is a function of the cultural values that employees have and their contextual factors (yet to be defined). Cultural values are essentially fixed and cannot be “managed”. Contextual factors however can be changed, thus leading to a change of employee behaviour. Thus, a cross‐cultural manager is somebody who knows how to modify contextual factors in order to minimize cultural differences at work. The idea of changing contextual factors to change behaviour – either through positive or negative reinforcement – has a long‐established tradition in psychology. Thus, cross‐cultural managers must, sometimes, think more like psychologists.