scholarly journals Exploring cultural heterogeneity

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moustafa Salman Haj Youssef ◽  
Ioannis Christodoulou
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Spatial Homogeneity ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
Business Executives ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Survey Responses

Research on the degree of managerial discretion, or latitude of action, accorded to executives at the national level has primarily focused on the effect of intercultural variation in values on managerial discretion by assuming spatial homogeneity within countries. However, evidence in cross-cultural research indicates that cultural heterogeneity within countries can be as salient as or sometimes even more than inter-country variation. Thus, this study examines the extent to which intra-cultural variation affects the degree of discretion accorded to executives. The study tests the proposed relationships using fixed-effect regression analysis by measuring managerial discretion through survey responses of senior management consultants. It operationalizes intra-cultural variation by the standard deviation in societal members’ behaviour in terms of individualism, uncertainty tolerance and power distance. Results show that a strong relationship exists between intra-cultural variation and managerial discretion and that the direction of the relationship is negative. Executives operating in countries with high heterogeneity are subject to increased constraints from the national environment and, as such, are not able to take idiosyncratic or bold actions. Managerial discretion not only is a function of the central tendency of a society but depends on the homogeneity/heterogeneity in views innate therein. Using institutional, stakeholder and upper echelons theories, the study shows that greater intra-cultural variation negatively affects the degree of executive discretion. Thus, it provides a more nuanced understanding of such relationship and introduces a new national conceptualization that plays an important role in the strategic decision-making of business executives.

scholarly journals Intra-Cultural Variation, Zone of Acceptance and Managerial Discretion: A Theoretical Discussion

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moustafa Salman Haj Youssef ◽  
Ioannis Christodoulou
Keyword(s):  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Spatial Homogeneity ◽  
Business Executives ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the theoretical relationship between intra-cultural variation and managerial discretion. Research into the degree of discretion, or latitude of actions, has primarily focused on the individual-, organizational-, and industry-level factors, which either allow or constrain executives to take strategic actions. Despite, the recent attempt to discover the impact of national culture, mainly values, on managerial discretion, culture has been studied on an aggregate level by assuming spatial homogeneity within a country. However, recent evidences have shown that intra-cultural variation could be as salient as or sometimes even more than inter-country variation, yet there has been no discussion on its potential association with managerial discretion. As such, we address this gap and investigate the relationship of this cultural aspect with managerial discretion. Using institutional, stakeholder and upper echelons theories, our study proposes a strong relationship between intra-cultural variation and managerial discretion. Therefore, our study contributes to the strategic management and culture literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of such relationship and most importantly by introducing a new national construct that could play an important role in the strategic decision making of business executives.

scholarly journals Competitiveness and managerial discretion: an empirical investigation at the national-level

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moustafa Salman Haj Youssef ◽  
Hiba Maher Hussein ◽  
Ioannis Christodoulou
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Competitiveness ◽  
National Competitiveness ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Country Competitiveness

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the national-level predictors of country competitiveness using the concept of managerial discretion. The objective is to empirically link the strategic management discipline particularly the upper echelon theory to the concept of country performance measured by competitiveness.Design/methodology/approachThis paper tests the proposed relationship between managerial discretion and country competitiveness using a sample of 18 countries from 6 different regional clusters. Discretion scores are generated from survey responses of prominent senior management consultants, while country competitiveness is measured via the Global Competitiveness Index developed by the World Economic Forum. A multi-level regression analysis on the panel data set spanning 10 years of national competitiveness levels is used to empirically demonstrate the association between managerial discretion and country competitiveness.FindingsThe authors show that managerial discretion is a direct predictor of national competitiveness through its ability to provide CEOs with a wider array of actions to innovate and enhance firm performance which will ultimately contribute to country competitiveness.Practical implicationsThe positive influence of managerial discretion on country competitiveness provide an interesting framework to examine the influence of firms over public policy-making. Additionally, with businesses becoming increasingly globalized, the profile of countries becomes of a great importance and can become a tool for corporate strategic decisions, such as: market entry strategies.Originality/valueBy linking the well-known term of competitiveness to the concept of managerial discretion, the authors provide a totally new approach to assess country performance. Additionally, this paper contributes to the growing literature of managerial discretion by discovering new national-level consequences.

scholarly journals Assessing the Generalizability of Managerial Discretion: An Empirical Investigation in the Arab World

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moustafa Salman Haj Youssef ◽  
Ioannis P. Christodoulou
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Arab World ◽  
National Level ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
National Framework ◽  
Positive Effect

The purpose of this paper is to examine the generalizability of national-level managerial discretion and to assess whether the national context play a role in changing mainstream research findings. Based on a sample of three Arabian countries and using a panel of prominent cross-cultural scholars who provided 138 discretion scores for the sampled countries, we replicate the national framework of Crossland and Hambrick (2011) in a new cultural context. The cultural dimensions were measured via survey responses of 375 middle-managers based on House et al. (2004) cultural practices scale. Consistent with Crossland and Hambrick (2011), we demonstrate that individualism and uncertainty tolerance have the same positive effect on CEOs discretion even in a different cultural setting. In contrast, we show that power distance has a positive and significant effect on managerial discretion. Our results indicate that executives can take idiosyncratic and bold actions to the extent to which the cultural environment allows them to do so. Accordingly, we contribute by showing the importance of the national setting in affecting the generalizability of discretion findings.

scholarly journals Strategizing in a focused context: managerial discretion in the Arab world

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moustafa Salman Haj Youssef ◽  
Ioannis Christodoulou
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Arab World ◽  
National Level ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Context Dependency ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Gender Egalitarianism ◽  
Survey Responses

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to broaden the national-level construct of managerial discretion and to investigate the effect of cultural practices on executive discretion. Design/methodology/approach Based on a sample of six Arabian countries and using a panel of prominent cross-cultural scholars who provided 262 discretion scores for the sample countries, the authors replicate and extend the national framework of Crossland and Hambrick (2011) in a new cultural context. The cultural dimensions were measured using survey responses of middle managers based on House et al.’s (2004) cultural practices scale. Findings The authors extend the national-level framework of managerial discretion and find that an encompassing array of cultural practices plays a crucial role in shaping the degree of discretion provided to CEOs. The authors empirically demonstrate that power distance, future and performance orientation, along with gender egalitarianism and assertiveness have positive relationships with managerial discretion. However, institutional collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and humane orientation negatively affect the degree of discretion provided to CEOs. Originality/value The study fills a gap in the literature regarding the national-level framework of managerial discretion. The results indicate that executives can take idiosyncratic and bold actions to the extent to which the cultural environment allows them to do so. Also, the authors discover new national-level antecedents of managerial discretion that have not been considered in earlier studies and confirm the context dependency of this concept.

Beyond Bounded Rationality: CEO Reflective Capacity and Firm Sustainability Performance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Yingya Jia ◽  
Anne S. Tsui ◽  
Xiaoyu Yu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Bounded Rationality ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sustainability Performance ◽  
Business Executives ◽  
Dimensional Measure ◽  
Reflective Capacity ◽  
Mediating Mechanisms

ABSTRACT Optimal or rational decision making is not possible due to informational constraints and limits in computation capability of humans (March & Simon, 1958; March, 1978). This bounded rationality serves as a filtering process in decision making among business executives (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). In this study, we propose the concept of CEO reflective capacity as a behavior-oriented cognitive capability that may overcome to some extent the pervasive limitation of bounded rationality in executive decision-making. Following Hinkin's (1998) method and two executive samples, we developed and validated a three-dimensional measure of CEO reflective capacity. Based on two-wave surveys of CEOs and their executive-subordinates in 213 Chinese small-medium sized firms, we tested and confirmed three hypotheses on how CEO reflective capacity is related to a firm's sustainability performance (including economic, societal, and environmental dimensions) through the mediating mechanisms of strategic decision comprehensiveness and CEO behavioral complexity. We discuss the contribution of this study to the literature on the upper echelons and information processing perspectives. We also identify the implications for future research on strategic leadership and managerial cognition in complex and dynamic contexts.

Environmental Behavior in Cross-National Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Pisano ◽  
Mark Lubell
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Behavior ◽  
National Level ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Education Development ◽  
Proenvironmental Behavior ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
Cross National

This article seeks to explain cross-national differences on environmental behavior. After controlling for a series of sociodemographic and psychosocial factors, it was predicted that national levels of wealth, postmaterialism, education development, and environmental problems are positively related to environmental behavior. The national-level variance is to a substantial degree explained by individual-level variables, capturing compositional effects. The remaining variance is explained by the contextual-level variables. All of the country-level variables are predictors in the expected direction, with the exception of environmental degradation, which is negatively related to behavior, and education development, which has no impact on private environmental behavior. More importantly, cross-level interactions show that in more developed countries, there are stronger relationships between proecological attitudes and reported proenvironmental behavior. These findings contribute to the growing cross-cultural research on environmental behavior pointing out the necessity of simultaneously assessing the effects of both individual and contextual-level forces affecting behavior across nations.

Militaries’ Organizational Cultures in a Globalizing World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Soeters
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Organizational Cultures ◽  
Military Organizations ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
The Way

Organizational cultures in military organizations consist of symbols, practices, habits, hidden assumptions, and beliefs about what needs to be done, and what is appropriate and what is not, before, during, and after operations. Generally speaking, organizational cultures in military institutions are similar to those in any other work organization. Upon closer examination, however, it appears that the military’s 24/7, communal life outside society, its emphasis on hierarchy and discipline, and in particular its license to use large-scale force make it different. Relatedly, the way in which the military’s organizational cultures are created and recreated has aspects and emphases that are less common in conventional work organizations. Recruiting and socialization patterns of new organizational members in the military have been studied frequently because they are so distinctive in the armed forces. Military organizational cultures are not identical worldwide. Military organizations differ internationally, as military organizations are still strongly connected to their national backgrounds, including the languages, legal regimes, political atmospheres, and general ways of living in the many nations across the globe. National societies and their histories shape military organizational cultures in multiple ways. Dramatic experiences at the national level, for instance during World War II, may lead to a continuation or, just the opposite, the disruption of armed forces’ organizational cultures. Yet despite the differences, something of a world culture impacting on the use of force seems to emerge as well. In an era when international alliances carry out most missions, different national backgrounds influence strategic decision making and the way operations are conducted. Most of the time, national armed forces operate separately, in their own area (or time) of operations, sometimes guiding troops from smaller and less wealthy partnering nations. The coordination of actions between the various areas of operation is generally not very well elaborated. This applies not only to combat operations but also to peace missions. A full integration of national armed forces, such as in a United Nations security force or a European army, is an ideal that some may dream of, but it is still far from reality. The greatest degree of integration is likely to be found in international headquarters.

scholarly journals The more you value, the less you practice: a study on culture and managerial discretion

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-50
Author(s):  
Moustafa Salman Haj Youssef ◽  
Hiba Maher Hussein ◽  
Hoda Awada
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
National Level ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-cultural differences in managerial discretion and the extent to which variations and interaction of cultural practices and values affect the degree of freedom in decision making that is accorded to executives. This paper offers a holistic approach to investigating culture in addition to acknowledging its paradoxical nature. Design/methodology/approach Using a panel of prominent management consultants to rate discretion across 18 countries, the authors further develop the national-level construct of managerial discretion by empirically investigating the influence of cultural practices and values on CEOs’ discretion. Findings The study reveals that cultural values moderate the relationship between cultural practices and managerial discretion for three cultural dimensions: individualism, uncertainty tolerance and power distance (PD). By adopting the logic of marginal utility, the authors also show that the more a society values individualism, uncertainty tolerance and PD, the weaker the effect of their practices on managerial discretion. Originality/value Few research has attempted to assess both cultural values and practices in relation to managerial discretion. By showing the mechanism in which culture affects the level of managerial discretion, the authors offer new theoretical insights and practical implications, overall contributing to the field of cross-cultural and strategic management. Finally, this will offer CEO’s a new perspective of leveraging culture as a tool, enhancing their decision-making capabilities in the aim of improving organizational performance.

Providing Business Information to Production Workers: Correlates of Compensation and Profitability

ILR Review ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morris M. Kleiner ◽  
Marvin L. Bouillon
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Cash Flows ◽  
Financial Data ◽  
Business Executives ◽  
Financial Condition ◽  
Business Information ◽  
Significant Negative Relationship ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Relative Standing

This study investigates some of the effects of a company's providing production workers with information on its financial condition, productivity, and relative standing in the labor market. Analyzing survey responses of business executives from 106 firms together with financial data on the companies from COMPUSTAT II for 1984, the authors find that information-sharing was positively related to the level of wages and benefits and unrelated to productivity in both union and nonunion businesses, and that it had a significant negative relationship to profits and cash flows in nonunion businesses.

Perceived value of advanced mobile messaging services

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blanca Hernandez-Ortega ◽  
Joaquin Aldas-Manzano ◽  
Carla Ruiz-Mafe ◽  
Silvia Sanz-Blas
Keyword(s):  
User Satisfaction ◽  
National Level ◽  
Perceived Value ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
Cultural Research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of perceived value on post-acceptance behaviour for users of advanced mobile messaging services (AMMS). The paper also compares differences in the influence of perceived value on satisfaction and of satisfaction on loyalty to AMMS in Spain and Greece, to test the moderating effect of culture. Design/methodology/approach Partial least squares path modelling is used to test the model. Perceived value is modelled as a multidimensional reflective construct with four dimensions. Culture is studied at a national level. Differences between countries are tested using the multigroup analysis approach proposed by Henseler et al. (2009). Findings Perceived value contributes significantly to satisfaction. Satisfaction also has a significant effect on loyalty. Regarding the moderating effect of culture, the influence of perceived value on satisfaction is higher in Greece than in Spain. The authors report similar findings for the effect of satisfaction on loyalty, demonstrating the relevant moderating role of cultures with different degrees of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and collectivism. Practical implications This cross-cultural comparison enables mobile phone companies to understand how to provide the greatest value with AMMS in each country in order to increase user satisfaction and loyalty to the service. Originality/value This is one of the first studies that develops cross-cultural research to analyse the post-acceptance of mobile services. It analyses the effect of perceived value and satisfaction, making an original comparison of two countries generally considered too similar to be compared.

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