National Culture and IT Management

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National Culture and IT Management

• ECIS591

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What is Culture?

• culture is defined as an integrated system of
  learned behavior patterns that are characteristic
  of the members of any society. It includes
  everything a group thinks, says, does, and makes
  its customs, language, material artifacts, and
  shared systems of attitudes and feelings -
  Czinkota, et al (1996), p.298

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Researchers agree that

• Culture is learned and shared from generation to
  generation
• Cultural norms may be acquired through parents,
  schools, religious organizations, and social
  organizations
• Elements of culture include both verbal and
  non-verbal language, religion, values and
  attitudes, perceptions, and protocols

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Dimensions of Culture

• Hofstede
• Power Distance
• Individualism/Collectivism
• Masculinity/Femininity
• Uncertainty Avoidance
• Confucianism/Dynamism
• Hall
• Space
• Material Goods
• Friendship
• Time
• Agreement

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Hofstedes Dimensions of Culture

• Conducted between 1967-1978
• Collected over 100,000 surveys from IBM employees
  around the world
• Single, consistent control group
• National differences emerge despite strong
  corporate culture

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Power distance

• Also referred to as Revering Hierarchy
• Extent to which subordinates expect and accept
  the fact that power is distributed unequally in a
  firm
• Some cultures see large gaps between hierarchical
  levels
• Panama scores highest, Israel lowest

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Individualism/Collectivism

• Extent to which individual sees themselves as
  part of a group
• Individualistic Cultures
• Expected to have opinions
• Stress personal achievements
• Independence
• Individual rights
• Collectivist Cultures
• Harmony
• Welfare group

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Implications for IS Management?

• Systems Design
• Inherently group effort
• Process designed for conflict
• Incentive Schemes
• Reward individual or group?

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Masculinity/Femininity

• Taking care of business
• toughness in meeting goals
• softness in taking care of people and quality
  of life
• Japan ranks as highly masculine
• Scandinavian countries rank low
• Implications?
• Work hours

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Uncertainty Avoidance

• Attitudes towards risk, ambiguity,
  predictability, and control
• High avoidance cultures place emphasis on
  stability
• Low avoidance countries embrace change and
  innovation
• Japanese high on Uncertainty Avoidance
• Hong Kong low on Uncertainty Avoidance

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Confucianism/Dynamism

• Recent addition to cultural dimensions
• Here-and-now vs. future
• Confucian traits
• Thrift
• Persistence
• Diligence
• Patience
• Patriarchal authority

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Ford, Connelly, and Meister (2003)

• Citation analysis of 57 national culture-related
  articles from 22 Information Systems journals
  (peer reviewed)
• Looked at all articles that utilized any of
  Hofstedes dimensions as independent variable
• Examined correlation between Hofstede dimensions
  and Internet subscription rates for various
  countries.

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Some studies included in the analysis

• Power distance
• As PD increases, top-down directives increase
  (for BPR) (1998 study of China)
• In high PD countries, participative development
  may not be suitable (1999 study of Korea)
• Countries with higher PD emphasize
  professionalism and expertise. Lower PD countries
  emphasize client participation in IS development
  (1998-not specified)
• In higher PD countries, adoption of power
  reducing technologies is limited (1997-Japan,
  Switzerland, US)

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More research

• Uncertainty Avoidance
• Higher UA countries top management role in
  implementation is decreased less likely to view
  challenges as problems (1998 China)
• Higher UA countries linked to higher resistance
  to new applications, higher traditionalism
• Higher UA countries see higher levels of
  outsourcing
• High UA countries prefer formal rules for
  videoconferencing and like to have richer
  communication media

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More research

• Individualism Collectivism
• Low individualism countries may be willing to
  take more IS risks
• Female IS professionals more collectivist that
  male counterparts
• As individualism decreases, voluntarism is more
  important in technology adoption
• Higher individualism linked to more varied IS
  Infrastructure than in collectivist countries
• Electronic meeting systems decrease power
  differentials in countries low in individualism
• Less satisfaction with geographically dispersed
  meeting

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More research

• Masculinity Femininity
• Masculine cultures have more conflict in
  discussions
• Electronic meetings result in greater
  participation in masculine cultures
• Male IS professionals rate higher in masculinity
  than female counterparts (relates to professional
  goals)

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How do Hofstedes dimensions relate to Internet
usage?
plt.05 plt.01 plt.001

• From Ford, et. al., (2003)

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Halls Dimensions of Culture

• Space
• Close-talker?
• Queues
• Materialism
• Danish CEO admired for driving old car
• Americans fight for corner office with biggest
  desk
• Japanese manager may sit with other employees to
  downplay role of status and material goods

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Halls Dimensions

• Friendships
• Some western cultures make and lose friends
  quickly (due to high mobility)
• Other cultures may take longer to develop
  relationship but long-lasting
• Holds for businesses as well relationship
  first, then business

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Halls Dimensions

• Time
• Monochronic cultures
• See time as linear
• Events taken one at a time, work on issues one
  after another
• Delays in one task imply others are delayed
• Stress on punctuality and deadlines
• Monochronic people, like Scandinavians and North
  Americans, prefer to do one thing at a timefor
  instance, they do not book several meetings at
  the same time. Time is compartmentalized theres
  time for everything and evrything has its time
  (Tella, S. in Achronos, 2000)

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• Polychronic cultures
• See time as non-linear, simultaneous, unlimited
• Events not seen as tightly coupled to
  antecedents events simply transpire
• Events seen as unfolding in complex ways, they
  are seen occurring in parallel
• Plans constantly change focus on relationships
• Delays less important

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Comments on Polychronic cultures

• polychronic peoples, as represented by South
  Americans and Southern Europeans, tend to do
  several things at the same time or in parallel
  time segments. They do not think it odd to answer
  their phone while having a videoconference with
  foreign partners, or talk to a passing student by
  leaving the other videoconference partners to
  simply wait (Tella, S. in Achronos, 2000)
• Among Arabs, time is not as fixed and rigidly
  segmented as it tends to be among westerners. It
  flows from past to present to future and Arabs
  flow with it. Social occasions and even
  appointments need not have fixed beginnings or
  endings. Arabs are, thus, much more relaxed about
  the timing of events than they are about other
  aspects of their lives (Nydell, 1987)

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Research on Mono- and Polychronic cultures (Rose
et al., 2003)

• Looked at Consumer responses to web download
  speeds
• Compared US and Finland (Monchronic) to Egypt and
  Peru (Polychronic)
• 595 respondents across 4 countries
• Three hypotheses
• H1 Increases in download delay lead to a
  negative impact on attitudes toward delay,
  regardless of culture
• H2 Effect of download delay on attitude toward
  download delay is less pronounced with
  polychronics than monochronics
• H3 Monochronics experience different levels of
  perceived delay time than polychronics

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The results

• Both H1 and H2 strongly supported
• In the case of H3, also strongly supported (see
  data below)

From Rose, Evaristo, and Straub (2003)
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High Vs. Low Context Cultures
Japanese, Chinese, Mediterranean, Latin, Indian
High context (Implicit details)
American, German, English, Scandinavian
Low context (Explicit details)