Streamline Training & Documentation: Multi-Cultural Social Psychology Research

Monday, August 20, 2007

Multi-Cultural Social Psychology Research

After spending considerable time reviewing the academic literature on upward influence (previous posts are here, here, and here), I can't help but be struck by several points, namely that this body of social psychology research has little impact on real-world management practice, its results have relatively short shelf-life because of the dynamism of global business, and, all the same, its measurement tools, such as the Strategies of Upward Influence (SUI) tool, can be quite useful both conceptually and practically.

The 1993 paper that introduced the SUI¹ is illuminating for the details it provides concerning how David Ralston and David Gustafson developed this measurement tool. The results they obtained are also thought-provoking, even if probably largely out-of-date at this point.

I was particularly interested in what they learned about the upward influence strategies for which the US and Hong Kong managers they surveyed had significantly contrasting views concerning riskiness.

Hong Kong managers, on average, rated four upward influence behaviors significantly higher in riskiness than US managers:

Dress the way successful business people dress.

Volunteer for undesirable tasks to make him/herself appreciated by the superior.

Demonstrate the ability to get the job done.

Help subordinates to develop their skills so that the subordinates, in turn, will be in a position to help this individual attain his/her objectives.

Note that all of the above behaviors are organizationally beneficial.

There were eight strategies that US managers, on average, rated more risky than the Hong Kong managers did:

Offer sexual favours to a superior.

Try to develop contacts who might be able to provide detrimental information about one of his/her competitors for a promotion.

Spread rumours about someone or something that stands in the way of his/her advancement.

Blame another for his/her own mistake.

Withhold information to make someone else look bad.

Make another person look bad by supplying this other person with inaccurate information.

Threaten to give valuable company information to someone outside the organisation if his/her demands are not met.

Use detrimental information to blackmail a person who is in a position to help him/her get ahead in the organisation.

All of the above behaviors are at best self-indulgent and, in the case, of the last two, actually destructive.

For the remaining 18 behaviors on the original version of the SUI, there was, on average, no significant difference between the US and Hong Kong managers in perceived riskiness. These items were:

Do not make an enemy of the superior by bypassing the superior and going to someone at a higher level in the organisational chain of command.

Become well known within the organisation by volunteering for high profile projects.

Maintain good working relationships with other employees, even if he/she dislikes them.

Work overtime, if necessary, to get the job done.

Seek to build a relationship with a senior person who can serve as a mentor.

Ask to be given the responsibility for an important project.

Develop an in-depth knowledge of work assignments.

Identify and work for an influential superior who can help him/her gain promotion.

Threaten to leave the company if his/her demands are not met.

Use his/her technical expertise to make the superior dependent upon him/her.

Support the views of important people in the organisation, even when he/she does not agree with these views.

Behave in the same manner as his/her boss, for example, wear similar clothes.

Use his/her network of friends to discredit a person competing with him/her for a possible promotion.

Leave the company and take a job with a new company.

Attempt to act in a manner that he/she believes will result in others' admiration of him/her.

Make sure that the important people in the organisation hear of his/her accomplishments.

Learn the likes and dislikes of important people in the organisation in order to avoid offending these people.

Increase his/her credibility by obtaining an advanced degree, such as an MBA.

My own surmise is that this last list, the one containing items for which perceived riskiness is basically the same for the US and Hong Kong managers, is getting longer as time goes by. I'd also hypothesize that country-level assessments are less and less meaningful; I expect that most actionable information on cultural habits and constraints comes from assessments carried out at the organization level.

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¹ David A. Ralston, David J. Gustafson, Lisa Mainiero, and Denis Umstot, "Strategies of Upward Influence: A Cross-National Comparison of Hong Kong and American Managers" (pdf), Asia-Pacific Journal of Management, Vol 10 (1993), pp. 157-175.

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Labels: Organizational culture, Upward influence

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