Streamline Training & Documentation: Upward Influence in the NAFTA Countries

Monday, August 27, 2007

Upward Influence in the NAFTA Countries

One last piece of research on upward influence that caught my eye as I was surveying the work social psychologists have done in this area, is a 2000 paper by Carolyn Egri, David Ralston, Cheryl Murray, and Joel Nicholson.¹

Using the Strategies of Upward Influence (SUI) instrument, these researchers found that U.S., Canadian-Anglophone, Canadian-Francophone, and Mexican managers generally

have similar perspectives in terms of the relative acceptability of various influence strategies. However, examination of absolute ratings of influence behaviors suggests that Canadian-Francophones could serve as a cultural "linking-pin" along a continuum anchored by Anglo cultures at one end and the Latin-American culture of Mexico at the other.

Based on their own and previous research, the Anglo end of the continuum is said to be characterized by "a self-oriented, high-trust culture with democratic ideals," while the Latin-American end is said to be characterized by "an autocratic, group-oriented and low-trust culture."

The researchers were surprised to find significant differences between the U.S. and Canadian-Anglophone managers. The latter had more extreme scores than the former on three of four influence style dimensions — organizationally sanctioned behavior, nondestructive/legal behavior, and destructive/legal behavior. It was only on the destructive/illegal behavior dimension that the U.S. managers were more extreme — in rating the behaviors negatively — than the Canadian-Anglophones.² The researchers took this result as a challenge to the notion that there is a universal Anglo cultural attitude toward upward influence strategies.

In making suggestions for future studies, the researchers point to a need "to better understand the control mechanisms that best regulate ... cross-cultural influence relationships." Based on previous research, they argue that

concerted efforts to develop a mutual organizational culture based on common values, beliefs, behavioral norms and practices would be advisable. The first step in this process could be a culture audit to determine facets of cultural convergence and divergence with potential partner organizations. The next step would be making explicit mutually acceptable managerial practices and codes of conduct. The importance attributed to kinship and friendship ties in Mexican culture (Gabrielidis et al., 1997³) suggests that developing personal and social relationships would be an essential aspect of cross-cultural organizational relationships. In effect, the impetus would be to widen the radius of trust to encompass an organizational culture ingroup to counterbalance societal familialism.

I would add that training in support of initiatives aimed at cultural change, coupled with effective communication and modeling by top management, would also be essential.

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¹ Carolyn P. Egri, David A. Ralston, Cheryl S. Murray, and Joel D. Nicholson, "Managers in the NAFTA Countries: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Attitudes Toward Upward Influence Strategies," Journal of International Management, Vol. 6 (2000), pp. 149-171. Previous posts dealing with the research on upward influence done by social psychologists are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

² "Organizationally sanctioned behavior is viewed as the 'organizational man' approach to upward influence because it prescribes behaviors that tend to be directly beneficial to the organization. ... Non-destructive/legal behaviors epitomize the 'me first' approach, in that these behaviors show self-interest being above the interests for others or the organization, but are behaviors that tend not to be harmful to the organization and may actually turn out to be beneficial to the organization. ... Destructive/legal behaviors can be categorized as the 'get-out-of-my-way-or-get-trampled' approach because, while these behaviors are basically legal, they often tend to directly hurt others or the organization. ... [D]estructive/illegal behaviors identify a 'burn, pillage, and plunder' approach to gaining influence because these behaviors, which are harmful to others, also tend to be illegal."

³ Cristina Gabrielidis, Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Virginia M. Dos Santos Pearson, and Lucila Villareal, "Preferred Styles of Conflict Resoulution: Mexico and the United States," Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 28 (1997), pp. 661-677.

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Labels: Organizational culture, Upward influence

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