..:: 640. The One With Face-Off ::..

was researching more about Project GLOBE - Global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness... there was this face-off between Hofstede, one of the originator of culture dimensions and a group of researchers who started the Globe study.

Firstly, the study had used dimensions that were not entirely from Hofstede's cultural dimensions and hence i think started with him "reviewing" this study through his article on "What did GLOBE really measure? Researchers’ minds versus respondents’ minds"

Inside, there were really strong words he used. He started by contrasting his research and the GLOBE study:

(1) Team versus single researcher. The analysis of the GLOBE data was a team effort, although closely coordinated by its designer Robert House. My analysis was a one-person effort (with excellent help: see the Prefaces), and in my 1980, 1991
and 2001 books I was the single author.

mmm... needed to state his position?

(2) Managers versus employees. The respondents in GLOBE were managers. The respondents in Hofstede (1980) were matched groups of employees in seven occupational categories, two managerial and five non-managerial. Measuring
leadership from survey answers by leaders is, in my eyes, a debatable approach. If you want to find out about the quality of a product, do you ask the producer or the consumers?

wow. ouch eh.

(3) US inspired versus decentered. The term ‘decentering’ refers to conscious attempts at avoiding ethnocentric bias. Robert House was conscious of the danger of ethnocentrism: in his Preface to the 2004 book he states: ‘Hopefully, GLOBE will
be able to liberate organizational behavior from the US hegemony.’ GLOBE’s network and respondent population were very international, but its project design and analysis still reflected US hegemony. The book’s 25 editors and authors overwhelmingly hold management or psychology degrees from US universities.

He also added the Long term-short term orientation which was formulated in Chinese to show that his was not entirely US-inspired. of course his comment was shot by the article written by the authors in response to his critique.

(4) GLOBE’s operationalizations of values and practices. My main concern about the GLOBE research is that the questionnaire items used may not have captured what the researchers supposed them to measure. He also mentioned that most questions were "as-in" questions. Asking ‘as is’ questions basically assumed that these people
were in a position to compare their society with other societies. This assumption, I believe, is naive – it takes international experience plus an unusually open mind to produce anything like a credible comparison between one’s own society and others.

wow. naive.

(5) Our minds have a limited capacity for processing information, and therefore dimensional models that are too complex will not be experienced as useful. In a now classic article, Miller (1956) argued that useful classifications should not
have more than seven categories, plus or minus two. He may still have overestimated the optimal number.

With nine dimensions of culture times two, the GLOBE researchers’ psycho-logic has surpassed the limits of our capacity for processing information. A form of data reduction is needed.

Now for the rejoinder... in their abstract, it was so blatantly written:

We show why there is no theoretical or empirical basis for Hofstede’s criticism that GLOBE measures of values are too abstract or for his contention that national and organizational cultures are phenomena of different order.

We also show why Hofstede has a limited understanding of the relationship between national wealth and culture.

Furthermore, we explain why Hofstede’s reanalysis of the GLOBE data is inappropriate and produces incomprehensible results.

Finally, we explain why Hofstede’s claim that GLOBE instruments reflect researchers psycho-logic reveals ignorance of psychometric methodologies designed to ensure scale reliability and construct validity.

gosh. if i were Hofstede, I would flip!

But reading such intellectual cross-fire is definitely better than reading some emails or fighting over blogs like xxue (didnt want my blog to appear in goggle search for her blog)

oh and guess what? Cultural intelligence (CQ) like your IQ and EQ was developed by Earley and Ang Soon. Ang Soon is now head of Strategy, Management and Organization Department of NBS. Earley? He was Dean of NUS Business School and Cycle & Carriage Chair for 2 years, now he is back to UConn to be their dean for school of business. mmm... He was in NBS before though. I guess like the Chinese saying goes, one mountain cannot hide 2 tigers. Ang Soon VS Earley. lol. My CQ prof, ng kok yee, co-written journals with him before. wow.

anyway was looking at nus business school website... they had the salary data across universities. are they trying to say that 3 years direct hons earn lesser than their 4 years hons? -_- we'll see. lol