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The Authors
Paul Herbig is Managing Director, Herbig & Sons Marketing Consultants,
13818 Shavano Ridge, San Antonia, Texas 78230, USA.
Abstract
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Introduction - Culture
13
Cross Cultural Management
ciety. Thus, culture gradually but continually evolves to meet the needs of
society.
outlived their original purposes and survive as symbolic acts - cultural bag-
gage.
14
Volume 5 Number 4 1998
were: only the sick drink boiled water, the peasants lacked an understand-
ing of germ theory (because germs are so small and not directly immedi-
ately observable to the peasants), and no surplus time nor adequate means
existed to gather the extra firewood necessary to create the fire needed to
boil the water (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971).
To the Chinese, the introduction of power machinery meant that he had to throw over not
only habits of work but a whole ideology; for dissatisfaction with the ways of his fathers in
one particular meant doubt of the fathers way of life in all its aspects. If the old loom must
be discarded, then 100 other things must be discarded with it, for there are somehow no
adequate substitutions.
The barriers to technological change can be conceptualised in cultural
terms; the basic values of the group, the concepts of right and wrong, the
nature of the articulation of the elements of the culture, and the fundamen-
tal fit or integration of its parts. Other barriers can be found in the nature of
the social structure of the group, the prevailing type of family, the relation-
ship of its members, the factors of caste and class, the locus of authority in
familial and political units, the nature of factions, the individual and group
motivations, the nature of perception, and the characteristics of the learning
process (Foster, 1962). Those cultures which value creativity will have a
greater number and quality of innovations, and those countries that reward
technical ability and higher education will prosper in innovative pursuits.
The level of innovation within a society is directly proportional to the en-
couragement and status given to entrepreneurial efforts within the culture
and to the emphasis given it relative to the survival of the culture (national
goal).
15
Cross Cultural Management
Herbig and Miller (1991) argue that cultural attributes are the primary
difference between the different innovative expertise seen in the United
States and Japan. These cultural factors have resulted in a marked trend to-
wards miniaturisation of technology-based consumer products in Japan. The
cultural tendency towards group working and group solidarity seen in that
country has contributed towards the Japanese stressing mass production
and total quality control, emphasising process innovations, while these
same factors have inhibited independent entrepreneurship and individual
creativity, resulting in a detrimental effect upon radical innovations and in-
ventions (Twaalfhoven and Hattori, 1982). Table 1 shows various studies
on cultural traits and their reported influence on the innovation process.
A study by Chol Lee (1990) indicated that while early adopters were in-
novative, laggards were not. High levels of innovativeness were associated
16
Volume 5 Number 4 1998
Mokyr (1991)
Openness to New Information Higher Innovation Capacity
Willingness to Bear Risks
Religion
Value of Education to a Society
Herbig and Miller (1991)
Individualism Higher Radical Innovations
Low Power Distance Higher Radical Innovations
Homogeneous Society More Lower Order
Innovations
Twaalfhoven and Hattori (1982)
Collectivist Higher Process
Less Radical Innovations
Chol Lee (1990)
Early Adapters Higher Innovation Capacity
High Education Levels
Low Levels of Centralised Government,
A Positive Attitude Towards Science
Frequent Travel.
17
Cross Cultural Management
Myrdal argued that the Indian system, rather than promoting produc-
tive economic traits, encouraged unproductive behaviour by ordinary Indi-
ans. Because the caste system froze most people in position, those in the
higher castes had better educational opportunities and went into the profes-
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sions; those in the lower castes had no chance to rise. Religion became a de-
structive force towards social inertia for those Indians who remained in
their native land. Indians came to distrust anyone not of their own caste or
tribe. Indian emigrants behaved in many of the ways Myrdal endorsed - un-
like their cousins and countrymen at home.
Most people work in the hope of reward. The tighter the connection be-
tween effort and reward, the harder ordinary people will try. Exploitative
class sytems that freeze people in place become disincentives to work hard.
Lack of trust in institutions also kills incentives to work hard. People will
not care as much about traffic laws if they know they can bribe the police;
they will not trust the laws if they think the courts are crooked. When the
radius of trust is broad and when people think they can affect their destiny,
then people will make the society rich, strong, and fair by innovating and
developing it (Fallows, 1989b).
Religion is a socially shared set of beliefs, ideas, and actions which relate to
a reality that can not be verified empirically yet is believed to affect the
course of natural and human events. Religion can be viewed as an inter-
preter of the social order or as a means of societal control. Because such be-
liefs condition peoples motivations and priorities, religion affects their
actions. Religious institutions serve to influence the nature, development,
and application of technology by propagating norms, customs, prohibitions,
and standards of conduct which serve to influence the nature, development,
and application of technology. Ruttan (1988) indicated that a societys
dominant religion and ideology affects its inherent level of innovative ca-
pacity.
18
Volume 5 Number 4 1998
alisation a negation of human values, said, The machine should not be al-
lowed to cripple the limbs of man...by working with machines we have
become machines ourselves, having lost all sense of art and handiwork.
(Mukerji, 1954). Superstitious religions, which assert that fate cannot be
understood and is beyond earthly control, break the connection between ef-
fort and reward.
Medieval historian Lynn White, Jr., claims that the spectacular success
of the West in cultivating science and technology is rooted in the Judeo-
Christian belief that the domination of nature is sanctioned by religion. Ju-
daism provides the religious basis for high achievement orientation; the re-
ligion stresses that perfection in conduct (following Gods commandments)
will result in Gods rewarding one some day. Judaism has an individualistic
self-reliant aspect with a high regard for time (McClelland, 1961). The per-
sistent, aggressive effort made by Westerners to exploit every possible natu-
ral force and resource resulted in their becoming the worlds leaders in
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technology. Those whose religions taught them to take a more benign atti-
tude towards nature failed to develop technology to its full potential. The
Judeo-Christian viewpoint was augmented and elaborated upon in the sev-
enteenth century by philosophers and essayists who held that nature should
be made to serve the business and conveniences of man. Thus, modern
science, which provided a superior means of understanding the natural
world, would ensure it would be mastered more thoroughly.
Islam also contains several elements which mitigate against change. Is-
lam is not only a faith but a political community with integration, rather
than separation, of church and state. It is a way of life with every activity,
down to the smallest detail, regulated by the Koran. This complete integra-
tion of life makes it extremely difficult to alter the institutions of Muslim
countries unless the priests or ulema, who interpret the Koran, are favour-
able to proposed changes. If they oppose changes, they can become a fanati-
cal opposition, a result which has led to many assassinations of reformers in
Arab countries (Dean, 1956). Change becomes a high risk; as a result, Is-
lamic beliefs have a detrimental effect upon the innovative potential of Is-
lamic states.
The obscurantist influence of Islam was the stronger for two considera-
tions that distinguished sharply East and West. The first was the all-
pervasive role of the Muslim religion, which reigned sovereign even in those
19
Cross Cultural Management
spheres that had long been reserved in the West to secular authorities. The
dichotomy between church and state was never established in Islam, per-
haps because the Muslim people and their world were a creation of the
faith, whereas Christianity had had to make a place for itself in the powerful
Roman state. No legitimate source of sanction and authority in Islam existed
outside the teachings of the Prophet. The second was the unity of Islam in
the matter of intellectual inquiry which worked against the success of devi-
ant patterns of thought or behaviour, at best unfavourable, at worst hostile
to scientific endeavour. The pragmatic creativity of European science, like
the vitality of the European business community, was linked to the separa-
tion of spiritual and temporal (Landes, 1969).
Spain, Latin American nations) where state mandated religion exists. More
often than not, the educational level and general intellectual environment
in such states is not conducive to innovation.
20
Volume 5 Number 4 1998
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Myrdal, Gunnar J. (1971). Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Na-
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