ethical perceptions of organizational politics, a comparative evaluation of american and hong kong...

7/30/2019 Ethical Perceptions of Organizational Politics, A Comparative Evaluation of American and Hong Kong Managers

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Ethical Perceptions of OrganizationalPolitics: A Comparative Evaluation ofAmerican and Hong Kong Managers

David A. RalstonRobert A. Giacalone

Robert Fi. Terpstra

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a cross-culturalanalysis of ethics with U.S. and Hong Kong Chinesemanagers as subjects. These managers were given theStrategies of Upw ard Influence instrum ent andasked to evaluate the ethics of using various politicalstrategies to attain influence within their organiza-t ions. Differences were found between Hong Kongand U.S. managers on a variety of dimensions,indicating important differences between these twogroups on their perceptions of ethical behavior. In the

David A . Ralston is Associate Professor of Manag ementat the University of Connecticut. His management devel-opment programs have been presented in both China andRussia. His research interests include aoss-cultural man-agerial issues including work values, influence strategiesand stress. Recent research has focused upon Asia andthe Pacific-Rim nations. H is most recent research hasbeen published in (lie Journal of Applied Psychology,Journal of International Business Studies, and theAsia-Pacific Journal of Management.

Robert Ciacalone is currently Associate Professor ofManag ement Systems at the E. Claiborne RobinsSchool of Business, University of Richmond, and is aconsultant to both the private and public sectors. He isthe author of over 40 management articles and twobooks, and is the editor of the special issue in t /ie Jo ur na lof Business Ethics on behavioral approaches to businessethics. In 1992, he was named editor of the Sage Seriesin Business Ethics.Robert H. Terpstra is Senior Lecturer of Finance at theChinese University of Hong Kong. H e has consulted forcompanies in both Hong Kong and China. His currentresearch interests include aoss-cultural studies of man-agerial decision making and risk-taking behavior. Hisrecent work h as been published in the J o u r n a l o fInternational Business Studies, Asia-Pacific Journalof Management, Pacific-Basic Finance Journal,International Journal of Management and theJournal of Applied Psychology.

paper, we identify potential reasons for the finding s,and suggest directions for future work in this area.

Business ethics are applied ethics (Velasquez,1992). More specifically, business ethics are whatis perceived as appropriate in the organizationalsetting. The growing body of l i terature in thisarea provides evidence that business ethics isplaying a growing part in the concern of man-agement from the vantage point of bothpractit ioners and academics. Indeed, the recentli terature has been characterized by theoreticaladvances as well as issue-specific treatments inareas such as affirmative action (Berne andFreeman, 1992), environmental impact (Singhand Lakhan, 1989), and insider trading (Salbu,1992). However, to date, there has been limitedscientific investigation into the differences inethical behavior across cultures.

While i t i s commonly acknowledged thatdifferent cultures interpret ethical behaviordifferently, and w hile anec dotal inform ation leadsto the conclusion that the ethical climates ofbusinesses across cultures differ substantially fromeach other (see Sethi, et al, 1984; Shenkar andR on en , 1987; Weiss, 1994), relatively li t tlerempirical research has focused on cross-culturalethical differences in business behavior. Morespecifically, there has been virtually no researchthat has empirically tested the cross-culturaldifferences in ethical perception of the politicalbehaviors of individuals.The objective of this paper is first to identifyprevious cross-cultural research on the ethics ofpolit ical behavior, and second to combine thisresearch with findings from previous cross-cultural values research in order to develop

Journal of Business Ethics 13: 989 -999 , 1994 .


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990 D. A. Ralston et al.hypotheses that test the dimensions of theStrategies of Upward Influence instrument usedwith our sample of American and Hong Kongmanagers.

The issue of ethics in businessWhile everyone seems to know what is meant byethics, actually defining what is ethical has longproved to be problematic for both practitionersand researchers (Brenner and Molander, 1977).Scholars have proposed a number of definitionsof business ethics. For example, Ferrell andFraed erich (1991) note tha t ". . . business ethicscomprise moral principles and standards thatguide behavior in the world of business." Theirdefinition is perhaps as good as any, and itcertainly captures that essence of this issue -determining what "good behavior" is in thebusiness world. Likewise, business ethics researchhas focused upon what is morally right and goodin aspects of business rang ing from affirmativeaction to insider trading.

The evolution of the ethics researchThe evolution of the business ethics field hasbeen characterized by investigations of ethics-related phenomena from distinctively differentperspectives. Some investigations have taken aphilosophical approach, examining ethicallyrelevant topic areas from traditional philosoph-ical vantages (see Velasquez, et al., 1983). Othershave taken a more descriptive, illustrativeapproach, focusing on examples of questionablebusiness practices (see Lutz, 1983; Olasky, 1985).And another group has taken a methodologicalstance, based on behavioral science methodology,using questionnaires (e.g., Newstrom and Ruch,1975) or experimentation (e.g., Trevino and Ball,1992). Yet without a doubt, the driving forcebehind the cr it ical thought and theory of thefield has been the philosophical literature.

Still, while the primary literature in businessethics has emanated from, and is focused on amore philosophical base, a more recent objec-tive has been to integrate organizational behavior

issues, methods, and theory with traditional areasof ethical concern in business. The work ofTrevino (1986) and Payne and Giacalone (1990),as well as a recent special issue in the 1992 fournalof Business Ethics focusing on behavior, attests toa growing integration and interpolation betweenbehavioral science literature and business ethicsliterature. Since business ethics literature hastraditionally been entrench ed in a mo re phi lo-sophical base, the increasingly popular behavioralapproach addresses many unexplored theoretical,research, and practitioner issues.

One of these under-explored areas of partic-ular relevance in today's global economy is theissue of differences in ethics across cultures. Theethical relativists, while sometimes criticized forcondoning any ethical code as long as a societyaccepts it, do accurately point out that differentcultures have different ethical beliefs. Moreimportantly, perhaps, is that these differencescannot be dismissed simply because the beliefsin other cultures do not coincide with our own(Velasquez, 1992). Dismissing differences inethical standards can have serious repercussionsfrom both an ethical and business vantage. Froman ethical perspective alone, for example, whilewe condemn the use of child labor in the UnitedStates as morally questionable, this positionclearly ignores the fact that in some third worldcountries the money made by a child may be anindispensable source of income without whichthe family could not survive. Ignoring thiscritical fact could result in various ethicallydriven political and/or business decisions de-signed to pressure the end of these child laborpractices, ultimately hurting the very child it wasmeant to help by eliminating a crucial sourceof income. Additionally, from a more narrowbusiness perspective, to be insensitive to theethical values of other cultures would be folly fora multinational comp any that wants to functioneffectively in a global economy. Such insensitivitycould undermine business relationships by dis-playing a basic contempt for the values, moralstandards and needs of others which would resultin long-lasting resentment.


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Ethical Perceptions and Organizational Politics 99 1The emerging issue of cross-cultural ethics differencesDespite the growing concern with issues ofmulticulturalism and international managementwithin the business world, the expanding baseof behavioral research in business ethics hasnot provided much insight into the arena ofcross-cultural ethics. The existing literature oncross-cultural ethics involves topic areas suchas corporate codes of ethics (Langlois andSchlegelmilch, 1990), managerial values (Beckerand Fritzche, 1987), ethical belief structures(Abratt, et al, 1992; Izraeli, 1988), judgements(Whipple and Swords, 1992), bribery (e.g.Tsalikis and Nwachukwu, 1991) , and ethicalperceptions (McDonald and Zepp, 1988) . Inaddition, there has been some theoretical dis-cussion on generic ethical issues in internationalbusiness (Scholhammer, 1977), basic models(Wines and Napier, 1992), and approaches toreconciling international norms (Donaldson,1985). However, virtually ignored in the businessethics literature has been the ethical perceptionsof organizational politics, especially cross-culturalpolitics (see Zahra, 1989).

Organizational politics, while a fact of life, hasremained an illusive concept to define (Droryand Romm, 1990; Ferr is and Kacmer, 1992) .However, based upon contributions previouslymade in describing political behavior in organi-zations, we may define organizational politics asself-serving, informal behavior that requires atleast two parties: on initiator the individualtrying to exert infiuence - and a target - theobject of the infiuence attempt (Goffinan, 1959;Porter , et ah, 1981). This informal behavior isself-serving in that the initiator attempts to usepolitics to gain control over the target in orderto obtain resources or other goals that are notsanctioned by the organization (Mayes and Allen,1977; Pfeffer, 1981). Port er et al. (1981) furtherextend the description of political behavior bynoting that it is frequently used as an upwardinfiuence strategy to promote the self-interests ofthe initiator (e.g., a raise or promotion).

Our focus in this paper is upon the ethicalperceptions across cultures of the upward infiu-ence political strategies used by organizationalmembers. The dearth of research in this area is

particularly unfortunate for two reasons. First, theliterature has shovim a serious concern with ethicsand its impact on the organization (Mayes andAllen, 1977; Zahra, 1984). Such concern wouldindicate a need to explore the ethical ramifica-tions and constraints inherent to organizationalpolitics. Second, since the exercise of infiuencein culturally diverse groups is no doubt animportant skill (see Ferguson, 1988; Smith andPeterson, 1988) and may even be a determinantof managerial success (Chacko, 1990; Kotter,1985), the understanding of how such behaviorsare viewed ethically across cultures is no doubtof consequence to the individuals exercisingthem.

Most research in ethics and organizationalpolitics has been done from a U.S. perspective.Cavanagh, et al. (1981) and Velasquez, et al.(1983) took a primarily philosophical approachtoward the ethics of organizational politics. Theyargue that because there is nothing inherentlyunethical regarding organizational behavior, theassessment of any political tactic should involvethree distinct criteria: the utility of the politicalact to all of the involved constituencies, the rightsof the individuals involved, and the extent towhich the political tactic adheres to acceptedcanons o f justice.

From a more behavioral approach, Zahra(1985) investigated the impact of various demo-graphic and organizational factors on perceptionsof organizational politics. In his sampling ofmanagers, he found that while age, gender, andrace were significantly associated with ethicalperceptions of organizational politics, functionalarea, jo b level, and years of wo rk exp erienc ewere not associated with such perceptions. Usingpersonality and attitudinal variables in anotherstudy, Zahra (1989) showed that executiveshaving high scores on measures of concern withstatus, anomie, and external locus of control, orhaving a low acceptance of others , tended toview organizational politics as ethical.

From a cross-cultural standpoint, we identifiedorily two studies which have investigated theethical perceptions of organizational politics.Romm and Drory (1988) , in compar ingCanadian and Israeli samples, found thatCanadians had a greater tendency to view some


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992 D . A. Ralston et al.aspects of pohtical behavior as less moral, but thatboth groups were generally in agreement thatillegal influence attempts were less moral thanformal or informal attempts. Dolecheck andDolecheck's (1987) comparison of U.S. andHong Kong managers , whi le not test ing forstatistical significance, did indicate that differencesappear to exist. Specifically, they conclude thatin Hong Kong ethics appear to be tied simplyto "that which is allowed by law," whereas theWestern view of ethics suggests that what isallowed by law is the lowest acceptable behaviorand that ethical behavior transcends legality(Laczniak, 1984).

As imphed by the dearth of empirical, cross-cultural research on the ethics of organizationalpol i t ics , s tudying this phenomenon can bechallenging. Likewise, identifying a suitablemeasure proved problematic. A review of theliterature and available instruments did not yieldany cross-culturally developed measures ofupward influence strategy.

The "strategies of upward influence"instrumentDue to no cross-culturally developed measures ofupward influence being available, the Strategiesof Upward Influence [SUI] instrument wasdeveloped by Ralston and Gustafson. Our goalwas to develop a suitable cross-cultural measureof upward influence. Therefore, we felt thatsimply trying to modify existing Westernmeasures might constrain the developmentalprocess. Thus, relying heavily upon practit ionerinput as well as previous theoretical research forthe foundation, the SUI instrument was created.The instrument development process identifiedtwo separate taxonomies for measuring upwardinfluence.

One taxonomy identified seven "Job Tactics"dimensions. These tactics dimensions are similarto the influence strategies identified in previousstudies of A me rican subjects (Kipnis et al, 1980;Yukl and Falbe, 1990; Yukl and F albe, 199 1; Yukland Tracey, 1992). The other taxonomy, whichis less traditional, identified the "Western Values"dimensions of ethics. The actual development

procedure, analysis, and testing of this inst rumentare presented in another paper. However, anoverview of the dimensions of the instrument ispresented in the subsequent paragraphs.

The job tactics taxonom yThe dimensions of the "Job Tactics" taxonomyare: Good Soldier (getting ahead through hardwork that benefits the organization). RationalPersuasion (demonstrating, with facts and skillsrelated accomplishments, that one should begiven consideration), Ingratiation (using subtle,indirect tactics to make oneself appear interper-sonally attractive to someone at the superiorlevel). Image Management (actively presentingoneself in a positive manner across the entireorganization). Personal Networking (developingand util izing an informal organizational socialstructure for one's own benefit) . InformationControl (controlling information that is restrictedfrom others in order to benefit oneself), andStrong-Arm Coercion (using illegal tactics, suchas blackmail, to achieve personal goals).

The Western values taxonomyThe other taxonomy identifies four hierarchicaldimensions of "Western values." The purposeof this taxonomy was to create a baseUne forcomparing acceptable and unacceptable behaviorusing an American perspective. This taxonomyis unique from those used with other influenceresearch instruments. The dimensions of thistaxonomy are: Organizat ional ly Sanct ionedBehaviors (behaviors, such as working hard, thatare usually prescribed and sanctioned foremployees in organizat ions) , Non-Destruct ive,Legal Behaviors (behaviors that do not directlyhurt another person but are self-serving for theindividual within the organization). Destructive,Legal Behaviors (self-serving behaviors, such asspreading rumors, that directly hurt othersbut are no t extreme enough to be il legal).Destructive, Il legal Behaviors (extreme self-serving behaviors that directly hurt others andare illegal, such as steahng business documents).


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Ethical Perceptions and Organizational Politics 993HypothesesWhile the two cross-cultural studies identifiedcontribute to our understanding of culturallydifferent views on the ethics of organizationalpolitics, they do not provide a significant basisupon which we could formulate hypotheses forour study. More specifically, only one of thesestudies focused on an East-West culture com-parison, and it did not utilize hypothesis-testingstatistics (Dolecheck and Dolecheck, 1987).Therefore, to formulate our hypotheses, werelied heavily on the more general cross-culturalvalues research literature (Hofstede, 1980;Ralston, et al, 1993; Tung, 1988).

Hypotheses for the Job Tactics DimensionsRecent research supports Hofstede's (1980)findings that the U.S. can be categorized asindividualistic and low in power distance, whilethe Hong Kong cul ture can be categorized ascoUectivistic and high in power distance (Ralstonet al, 1993). Previous ethics research (McDonaldand Zepp, 1988) has noted that these valuedifference are key distinguishing issues in one'sorientation toward what is considered ethicalbehavior.

Therefore, we predicted that U.S. mangers willfind tactics that tend to focus on public self-definition and self-promo tion as mo re acceptable,and thus more ethical , than the Hong Kong,managers who identify with a collectivist imageand eschew public displays of self-promotion.Specifically, we hypothesize that Americanmanagers will find the tactics of good soldier,rational persuasion, ingratiation, and imagemanagement, to be more ethical than their HongKong counterparts. Conversely, we beHeve thatthe Hong Kong managers , whose cul tural or i -entation is to work quietly behind the scenes,will find the more private and circuitous tacticsto be more ethical than the American managers.As such, we hypothesize that the,Hong Kongmanagers will find personal networking, infor-mation control, and strong-arm coercion to bemore acceptable thus more ethical than theAmerican managers .

Hi,: American managers will ^n d good Solidermore ethical than wil l Hong Kongmanagers.H^: Am erican m anagers will find rational

persuasion more ethical than will HongKong managers .H^: Am erican managers will find ingratiationmore ethical than wil l Hong Kongmanagers.H \ : American managers will find image man-agement more ethical than wil l HongKong managers .H^: H on g Ko ng managers will find personalnetworking more ethical than willAmerican managers .Hf". H on g K ong manag ers will find infor-mation control more ethical than willAmerican managers.Hg: H on g Ko ng manag ers will find strong-arm coercion more ethical than willAmerican managers.

Hypotheses for the W estern Values D imensionsAs noted, previous cross-cultural ethics research(Dolecheck and Dolecheck, 1987) found HongKong managers to equate ethics with actingwithin the law, while American managers werefound to view ethical behavior as somethingthat goes beyond mere adherence to the law.However, we believe that the actual explanationmay be more complex than this conclusion. Forexample, Lee Ka-Shing, after being convicted inHong Kong of insider trading, was selected asHong Kong's "Man of the Year," and was praisedby his associates as one of the most trustworthypeople in Hong Kong.Therefore, to attempt to understand thisapparent disparity from a Western point of view,let us begin by noting that the Chinese trans-lation of the word ethics, "dao de," means"the path to vir tue." The Chinese Cul tureConnection (1987) has identified the Chinesesociety's search for virtue as Confucian workdynamism. This concept refiects the teachings ofConfucius, which emphasize a social hierarchyor structure (Hofstede and Bond, 1988; Louie,1980). It is characterized by a respect for


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99 4 D. A. Rahtort et al.tradition with a strong desire to save "face."Confucian work dynamism also implies a needto order relationships by status and to respect theorder of that status. Thus, the Chinese view ofethical behavior appears to be very pragmatic(Redding, 1990). What is ethical is relative, andas long as "face" is not lost or is not a concern,"dao de" is intact. In contrast to this relative viewof ethics, the "Western view of ethics tends to bebased upon an absolute ideal of "good behavior"(Velasquez, 1992).

Thus, since the Western Values taxonomy isbased upon the absolute of ideally good behavior,we would expect Hong Kong managers to bemore willing to accept as ethical those things thatAmerican managers find less ethical, and viceversa, depending on how pragmatically thosethings fit the situation. Therefore, we hypothe-size that American managers will f ind theOrganizationally Sanctioned behaviors and theLega l/No n-destru ctive behaviors as mo re ethicalthan will the Ho ng K ong m anagers because thesebehaviors consistently fit the Western ideal of"good behavior." Conversely, we hypothesizethat the Hong Kong managers will f ind theLegal/Destructive and Illegal behaviors to bemore ethical than the American managersbecause these may be seen by the Hong Kongmanagers as pragmatically appropriate in somesituations, and therefore more ethically accept-able. These following hypotheses representmorally acceptable strategies that fit within thecultural orientations of each country.

Hi:

H^c:

American managers will f ind organiza-tionally sanctioned behavior more ethicalthan will Hong Kong managers .American managers will f ind legal/non-destructive behavior more ethical than wilHong Kong managers .Hong Kong managers will f ind legal/destructive behavior more ethical than wilAmerican managers .Hong Kong managers will f ind illegalbehavior more ethical than will Americanmanagers.

MethodSubjectsThe subjects were full-time professionals in theU.S. (n = 161) and Hong Kong (n = 144). Theaverage age of the American subjects was 32.7years, while the average age of the Hong KongChinese subjects was 33.5 years. Overall, the twogroups were reasonably comparable. Table Ipresents the demographic data for these groups.

ProcedurePotential participants were identified and maileda survey with cover letter and postage-paid returnenvelope. The instructions accompanying theinstrument asked the subjects to think of their

Age:G ender :Mar i ta l status:Years employed:N u m b e r of employeesin t he company:

D emograph ic

M e a nSD% male% mar r i edM e a nSDU n d e r 10010 0 or more

TA BLE Idata for the two groups

Americans w o r k i n gin the U.S.32.75.86452

8.45.425%75%

H K C hi nese work i ngin H o n g K o n g33.56. 7595810.06.130%70%


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Ethical Perceptions and Orga nizational Politics 995work experiences when responding to thequestions. The instruction also told the subjectsthat there were no right or wrong answers, andthat it was their perceptions that were important.

InstrumentThe 38-item Strategies of Upward Influence(SUI) instrument was used to assess influencetactics. For each of the 38 scenario items, thesubjects were asked to evaluate the ethics(morality) of using the strategy. Th e 38 scenarioswere measured on a 4-point Likert scale. Theresponse options ranged from "highly ethical"to "highly unethical." The higher the score, themore ethical a scenario was seen to be.

effect for differences between U.S. managers andHong Kong Chinese managers (lambda = 0.651,df = 6, 2, 456, p < 0.001).Since the multivariate effect was significant forthe Job Tactics dimensions, univariate ANOVAswere used to ascertain which of the seven jobtactics were different for the U.S. and HongKong managers. As Table II shows, all but thePersonal Networking tactic showed significantdifferences.The means for the significantly different tacticdimensions indicate that the U.S. managers ratedthe tactics of Good Soldier, Rational Persuasion,Image Management, and Ingratiation as moreethical, wliile their Hong Kong counterpartsreported Informational Control and Strong-ArmCoercion as more ethical.

Design and analysisThe first step of the analysis consisted of twoone-way multivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA) tests for the Job Tactics Dimensionsand the Western Values Dimensions. Eachmultivariate analysis had two levels (Americansworking in the U.S. and Hong Kong Chineseworking in Hong Kong). The dependent vari-ables for the Job Tactics Dimensions analysis wereGood Soldier, Rational Persuasion, Ingratiation,Image Management, Personal Networking,Information Control, and Strong-Arm, Coer-cion. The dependent variables for the WesternValues Dimensions were Sanctioned Behavior,Non-Destructive Behavior, Destructive-LegalBehavior, and Illegal Behavior. The multivariatetechnique was used in these analyses to controlexperiment-wise error rate with multiple depen-dent measures. If a significant effect was foundin a multivariate analysis, then the second stepwas to calculate the univariate analyses(ANOVAs) for each of its dimensions (Kirk,1982).

ResultsJob tactics

A MANOVA analysis indicated a significant

Western values hierarchyA MANOVA analysis indicated a significanteffect for differences among U.S. managers andHong Kong Chinese managers (lambda = 0.632,df = 3, 2, 459, p < 0.001).Again, because the multivariate effect wassignificant for the Western Values measures,univariate ANOVAs were used to determineon which of the four dimensions there weredifferences. As Table III show s, significant dif-ferences were found for the Sanctioned Behavior,Destructive-Legal Behaviour, and Illegal Be-havior dimensions.The pattern of means for these dimensionsshowed that the Organizationally Sanctioneddimension was rated as more ethical by Americanmanagers, while the Destructive/Legal and Illegaldimensions were rated as more acceptable byHong Kong managers.

DiscussionThe results demonstrate that there were a numberof cultural differences between the U.S. andHong Kong managers in their perceptions ofethical behavior. Also, as shown in Table II andIII, all dimensions showing significant differencesfollowed the hypothesized direction.


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99 6 D. A. Ralston et alTABLE IIMeans, standard deviations, and F-test results for the seven job tactics dimensions

Dimension Nationality Location Mean SDGood SoldierRational persuasionImage managementIngratiationPersonal networkingInformation controlStrong-arm coercion

AmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK Chinese

U.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong Kong

3.713.523.523.413.012.943.102.992.642.681.481.701.281.51

0.300.340.290.330.330.320.390.380.370.330.280.300.260.31

20.77***7.36***5.24**

11.65***0.63

33.86***31.71***

** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

TABLE IIIMeans, standard deviations, and P-test results for the four western values dimensionsDimension Nationality Location Mean SDSanctionedNon-destructiveDestructive/legalIllegal

AmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK ChineseAmericanHK Chinese

U.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong KongU.S.Hong Kong

3.713.523.523.413.012.943.102.99

0.300.340.290.330.330.320.390.38

20.33***2.31

26.06***42.55***

*** p < 0.001.

Job tacticsOn the job tactics dimensions, as hypothesized,U.S. managers saw Good Soldier, RationalPersuasion, Image Management, and Ingratiationas being more ethical alternatives that did theirHong Kong counterparts. Likewise, as hypothe-sized. Information Control and Strong-ArmCoercion tactics were evaluated as more accept-

able by the Hong Kong managers. The use ofPersonal Networking tactics was not reported assignificantly different by the managers in ourstudy. These findings are consistent with thecross-cultural values research that find A mericansto be individualistic and openly aggressive, whilefinding Hong Kong Chinese as more collec-tivistic, preferring behind-the scenes strategies.


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Ethical Perceptions and Orga nizational Politics 997Western valuesSimilarly, U.S. managers found OrganizationallySanctioned behavior as more ethically justifiablethan did their Hong Kong counterparts. How-ever, there was no difference between U.S. andHong Kong managers regarding Non-Destruc-tive/Legal behavior. Also, as hypothesized, theHong Kong managers reported the Destructive/Legal and IUegal behaviors as more acceptable.These findings are consistent with the view thatin the West, ethical behavior is an absolute thatapplies universally, while in the East, "face" andethical behavior depend on the situation.

ConclusionsThese findings offer practitioners several avenuesfor consideration. For example, from a trainingstandpoint, cross-cultural managers will need toconsider the varying cultural perception ofappropriate influence strategies as they trainexpatriates. Giacalone and Beard (in press) notethat individuals who go abroad may succeed orfail largely on their ability to present themselvesin socially appropriate ways, since foreign hoststend to interact with expatriates from the host'scultural perspective. When there are substantivedifferences in the ethical perceptions of influencestrategies between cultures (as this study demon-strates), expatriates will ne ed to be sensitive tothose differences, if they hope to attain theirobjectives of gaining influence.

Likewise, multinational corporations will needto consider the strategies they use to influenceexternal stakeholder. Using strategies viewed asunethical by members of the other culture maybackfire and result in negative perceptions of theindividual attemp ting th e influence strategy. Thisscenario has been proven in previous studies (see,for example, Giacalone, 1985).

Future research potential can be drawn fromtwo particular issues that this study did notaddress. First, the ethical climate within a givenmultinational organization may moderate theextent to which a particular influence strategy is

cultures that vary across organizations influencingwhat organizational members perceive as ethical.For example, a company's culture may be influ-enced by the home office location of thatcompany. This would be especially likely if manyof the top executives come from the home officecountry, and as such have a common nationalculture which, in turn, would help to shape thecompany culture.Additionally, the situational context may alterthe ethical appropriateness perceived in variousinfluence strategies. The cultural relationshipbetween the person attempting the influence andthe person over whom the influence is attempted

may have an important effect on what is per-ceived as ethical (Anseri and Kapoor, 1987). Forexample, a subordinate relating to a superior firomhis/her own culture may perceive what is accept-able behavior differently than he/she wouldw he n relating to a superio r from anoth er cu lture.In summary, the present study provides twothings: inform ation relevant to the hand s-onoperation of an organization doing business in amulticultural environment, and research avenues

for further investigation. Further research mayhelp to determine the degree to which ourunderstanding of the ethical perceptions oforganizational politics can be expanded. Whileour data should be applied cautiously withinother cultural contexts, these findings offersglobal organizations some cogent considerationsin their attempts to become more effective byincreasing their awareness of the differences inethical values between cultures.

AcknowledgmentThe authors thank Tong Lai Yee Qane) for hermany helpful comments during the preparationof this manuscript, and the two anonymousreviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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