the impact of societal cultural values and individual ... · the impact of societal cultural values...

The impact of societal cultural values and

individual social beliefs on the perceived

effectiveness of managerial influence strategies:

a meso approach

Ping Ping Fu1, Jeff Kennedy2,Jasmine Tata3, Gary Yukl4,Michael Harris Bond1,Tai-Kuang Peng5, Ekkirala SSrinivas6, Jon P Howell7,Leonel Prieto7, Paul Koopman8,Jaap J Boonstra8, Selda Pasa9,Marie-Francoise Lacassagne10,Hiro Higashide11 andAdith Cheosakul12

1Chinese University of Hong Kong, Singapore;2Nanyang Business School, Singapore; 3Loyola

University Chicago, USA; 4State University atAlbany, USA; 5I-Shou University, Taiwan; 6Xavier

Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, India;7New Mexico State University, USA; 8Vrije

Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands;9Bogazici University Istanbul, Turkey;10Lacassagne Universite de Bourgogne, France;11Waseda University, Japan; 12Sasin Graduate

Institute of Business Administration ofChulalongkorn University, Thailand

Correspondence:Dr J Tata, Loyola University Chicago, 820 N.Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.Tel: þ1 312 915 6543;E-mail [email protected]

Received: 13 May 2002Revised: 15 December 2003Accepted: 6 April 2004Published online 24 June 2004

AbstractThis paper reports the findings of a 12-nation study designed to test empirically

the relationships between societal cultural values, individual social beliefs, andthe perceived effectiveness of different influence strategies. The relationships

between three types of broad influence strategy (persuasive, assertive, and

relationship based) and four dimensions of individual beliefs (cynicism, fatecontrol, reward for application, and religiosity) were examined. Three of Project

GLOBE’s cultural values (in-group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and

future orientation) were selected to investigate their direct effects on the ratedeffectiveness of influence strategies, and their possible interaction with

dimensions of individual beliefs. Results showed that different dimensions of

individual social beliefs predict the perceived effectiveness of the three types of

influence strategy, and that cultural values can moderate the strength of therelationship between these dimensions of individual social beliefs and the

perceived effectiveness of influence strategies.

Journal of International Business Studies (2004) 35, 284–305.

doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400090

Keywords: social beliefs; cultural values; influence strategies

IntroductionInfluence is often a key to managerial effectiveness (Yukl, 2002).Moreover, the effectiveness of global managers depends on theirability to exercise influence in culturally mixed interpersonalnetworks (Smith and Peterson, 1988). The factors affecting choicesof influence strategy in different cultures are therefore of interest notonly to academicians but also to managers working across cultures.

Cross-cultural studies of influence tactics (e.g., Hirokawa andMiyahara, 1986; Schermerhorn and Bond, 1991) have found thatcultural values are associated with differences in preferences for theuse of different influence tactics or strategies across cultures. Forexample, Schermerhorn and Bond (1991) found that Chinese andAmerican managers demonstrated differences in the use of rationalappeals when influencing both subordinates and superiors, andZaidman and Drory (2001) found that cultural norms between twodifferent populations could explain some of the differences inupward impression management. These studies, however, did notcontrol other factors known to affect influence choices, such as thenature of the request, the direction of the influence attempt, the

Journal of International Business Studies (2004) 35, 284–305& 2004 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. All rights reserved 0047-2506 $30.00

www.jibs.net

power possessed by the agent, and the relationshipbetween the agent and the target (Yukl, 2002).

One study that did control for such factors was byFu and Yukl (2000), who found that Chinesemanagers rated coalition formation, upwardappeal, giving gifts/favors, and personal appeals asmore effective, and rational persuasion, consulta-tion, and exchange as less effective than didAmerican managers. Fu and Yukl pointed out thatthese preferences were consistent with the Chineseendorsement of collectivistic, feminine, long-term-oriented values and Americans’ endorsement ofequality, direct confrontation, and pragmatism.Similarly, a study by Ralston et al (2001) comparedstrategies of upward influence and found contrast-ing patterns across six cultures. Neither of thesestudies, however, included measures of culturalvalues. In addition, most studies in the literaturehave conducted post hoc analyses to identifydifferences in influence behavior.

The current study attempts to overcome some ofthese limitations. The main purposes of our studyare:

(1) to investigate the effect of individual socialbeliefs on the perceived effectiveness of variousinfluence strategies;

(2) to assess the relationship between nationalcultural values and perceived effectiveness ofvarious influence strategies; and

(3) to examine the potential moderating effect ofcultural values on the relationships betweensocial beliefs and the effectiveness of differenttypes of influence strategy.

In the following sections, we first briefly intro-duce the three bodies of literature (influencestrategies, social beliefs, and cultural values) toprovide a theoretical framework for our study.Then, we introduce the hypotheses to be tested,followed by the methods we used to test thosehypotheses. Finally, we provide the results of thestatistical analyses and discuss the implications ofthe findings.

Influence strategies, individual social beliefs,and societal cultural valuesIn recent years researchers have been urged toadopt a meso-level paradigm, linking macro andmicro concepts to form integrated theories oforganizations (Rousseau and House, 1994; Houseet al., 1995; Hackman, 2003). However, studies thatempirically forge and confirm such links are few(see Smith and Bond, 2003). We attempt to explore

this linkage, using cultural values as macro-level(societal) concepts and social beliefs as micro-level(individual) concepts. This process is similar to theinteractional psychology perspective, in whichboth individual factors and contextual factorscombine to influence behavior (O’Reilly et al.,1991).

Owing to the numerous, often confusing, defini-tions of the two constructs, the relationshipbetween social beliefs and cultural values is hardto decipher. Beliefs represent an individual’s per-ceptions of reality. Values are more stable, long-lasting beliefs about what is important (Sagie andElizur, 1996). Individuals have both beliefs andvalues, but in our paper social beliefs refer to thoseheld by individuals, whereas cultural values aredefined as ‘cultural criteria or evaluative standardsfor judgment’, not motives, beliefs, or attitudes ofthe individuals (Hayden, 1988: 416). Culturalvalues are transcendental; beliefs can be specificto an activity or institution and, as such, are moredirectly related to behaviors. Therefore, althoughnational cultural values have been the major factorsin cross-cultural research, beliefs could sometimesbe more useful than values in explaining cross-cultural differences in specific individual behaviors(Leung et al., 1995).

A likely reason why links between cultural valuesand individual influence behaviors have not beenconfirmed in previous studies is that individualvariables show too much variation to be predictedfrom cultural values. Culture implies some level ofshared meaning, of a commonality in the way inwhich behavior is evaluated. However, an indivi-dual’s behavior at any given moment ‘may or maynot be congruent with ‘shared’ cultural meanings,and personal desires may be incompatible withcultural norms’ (Rohner, 1984: 124). The beliefsheld by individuals regardless of their culturalbackgrounds might therefore be among otherfactors that affect behaviors more directly thancultural values.

The relationships among the three sets of vari-ables in our study can be understood by the theoryof reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Ajzen,1996), also termed the Fishbein behavioral intentionsmodel or the theory of planned behavior, which arguesthat people consider the implications of theiractions before they decide to engage or not engagein a given behavior. Its fundamental assumption isthat any specific set of behaviors reflects not onlythe influence of underlying individual factors (i.e.,traits and personality) but also the influence of

Impact of societal cultural values Ping Ping Fu et al

285

Journal of International Business Studies

other external factors unique to the situation inquestion. When confronted with the need to decideon a course of action, people consider their beliefsabout the likely consequences of available alter-natives, beliefs about the normative expectations ofimportant individuals or groups, and the requiredresources and potential impediments characteriz-ing the world in which they function. These beliefsresult, respectively, in the form of attitudes towardthe behavior, subjective norms with respect to thebehavior, and perceived behavioral control, whichin turn influence behavioral intentions and actualbehavior.

The theory was chosen because of its provenvalidity in predicting various workplace behaviorsand its applicability in both Western and Asiancontexts (Sheppard et al., 1988; Ajzen, 1991, 1996).Applying this theory to the use of influencebehavior, individuals’ belief structures will leadpeople to perceive certain influence strategies asmore likely to result in successful outcomes (e.g.,the target complying with their request), thusmaking those strategies appear more effective andresulting in a positive attitude toward the use ofthose influence strategies. We argue that people’sperceptions of the effectiveness of influence strate-gies are affected both by their framework of socialbeliefs (social cynicism, reward for application, fatecontrol, religiosity, social complexity) and by thecultural milieu in which they function (uncertainty

avoidance, in-group collectivism, future orienta-tion). Graphically, the relationships among thethree variables are as shown in Figure 1.

The following sections describe the three con-structs and the connections among them.

Influence strategies and their perceivedeffectivenessIn all, 16 proactive tactics identified in previousstudies of managerial influence tactics are includedin this study. To facilitate the analyses, we groupedthe 16 tactics into three broadly defined meta-categories: persuasive, assertive, and relationshipbased.1 The persuasive and assertive strategies arebased on previously identified dichotomies (e.g.,‘hard’ vs ‘soft’ by Sun and Bond, 2000). Therelationship-based strategy was identified in theFu and Yukl (2000) study. The three strategies aredefined as follows:

(1) Persuasive strategy includes rational persuasion(using logical arguments and factual evidenceto persuade the target), inspirational appeal(making an emotional appeal to the target’svalues or ideals), and consultation (seeking thetarget’s input or participation in task). Wheninfluencing the target, the manager using thisstrategy focuses on the merits of the request,provides logical arguments, or connects therequest to the larger good.

Social Beliefs Influence Strategies H1a

H1b

H2

H3a

H3b H4a

H4b

H6a H6c H6b H7 H8a H8b

National Cultural Values

Uncertainty avoidance

In-group collectivism

Future Orientation

Social cynicism

Fate control

Religiosity

Reward for application

Relationship-based

Persuasive

Assertive

Social complexity

Figure 1 Model of the relationships among national cultural values, social beliefs, and influence strategies.


286


(2) Assertive strategy consists of persistence (repeatedpleading with the target to carry out a request),pressure (using demands, threats, or persistentreminders to push the target), and upward appeal(seeking help from someone with higherauthority). The manager, when applying thisstrategy, uses some form of coercion to influ-ence the target.

(3) Relationship-based strategy includes giving gifts(offering gifts to the target), informal engagement(inviting the target to a non-work environmentto make the request), personal appeal (asking thetarget to carry out a request as a personal favor),socializing (talking about a subject irrelevant tothe request but of interest to the target beforemaking the request), and exchanging (offeringthe target something in exchange for the help).With this strategy, the manager usually tries touse a positive social relationship or attempts toform one in order to influence the target.

Individuals hold beliefs about the relative effec-tiveness of these influence strategies. According tothe theory of planned behavior and the expec-tancy-value framework, these beliefs and percep-tions about the effectiveness of influence behaviorcan affect the frequency with which the behavior isused, as influence strategies perceived as lesseffective are less likely to be used.

Perceptions of the effectiveness of influencestrategies may be universal or specific. Previousresearch (e.g., Kennedy et al., 2003; van Knippen-berg and van Knippenberg, 2003) suggests that thepersuasive strategy is used most frequently acrosscultures, and is considered the most effective bymanagers. In contrast, the assertive strategy isperceived as evoking resistance. Within this generalframework, however, specific patterns of differencesmay occur across individuals and across cultures.Our contention is that the perceived effectivenessof influence strategies is affected both by micro-level variables (individual social beliefs) and bymacro-level variables (national cultural values). Thefollowing subsections discuss these ideas in greaterdetail.

Social beliefs and their connection to theperceived effectiveness of influence strategiesSocial beliefs are general beliefs at a high level ofabstraction; they facilitate the attainment ofimportant goals and help people understand theworld. Based on empirical results from more than40 countries, Leung and Bond (2004, in press)

extended the results of the earlier Leung et al (2002)study and identified five dimensions – cynicism,reward for application, religiosity, fate control, andsocial complexity – as pan-cultural dimensions ofbelief that characterize individuals and relate todifferences in individual behaviors. Leung andBond (2004, in press) suggest that people acrosscultures form similar dimensions of social beliefsbecause they deal with similar problems. People indifferent cultures, however, may subscribe to thesebeliefs at differing levels based on the social logicdeveloped over history by that particular culturalgroup. We adopted these dimensions because theyare the only ones of this type, and capture theconstructs of interest.

The five dimensions can be considered as part ofan individual’s cognitive framework, which affectsthe scripts that individuals use to guide behaviorsin various situations (Fiske and Taylor, 1998).Perceived effectiveness or attitudes toward influ-ence strategies can be considered as examples ofsuch scripts. As mentioned earlier, the connectionsbetween these frameworks and influence scripts canbe understood by the theory of planned behavior.In other words, individual belief structures will leadpeople to perceive certain influence strategies asmore likely to result in successful outcomes: hencethose strategies will be perceived as more effective.The connections between influence strategies andLeung and Bond’s (2004, in press) social beliefs arediscussed below.

Cynicism refers to a negative view of people –being motivated by considerations of power, amistrust of social institutions, or negative stereo-typing of certain groups. Managers endorsingcynicism are likely to have influence scripts con-sisting of aggressive and directive tactics. A negativeview of human nature – similar to McGregor’s(1960) Theory X – and a mistrust of socialinstitutions are likely to be connected to beliefsthat people are unlikely to change their behaviorunless forced through pressure, demands, andthreats. In addition, managers endorsing socialcynicism are also likely to believe that manipula-tion can succeed, and might deliberately try toestablish social relationships with targets and givegifts to targets so as to ensure compliance with theirrequests. Hence the expectancy-valence paradigmsuggests that:

H1: Managers who endorse social cynicism aremore likely to perceive (a) assertive and (b)relationship-based influence strategies as effective,


287


compared with managers who do not believe insocial cynicism.

Reward for application refers to beliefs that effortand the investment of one’s resources will lead topositive outcomes. Managers subscribing to suchbeliefs believe that motivation is sustained byattributing success to effort and by reinforcingeffortful displays. Such individuals are less likelyto seek help from powerful others in their influenceattempts, and are more likely to believe that theirown efforts, skills, and careful planning as demon-strated through well-worded logical arguments arelikely to be influential. Here the expectancy-valence framework suggests that:

H2: Managers who believe in reward for applica-tion are more likely to perceive persuasiveinfluence strategies as effective, compared withmanagers who do not believe in reward forapplication.

Religiosity refers to beliefs in the existence ofsupernatural factors and in the positive impact ofreligious institutions and practice on people’s lives;it promotes benevolence in people’s interactionswith each other. Managers holding such beliefs mayengage in more mutually beneficial socialexchanges, score higher on agreeableness, andendorse humane leadership. Hence, the choice ofinfluence strategies may be affected not only by theexpectation that a particular strategy is likely toresult in compliance by the target, but also by theexpectation that the strategy will lead to benevo-lent and mutually beneficial outcomes. The persua-sive and relationship-oriented strategies allow thetarget the freedom to choose whether or not tocomply; they are perceived as relatively friendlyand benevolent. Hence, managers endorsing higherlevels of religiosity are more likely to endorse thepersuasive and relationship-based strategies.

H3: Managers who believe in religiosity are morelikely to perceive (a) persuasive and (b) relation-ship-based influence strategies as effective, com-pared with managers who do not believe inreligiosity.

Fate control refers to the belief that events in lifeare both predictable and predetermined by fate anddestiny (i.e., one has little control over eventshappening to oneself). Managers subscribing tosuch beliefs are likely to perceive themselves ascontrolled by external factors, and are less likely tobelieve in their own ability to influence others

through logical arguments or consultation. Suchmanagers may perceive that the only effectiveinfluence tactics are those that do not dependsolely on their own efforts, but involve seeking helpfrom others who have authority over the target.Thus the expectancy-valence framework suggeststhat:

H4: Managers who believe in fate control aremore likely to perceive (a) assertive influencestrategies as effective and (b) persuasive strategiesas ineffective, compared with managers who donot believe in fate control.

Social complexity refers to the axiom that the socialworld is complex, and that the same rules ofbehavior do not necessarily apply across situationsand across cultures. Managers holding such beliefsare less likely to favor any one type of influencestrategy across all situations, and are more likely toperceive different types of influence strategy aseffective under different contexts.

H5: Managers who believe in social complexityare less likely to perceive any type of influencestrategy as effective, compared with managerswho do not believe in social complexity.

National cultural values and the perceivedeffectiveness of influence strategiesAs stated earlier, this paper takes a meso-levelapproach to the study of influence strategies.Therefore, in addition to examining individual-level determinants of influence, we also examineone country-level determinant: cultural values.Culture refers to a system of socially created andlearned standards for perception, cognition, judg-ment, or behavior shared by members of a certaingroup; it is the collective programming thatdistinguishes one group or category of people fromanother (Hofstede, 1980). Since cultural congru-ence suggests that cultural forces affect the kind ofinfluence strategy that is usually accepted andeffective in a collectivity, behavior that is consistentwith collective values will be more acceptable andeffective than behavior that represents conflictingvalues.

National cultures can be assessed along manydimensions. The classic measures of nationalculture developed by Hofstede (1980) consisted offour dimensions: individualism vs collectivism,power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and mascu-linity vs femininity. The GLOBE (House et al., 1999)


288


project operationalized nine cultural value dimen-sions.2 We adopted the GLOBE measures becausethey are more recent, more comprehensive thanHofstede’s, and assessed cultural values (‘should be’)separately from cultural practices (‘as is’). The twoare believed to be separate manifestations ofculture. We selected three out of nine dimensions(uncertainty avoidance, in-group collectivism, andfuture orientation) based on theoretical support inthe literature presented below.3

Uncertainty avoidance deals with the extent towhich people feel the need to avoid ambiguoussituations and manage such situations by providingexplicit structure; it refers to people’s acceptance ofvarying situational demands, their openness tochange, and their propensity to take risks (Hof-stede, 1980; House et al., 1999). In high uncertaintyavoidance cultures, high levels of structure reducepeople’s confidence in influencing others throughlogical arguments or consultation, and thus makethem less likely to perceive persuasive strategies aseffective. On the other hand, managers in suchcultures may perceive assertive influence strategy,such as seeking help from higher authorities, to bemore effective than relying on their own efforts. Infact, Schmidt and Yeh (1992) found that managersin Taiwan and Japan (both high on uncertaintyavoidance) preferred assertive strategies, whereasmanagers in low uncertainty avoidance Australiaand US preferred persuasive strategies. Similarly,Hirokawa and Miyahara (1986) and Xin and Tsui(1996) found that assertive tactics such as coalitionand upward appeal were rated higher by managersin China, a high uncertainty avoidance culture.Offermann and Hellmann (1997) found a signifi-cant positive correlation between Hofstede’s uncer-tainty avoidance index and the use (reported bysubordinates) of controlling behaviors by managersin 39 different countries.

H6: Managers in high uncertainty avoidancecultures are more likely to rate (a) the relation-ship based and (b) the assertive influence strategyas effective, and (c) the persuasive influencestrategy as ineffective, than managers in lowuncertainty avoidance cultures.

In-group collectivism suggests that, in certaincultures, people draw upon the ‘we’ identity andvalue group goals, collective needs, and emotionaldependence on society. In such cultures managersare more likely to establish and focus on relation-ships with others, and these relationships serve asthe basis for influencing others. In support of this

assertion, House et al (1999) found that collectivismaccounted for a significant variation in the endor-sement of team-oriented leadership. Similarly,Ting-Toomey (1988) suggested that managers incollectivistic Japan were more likely to influencesubordinates by appealing to their desire to beaccepted by others (relationship-based strategies),whereas managers in the individualistic US weremore likely to use reason (persuasive strategies).

H7: Managers in collectivistic cultures are morelikely to rate relationship-based influence strate-gies as effective compared with managers inindividualistic cultures.

Future orientation refers to the valuation of long-term results over short-term gratification. In suchcultures greater attention is paid to developingpeople, building relationships, and sacrificingimmediate profit in favor of long-term benefits. Incontrast, past- and present-oriented cultures insistupon immediate returns on invested time andeffort, tend to be more task-oriented, and havelittle patience with socializing in the work setting.These values suggest that people in future-orientedcultures may be more likely to emphasize relation-ships with others in the workplace, and to use thoserelationships as the basis of their influence strate-gies. Therefore, managers in such cultures are lesslikely to use pressure or other assertive tactics thatmight harm future relationships. In support of thisnotion, Fu and Yukl (2000) found that, in future-oriented China, managers preferred relationship-oriented tactics such as giving gifts and personalappeals, whereas managers in the short-term-oriented US preferred persuasive tactics such asrational persuasion and consultation.

H8: Managers in future-oriented cultures aremore likely to rate (a) relationship-based strate-gies as effective and (b) assertive strategies asineffective than managers in short-term-orientedcultures.

InteractionsBeliefs have been used mostly as a mediatorbetween cultural values and attitudes in theliterature. However, in our study, social beliefs andperceived effectiveness of influence strategies areboth measured at the individual level, whereascultural values are societal-level variables. Ourapproach is to look at the extent to which theindividual-level relationships hold (or vary) across


289


cultures as a function of the societal-level variables.However, as cultural systems regulate individualbehaviors in a society, it is possible that culturalvalues can influence individuals’ cognitive repre-sentations. Therefore, it is necessary to examinethe moderating effect of societal cultural values onthe relationship between individuals’ socialbeliefs and their perception of the effectiveness ofinfluence strategies. Such an examination is also inline with the meso-level perspective taken in thisstudy.

According to motivational theories, individualsare most likely to report higher levels of jobsatisfaction and commitment when they find theright fit between their personal interests and thenature of the job, between personality and organi-zational culture; and more positive attitudes arelikely to be obtained when there is an affective fitbetween a team member and his or her group (e.g.,O’Reilly et al., 1991). Following this rationale, webelieve that people are likely to perceive a certaintype of influence strategy to be more effective whentheir personal beliefs are consistent with thesocietal values. For example, when the society ishigh on uncertainty avoidance, the more peoplebelieve in fate control, the less likely they would beto use relationship as a way to influence others andthe less likely they would be to rate relationship-based tactics as effective.

However, owing to the lack of an adequatetheoretical framework and the long list of hypoth-eses to be tested, we did not generate formalhypotheses on the moderating effects, leaving theexamination to be largely exploratory.

Method

ParticipantsThe GLOBE sampling strategy was used in thisstudy. To enhance comparability, we collected datafrom managers in the same three industries asGLOBE, but we also sought responses from thewider manufacturing sector, rather than limit itpurely to the food processing, banking, andtelecommunication industries. GLOBE included61 cultures. Owing to limited resources, we invited20 researchers who had participated in GLOBE (fivefrom each continent) to collaborate. In all, 12responded and collected the data for the study. The12 countries included in this study provided abroad range of variability on the three nationalcultural dimensions selected for this study; we hadcountries that scored high, moderate, and low on

each of the dimensions. For example, on the in-group collectivism dimension, China and Indiahave high scores, Japan has a moderate score, andthe US and New Zealand have low scores.

Summaries of the demographics of all respon-dents are provided in Appendix A. The total sampleconsisted of 1764 participants. The average ageranged from 34 to 43, with the Hong Kongmanagers being the youngest and the Dutchmanagers the oldest. The majority of the respon-dents were male, although females did constituteover 40% of the sample in Hong Kong, Thailand,and the US. In five countries (India, Taiwan,Thailand, Turkey, and the US) over 90% of thesample had university undergraduate or graduatequalifications; in only three countries (France, theNetherlands, and New Zealand) did this percentagefall below 70%. Manufacturing and financial jobswere the most reported job types. Almost half of theHong Kong participants were from small firms(fewer than 100), but a majority of other countrieswere from either medium-sized (100–1000) or largefirms (over 1000).4

MeasuresInfluence tactics were measured using a scenario-based questionnaire with a fixed-response format,as in the Fu and Yukl (2000) study. The use ofscenarios enabled us to control for factors that havebeen shown to affect choices of influence tactics(Yukl, 2002). The questionnaire contained sixscenarios, which were selected from a long list ofscenarios provided by Chinese and Americanmanagers and developed for the Fu and Yukl(2000) study. Each scenario described an influencesituation that a manager could reasonably expect toencounter at work, and the influence objective wasexplicitly stated. Two scenarios described a situa-tion in which a manager needed to influence hissuperior, two required a manager to influence apeer manager, and the other two involved man-agers trying to influence their subordinates.The agent and target described in the scenariowere always the same sex (male) in order tocontrol gender effects on ratings of influencetactics. The choice of male gender also reflects thepredominately male composition of most of theworkplaces. The first scenario, for example, reads asfollows:

The marketing manager wants to assign a newtask to one of his subordinates. The task is toconduct a survey to obtain customer opinions


290


about the services provided by the company. Thesurvey is the marketing department’s part of anew initiative by top management to improvecustomer service. The subordinate is reluctant todo the additional task because his other jobresponsibilities are already overwhelming.

To ensure the applicability of the scenarios in allparticipating nations, we asked all partners topretest them during the pilot stage.5 Followingeach scenario were 16 influence tactics tailored tothe given situation. Respondents were asked to ratehow effective each of the tactics would be if usedfor influencing the target person to accomplish theobjective described in the scenario. Ratings weremade on a five-point scale with anchors for eachrating choice (1¼completely ineffective, 5¼veryeffective). The following tactics are among the 16tactics tailored for the above scenario:

� Ask the subordinate to do the task as a personalfavor. (Personal appeal).

� Ask a superior to help influence the subordinateto do the task. (Upward appeal).

To facilitate subsequent analyses, we factoranalyzed the 16 influence tactics with a requestfor three factors and discarded four tactics (appris-ing, ingratiation, coalition, and rational persuasionusing written format) that did not fit the model.The remaining items were used to form the threestrategies, which were used in all the subsequentanalyses. The alpha values for the overall samplewere 0.85 for the relationship-based strategy, 0.81for the persuasive strategy, and 0.72 for theassertive strategy. We also checked the reliabilitiesof the three influence strategy scales within eachculture separately. The majority of the alpha valueswere above 0.70 (the range was between 0.90 and0.64).

Social beliefs were measured on five-point scales(1¼strongly disbelieve, 5¼strongly believe) measur-ing social cynicism, reward for application, socialcomplexity, fate control, and religiosity (Leung andBond, in press). Each dimension was measured byfive items. Examples of items included in the scaleare ‘Kind-hearted people are easily bullied’ (socialcynicism), ‘One will succeed if he/she really tries’(reward for application), ‘Human behavior changeswith the social context’ (social complexity), ‘Goodluck follows if one survives a disaster’ (fate control),and ‘Religious faith contributes to good mentalhealth’ (religiosity). The belief questionnaire was

administered at the same time as the scenario-basedquestionnaire for influence tactics.

When running the exploratory factor analysis onthe social beliefs data, we found that items thatwere supposed to load on social complexity werescattered among other factors with loadings below0.40. Therefore, we deleted those items along withthe social complexity dimension and obtained fourclean factors corresponding to the other fourdimensions. We then repeated the analysis usingdata from each of the 12 cultures separately, andwere able to identify the same structure within eachcultural group. Using the remaining 20 items to runthe measurement model, we were able to find asatisfactory result as well (NNFI¼0.91, CFI¼0.92and RMSEA¼0.05). Given all these results, weconcluded that we would not get a valid andreliable social complexity scale, and thereforedropped it from further analyses and used the fourscales, labeled social cynicism, reward for applica-tion, fate control, and religiosity, for the currentstudy.

The internal consistency reliability, as measuredby Cronbach alpha values for the total sample, was0.66 for social cynicism, 0.65 for reward forapplication, 0.61 for fate control, and 0.78 forreligiosity. Although some alphas were below theoptimal level, internal consistency seemed ade-quate for this type of exploratory study. For cross-cultural research on social beliefs such as this study,we use items that represent the ‘core-etics’ of socialbeliefs: that is, aspects of beliefs that can bemeasured across all cultures. When measuringbeliefs within a cultural group, we would add emicor culture-specific items that increase the reliabilityof the scales (Leung and Bond, 2004, in press). Asthe ‘core etic’ scales have fewer items, low Cron-bach’s alphas are likely to occur and should not be amajor cause of concern. Despite the lower-than-optimal reliabilities, Leung and Bond suggest thatwe stay with the current-etic items to maintaincross-cultural comparability until better alterna-tives are developed.

Cultural values data were taken from the GLOBEProject. House et al (1999) pointed out that theendorsement of global leader behavior dimensionsis associated with ‘respondent value orientation(i.e., ‘should be’ responses) and not with observedpractices (i.e., ‘as is’ responses).’ We therefore used‘should be’ values of the three dimensions for ourstudy. As cultural values are found to be ratherstable, the fact that they were collected a few yearsearlier was not a concern.


291


Data collectionAlthough restriction to three GLOBE industriesreduced the heterogeneity of the sample, there isstill considerable variety among the companieswithin each industry. For the manufacturing indus-try, companies included steel, electronics, food,garments, and other products. For financial ser-vices, the majority of the firms were banks, andtelecommunication companies comprised bothtraditional telecommunication and mobile phonecompanies in all cultures.

The original English version of the questionnairewas used in India, New Zealand, Thailand, and theUnited States, with minor modifications to fit localterminology and spelling. A translated version ofthe questionnaire was used for the remainingcultures. Consistent with the recommended proce-dures (Brislin, 1970), two bilingual persons familiarwith the behavioral literature made the initialtranslation from English to the language of thecountry. Then a different person retranslated thequestionnaire back into English. Finally, anotherbilingual person checked the back-translated ver-sion against the original English to ensure that theywere equivalent. Any discrepancies were resolvedby discussion among the researchers.

Data analysesGiven the requirement to analyze our data at twolevels – individual and cultural – we used hierarch-ical linear modeling (HLM) (Klein and Kozlowski,2000). HLM takes into account the individual-levelerror in estimating society-level coefficients. Inorder to model within-level as well as between-level relationships, one needs to simultaneouslyestimate two models: one identifying the relation-ship within each of the lower-level groups, and asecond one to see how these within-group relation-ships vary between groups (Bryk and Raudenbush,1992). In our case, the program enables us toexamine how the relationship between individual-level social beliefs and preferences for influencestrategies within each culture varies across culturesas a result of differences on country-level dimen-sions of in-group collectivism, uncertainty avoid-ance, and future orientation.

When selecting influence strategies, managers inthe same culture are affected by their commonvalues. Therefore, we needed to disaggregate thedata so that each lower-level unit (individualmanager) is assigned a score representing thehigher-level unit (culture) within which it is nested.HLM has the ability to take into consideration the

variance due to variables at different levels whileensuring compliance with the assumption ofindependence of random error at different levels(one of the assumptions in traditional regression)(see Goldstein, 1996). For our study, HLM isolatesthe amount of variance in influence strategies thatis due to cultural values, and therefore moreaccurately estimates the variance due to socialbeliefs. Hence, it not only increases the fit betweenthe hypothetical model and the actual situation,but also ensures a more reasonable and moreaccurate assessment of the relationships amongthe nested variables.

In running the analyses, we first estimated thenull model, using the three influence strategies asthree dependent variables to assess the between-group variance and within-group variance (tau):that is, to estimate how much variance in each ofthe three strategies is due to individual differences(social beliefs) and how much is due to culturaldifferences (values). Then we ran the randommodel to assess the relationship between Level 1predictors (social beliefs) and Level 1 outcomes(perception of influence strategies). Finally, we ranthe full model to assess the relationship betweenLevel 2 predictors and intercepts (B0) and slopes (B1

to Bj) to examine whether cultural values are relatedto average scores on the dependent variable acrossdifferent cultural groups, and to test the effect ofthe cultural variables on the relationship betweenthe social beliefs and perceived effectiveness ofinfluence strategies at the individual level.

The three cultural dimensions were added to themodel only when the w2 value for the final varianceestimation at Level 1 was statistically significant,which indicated that a significant amount ofvariance in the slope (i.e., the relationship betweenthe independent variable and dependent variable atthe first level) was accounted for at the secondlevel.

ResultsThe means, standard deviations (s.d.), and correla-tions among variables used for the analyses areprovided in Table 1.6 Owing to the large samplesize, many correlations between variables reachstatistical significance. However, most of the corre-lations are small, accounting for little commonvariance, and therefore are not of present concern.The correlation between assertive and relationship-based influence strategies appears to be larger thanother correlations, and analysis of bivariate correla-tions between the individual tactics constituting


292


each of these strategies suggested overlap (r¼0.45)between exchange (a component of the relation-ship-based strategy) and upward appeal (assertivestrategy). However, based on previous literature(e.g., Sun and Bond, 2000), we regard the two to beconceptually independent.

As expected, the mean ratings of influencestrategies indicate that the persuasive strategyreceived the highest overall ratings of effectivenessacross cultures. Surprisingly, the relationship-basedstrategy received the lowest rating, an issue to bediscussed later. The means of the three influencestrategies and four scales of social beliefs by countryare listed in Table 2.

Social beliefs and influence strategiesThe results of the individual level analyses arereported in Table 3. The t values indicate thesignificance of the relationship between socialbeliefs and the perceived effectiveness of influencestrategies at the individual level, and the w2 valuesin the last column indicate whether each indivi-dual-level relationship varies significantly acrossthe 12 different countries.

Our model predicted several connectionsbetween individuals’ social beliefs and their per-ceived effectiveness of influence strategies. Specifi-cally, Hypotheses 1a and b predicted a positiverelationship between social cynicism and endorse-ment of the assertive and relationship-based strate-gies. The significant coefficients in Table 3(b¼0.085and 0.108, respectively, Po0.01) indicatethat both Hypotheses 1a and b were supported.Similarly, belief in reward for application is posi-tively related to endorsement of the persuasivestrategy (b¼0.194, Po0.001), supporting Hypoth-esis 2. Religiosity is also positively related to

endorsement of the relationship-based strategy(b¼0.043, Po0.01), supporting Hypothesis 3b.Surprisingly, religiosity is not related to the per-ceived effectiveness of the persuasive strategy aspredicted in Hypothesis 3a (b¼0.010, P40.05), butis positively related to the assertive strategy. Finally,belief in fate control has significant individual-leveleffects on endorsements of the assertive strategy(b¼0.075, Po0.05) in support of Hypothesis 4a, butHypothesis 4b was not supported (b¼�0.017,P40.05). As stated in the methods section, whenwe ran the factor analysis on the social beliefs scale,the items that were supposed to load on socialcomplexity were scattered among the other factors,with loadings below 0.40. Therefore, we eliminatedthose items from further analyses and were unableto test Hypothesis 5, which concerned the effects ofsocial complexity.

National cultural values and influence strategiesNext, we tested whether the effects of nationalcultural values on the perceived effectiveness ofinfluence strategies varied across countries. Thisinvolved two components. We first considered theextent to which the mean effectiveness ratingsvaried as a function of culture. We then assessed theextent to which the relationship between socialbeliefs and each influence strategy varied acrosscultures.

The w2 values for the three intercepts in Table 3were all statistically significant, indicating that theperceived effectiveness of the three types of influ-ence strategy differed significantly from country tocountry. To examine how these cross-nationaldifferences in influence strategies were specificallyrelated to national cultural values, we included thethree culture-level variables (uncertainty avoidance,

Table 1 Means, s.d., and correlations among variables at the individual level (N¼1764)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Relationship based

2 Persuasive 0.09**

3 Assertive 0.52** 0.27**

4 Social cynicism 0.23** �0.10** 0.20**

5 Reward for application 0.06* 0.25** 0.01 �0.02

6 Fate control 0.19** �0.09** 0.17** 0.19** �0.03

7 Religiosity 0.15** 0.06* 0.07** 0.14** 0.23** 0.16**

Mean 1.90 3.37 2.17 3.23 3.97 2.64 3.19

s.d. 0.48 0.56 0.53 0.77 0.65 0.76 0.87

*Correlation significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).**Correlation significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).


293


in-group collectivism, and future orientation) inthe full model, and ran the analyses using the grandcentering scheme. Table 4 reports the results fromthe second-level analyses (organized by type ofinfluence strategy). According to the R2 changesobserved, the inclusion of the three culturaldimensions in the full model accounted for 40%of the variance in the country mean scores for therated effectiveness of the persuasive strategy, 37%for the relationship-based strategy, and 21% for theassertive strategy (see Table 4). The followingparagraph discusses the ability of the culturaldimensions to explain the significant cross-culturalvariations.

Hypotheses 6–9 predicted specific connectionsbetween national cultural values and the perceivedeffectiveness of influence strategies. According toHypotheses 6a–c, managers in higher uncertaintyavoidance cultures would be more likely to rate therelationship-based and assertive strategies as effec-tive and the persuasive strategy as ineffectivecompared with those in lower uncertainty avoid-ance cultures. The results in Table 4 indicate thatHypotheses 6a and c were supported. Managersfrom countries high on uncertainty avoidance gavehigher ratings to items constituting the relation-ship-based strategy and lower ratings to the persua-sive influence strategy. This can be seen in Table 4:uncertainty avoidance was found to be significantlyrelated to the mean ratings of relationship-basedand persuasive influence strategies (G¼0.138 and�0.238, respectively, Po0.05). Hypothesis 6b, how-ever, was not supported because uncertainty avoid-ance did not influence ratings of the assertivestrategy (G¼0.051, P40.05). Hypothesis 7 was alsosupported: managers in collectivistic cultures ratedthe relationship-based influence strategy as moreeffective (G¼0.071, Po0.05). Finally, Hypotheses 8aand b predicted that managers in future-orientedcultures would be more likely to rate the relation-ship-based strategy as effective and the assertivestrategy as ineffective: the coefficients in Table 4indicate that these hypotheses were not supported(G¼�0.111 and �0.044, respectively, P40.05).

Interactions between cultural values and socialbeliefsCynicism and religiosity predicted ratings of influ-ence strategies in a consistent manner across allcultures, as indicated by the non-significant w2

values in the last column of Table 3. In contrast, thesignificant w2 values for fate control and reward forapplication suggest that the effect of these beliefsT

ab

le2

Mean

sof

influen

cest

rate

gie

san

dso

cialb

elie

fsb

yco

un

trie

s

Chin

aFr

ance

Hong

Kong

India

Japan

Mex

ico

Net

her

lands

New

Zea

land

Taiw

an

Thaila

nd

Turk

eyU

nit

edSta

tes

of

Am

eric

a

N156

184

109

184

118

181

155

187

129

152

106

103

Ass

ert

ive

2.0

7(0

.44)

2.4

3(0

.57)

2.2

8(0

.54)

2.2

6(0

.58)

2.3

4(0

.48)

2.0

7(0

.52)

2.0

5(0

.47)

1.7

9(0

.31)

2.2

4(0

.51)

2.3

4(0

.5)

2.0

3(0

.52)

2.1

9(0

.57)

Pers

uasi

ve2.8

2(0

.5)

3.6

6(0

.47)

3.1

7(0

.45)

3.5

6(0

.49)

3.4

7(0

.47)

3.1

8(0

.77)

3.4

2(0

.43)

3.4

9(0

.3)

3.1

5(0

.52)

3.4

2(0

.49)

3.6

7(0

.51)

3.4

7(0

.53)

Rela

tion

ship

base

d2.0

4(0

.47)

1.8

6(0

.45)

1.9

2(0

.44)

2(0

.55)

1.6

5(0

.47)

1.9

5(0

.48)

1.7

4(0

.4)

1.7

7(0

.3)

2.1

1(0

.5)

1.9

7(0

.54)

1.8

4(0

.43)

2.0

2(0

.57)

Soci

alcy

nic

ism

3.2

8(0

.61)

3.3

6(0

.77)

3.5

(0.5

3)

3.4

1(0

.74)

3.0

1(0

.62)

3.4

6(0

.74)

2.8

2(0

.64)

2.6

4(0

.81)

3.5

1(0

.62)

3.7

4(0

.6)

2.9

5(0

.81)

3.1

(0.7

7)

Rew

ard

for

ap

plic

ati

on

3.8

1(0

.66)

3.8

9(0

.68)

3.7

1(0

.65)

4.4

2(0

.49)

3.7

7(0

.63)

4.1

8(0

.61)

3.7

9(0

.6)

3.7

9(0

.51)

3.7

4(0

.65)

4.2

3(0

.51)

4.2

(0.6

7)

3.9

5(0

.72)

Fate

con

trol

2.7

6(0

.66)

2.5

1(0

.72)

2.7

(0.7

5)

2.6

8(0

.74)

2.7

5(0

.59)

2.2

9(0

.94)

2.6

5(0

.6)

2.1

6(0

.62)

3.3

9(0

.57)

2.8

9(0

.76)

2.7

4(0

.62)

2.5

5(0

.7)

Relig

iosi

ty2.5

9(0

.67)

2.6

9(0

.94)

3.1

9(0

.78)

3.8

3(0

.81)

2.8

(0.6

7)

3.6

4(0

.84)

2.8

2(0

.78)

2.9

5(0

.7)

3.4

6(0

.52)

3.5

5(0

.57)

3.2

9(0

.93)

3.6

3(0

.78)

s.d

.w

ith

inp

are

nth

esi

s


294


on influence strategies varied significantly acrossthe 12 countries. For example, belief in reward forapplication was not significantly related to endorse-ment of relationship-based strategies at the indivi-dual level, but the same relationship wassignificantly different at the societal level. In asimilar manner, the effect of belief in fate control onpersuasive strategies was non-significant at theindividual level, but varied significantly acrosscultures. Finally, belief in fate control had signifi-cant individual-level effects on endorsements ofassertive and relationship-based strategies, and bothrelationships varied significantly across cultures.

To examine the cultural moderating effect, we didfollow-up analyses where social belief significantlyaffects the perceived effectiveness of the influencestrategy, as indicated by the w2 value (see Table 4).The results in Table 4 show that, together, the threecultural dimensions accounted for 51% of thevariance in the relationship between beliefs in fatecontrol and the assertive strategy, and 48% of thevariance in the relationship between fate controland the relationship-based strategy, reducing thesignificant w2 values in the random model to non-significance in the full model (from w(11)

2 ¼29.53,Po0.001 to w(8)

2 ¼14.73, n.s., and from w(11)2 ¼24.93,

Po0.001 to w(8)2 ¼12.29, n.s., respectively: see Tables

3 and 4). In other words, in societies that are future-oriented, and high on in-group collectivism and

uncertainty avoidance, people believing in fatecontrol are more likely to use assertive and relation-ship-based influence strategies.

None of the three cultural dimensions had astatistically significant moderating effect on therelationship between belief in reward for applica-tion and the persuasive strategy. However, together,the inclusion of the three dimensions in the modelexplained an amount of variance sufficient toreduce the unexplained variance due to culturaldifferences at the individual level to non-significantlevels at the cultural level (w(11)

2 ¼23.58, Po0.05 inthe random model, becoming w(8)

2 ¼11.06, NS in thefull model).

DiscussionThere is a long-standing debate between the uni-versalists and the culturalists in the cross-culturalresearch community with regard to whether socialphenomena in different contexts are becomingsimilar (convergence) or dissimilar (divergence)(e.g., Hofstede, 2001). This study examines therelationship among three types of phenomenon:perceived effectiveness of influence strategies, indi-viduals’ social beliefs, and cultural values withrespondents from 12 cultures. Our findings suggestthat the perceived effectiveness of influence strate-gies can be affected by both micro-level variables(individual social beliefs) and macro-level variables

Table 3 Relationships between social beliefs and influence strategies

Influence strategies Coefficient s.e. t-value Variance w2 (d.f.¼11)

Persuasive

Intercept 3.372 0.069 48.94*** 0.0605 444.06***

Social cynicism �0.027 0.017 �1.55 0.0012 13.51

Reward for application 0.194 0.026 7.46*** 0.0055 23.58*

Fate control �0.017 0.022 �0.79 0.0035 25.58**

Religiosity 0.010 0.019 0.51 0.0028 16.91

Assertive

Intercept 2.174 0.049 44.19*** 0.0300 239.47***

Social cynicism 0.085 0.022 3.94** 0.0031 16.95

Reward for application �0.003 0.020 �0.13 0.0024 13.22

Fate control 0.075 0.029 2.56* 0.0077 29.53**

Religiosity 0.030 0.014 2.21* 0.0002 9.32

Relationship based

Intercept 1.905 0.038 50.46*** 0.0172 142.37***

Social cynicism 0.108 0.018 5.87*** 0.0023 14.22

Reward for application 0.026 0.031 0.85 0.0093 33.94***

Fate control 0.095 0.025 3.81** 0.0061 24.93**

Religiosity 0.043 0.013 3.36** 0.0005 7.02

*Po0.05; **Po0.01; ***Po0.001.


295


(national cultural values). A summary of the resultsis presented in Table 5. We did identify a strongpan-cultural relationship between managers’ indi-vidual social beliefs and their perception of theeffectiveness of different types of influence strategy.In addition, without aiming to identify culturalspecifics, this study explicitly recognized both thedirect and moderating effects of cultural values onthe respondents’ perceptions of the effectiveness ofinfluence strategies. Culture mattered even whenuniversal patterns were found, because differencesbetween groups did exist. Our findings support thecross-vergence perspective (Ralston et al., 1997),

and indicate that the influence processes appear tobe relatively similar across cultures but not thesame.

Social beliefs and influence strategiesOur hypotheses predicted specific connectionsbetween individuals’ social beliefs and choice ofinfluence strategies. In support of our hypotheses,endorsement of social cynicism was connected tohigher-rated effectiveness of the assertive strategy.Similarly, cynicism was linked to the relationship-based strategy, suggesting that managers holdingmore cynical beliefs prefer both strategies more, as

Table 4 Effect of cultural variables on influence strategy ratings, and on the relationships between social beliefs and influence strategies

Effect of cultural variables Coeff. s.e. t-ratio Variance R2 change w2 (d.f.¼8)

For persuasive influence

On mean persuasive influence 0.0361 40.3 213.19***

Future orientation 0.286 0.145 1.98

In-group collectivism 0.037 0.067 0.56

Uncertainty avoidance �0.238 0.093 2.57*

On relationship with reward for application 0.0026 — 11.06



Uncertainty avoidance �0.008 0.038 �0.20

On relationship with fate control 0.0044 — 20.85**

Future orientation �0.071 0.066 1.08

In-group collectivism �0.032 0.029 1.10

Uncertainty avoidance 0.023 0.044 0.52

For assertive influence

On mean assertive influence 0.0236 21.3 134.61***

Future orientation �0.044 0.106 �0.41

In-group collectivism 0.121 0.023 5.24***


On relationship with fate control 0.0038 50.6 14.73

Future orientation 0.104 0.022 4.75**

In-group collectivism 0.035 0.009 4.04**

Uncertainty avoidance �0.124 0.021 5.93***

For relation-based influence

On mean relation-based influence 0.0108 37.2 77.36***

Future orientation �0.111 0.065 1.73

In-group collectivism 0.071 0.027 2.61*

Uncertainty avoidance 0.138 0.042 3.26*

On relationship with reward for application 0.0091 — 25.02**

Future orientation �0.058 0.087 �0.67

In-group collectivism �0.015 0.041 �0.36


On relationship with fate control 0.0032 47.5 12.29



Uncertainty avoidance �0.097 0.040 2.43*

***Po0.001; **Po0.01; *Po0.05.R2 change: the percentage of variance reduced by adding predictors in the full model over random model.


296


they distrust rational appeals and believe thatothers act out of self-interest.

Our results also suggest that effectiveness ratingof the persuasive strategy is best predicted by beliefsin reward for application. That is to say, managersbelieving that effort will lead to positive resultsrated persuasive strategies as more likely to beeffective. Such managers are therefore more likelyto consult with the target in planning a change oractivity, and marshal logical arguments and factualevidence to show the relevance of the request toorganizational objectives. This reasoned approachis consistent with their belief that just procedureswork best.

One unexpected finding was the link betweenbelief in religiosity and higher ratings for assertiveinfluence tactics. Previous research has shown thata higher level of religiosity is associated with agreater acceptance of restrictions in the civic andpolitical realm (Keung and Bond, 2002). Perhapsthe connection between religiosity and the higher-rated effectiveness of assertive strategies may occurbecause of the higher conservatism of spiritualpersons and their greater acceptance of authorita-

tive social control. Another unexpected finding wasthe relationship between beliefs in fate control andhigher ratings for relationship-based strategies,perhaps because such individuals may believe thatevents are predetermined and they cannot influ-ence outcomes through rational persuasion orother tactics relying on internal choice by indivi-duals.

National cultural values and influence strategiesSimilar to previous research (Kennedy et al., 2003;van Knippenberg and van Knippenberg, 2003), thepersuasive strategy received the highest ratings ofeffectiveness in absolute mean terms. An interest-ing finding, however, was that the relationship-based strategy was rated the lowest; perhaps tacticssuch as giving gifts, socializing, and makingpersonal appeals are not effective because suchbehavior could be perceived as outside the role ofthe manager, and may even be considered inap-propriate in certain situations and in many culturalgroups. The cross-cultural variations identified inthis study occur within this general framework ofthe higher effectiveness of the persuasive strategy

Table 5 Summarized results of hypothesis testing and exploratory analyses

Strategies Direction predicted Result

Results of hypothesis testing

H1 Social cynicism (a) Assertive + Supported

(b) Relationship-based + Supported

H2 Reward for application (a) Persuasive + Supported

H3 Religiosity (a) Persuasive + Not supported

(b) Relationship-based + Supported

H4 Fate control (a) Assertive + Supported

(b) Persuasive � Not supported

H5 Social complexity (a) Assertive Not tested

(b) Persuasive Not tested

(c) Relationship-based Not tested

Cultural values

H6 Uncertainty avoidance (a) Relationship-based + Supported

(b) Assertive + Not supported

(c) Persuasive � Supported

H7 In-group collectivism (a) Relationship-based + Supported

H8 Future orientation (a) Relationship-based + Not supported

(b)Assertive � Not supported

Cultural values Moderating effect on Direction of effect

Results of exploratory analyses

Future orientation Fate control-Assertive +

In-group collectivism Fate control-Assertive +

Fate control-Assertive �Uncertainty avoidance Fate control-Relationship-based �


297


and the lower effectiveness of the relationship-based strategy. Thus, although managers from highuncertainty avoidance cultures gave lower ratingsto persuasive strategies than those from lowuncertainty avoidance cultures, they still perceivedthe persuasive influence strategy to be moreeffective than the relationship-based strategy.

As hypothesized, people in high uncertaintyavoidance cultures were least likely to perceive thepersuasive strategy as effective. In such cultures, theroles and responsibilities of the target as well as ofthe agent are subject to considerable structure.Rules and instructions provide for high levels oforderliness, often at the cost of experimentationand innovation. Such structures make it easier forthe influence target to determine whether therequest is legitimate, consistent with role require-ments, and in support of organizational objectives,thereby undermining the potential role of rationalpersuasion, one component of the persuasivestrategy.

Interestingly, people in high uncertainty avoid-ance cultures endorsed the relationship-orientedstrategy rather than the assertive strategy. That is tosay, in cultures high on uncertainty avoidance,managers gave higher effectiveness ratings to therelationship-based strategy than did managers fromlower uncertainty avoidance cultures. It appearsthat, given the clarity of the task requirements,managers in high uncertainty avoidance countriesare more willing to rely on the use of informalrapport-building, gift-giving, and exchange in orderto shape the task priorities of the influence target,because these relationship-based tactics offer themmore assurance and comfort. Connecting this lineof reasoning to the research on substitutes forleadership (Kerr and Jermier, 1978), we can arguethat the presence of greater structure acts as asubstitute (or even a neutralizer) for instrumentalleadership, resulting in a greater focus on relation-ship-oriented leadership.

Similar to House et al’s (1999) finding thatcollectivism measured at both the societal andorganizational level accounted for significant varia-tion in the endorsement of team-oriented leader-ship, managers from cultures high on in-groupcollectivism gave higher effectiveness ratings to therelationship-based strategy than their counterpartsfrom cultures low on in-group collectivism. Unex-pectedly, collectivism was also linked to theassertive strategy. The components of the assertivestrategy are inimical to effective team cohesion(e.g., use of demands, threats, persistent reminders,

or appeals to higher authorities), and hence shouldbe perceived as less effective by managers socializedby collective family traditions. However, culturalcollectivism is also associated with greater hierar-chy in interpersonal relationships, and assertion isless sanctioned in hierarchical systems (Bond et al.,1985). There are fewer normative constraintsagainst using coercive controls in such systems.

Interactions between social beliefs and nationalcultural valuesWe also examined the interactions between culturalvalues and social beliefs in terms of their effect onthe perceived effectiveness of the three types ofinfluence strategy. Two of the social beliefs – socialcynicism and religiosity – predicted the perceivedeffectiveness of influence strategies in a consistentmanner across cultures. This finding lends supportto the potential use of such individual beliefs, inpreference to existing cultural value schemas, as amore fine-grained means for predicting andexplaining observed differences in individual beha-vior across different cultural groupings. In contrast,the strength of the effect of reward for applicationon the assertive and relationship-based influencestrategies varied significantly across cultures.

As discussed above, mean ratings of tactics withinthe relationship-based strategy were higher formanagers from cultures high on uncertainty avoid-ance. We argue that the existence of high levels ofvalue structures in such societies reduced theperceived freedom of individual agents to influencethe nature of the influence attempt (e.g., throughconsultation). At the individual level, beliefs in fatecontrol may act in a similar manner. Managers fromcultures low on uncertainty avoidance (who mayhave more freedom in their influence attempts)may also adopt relationship-based strategies to theextent that they believe in fate control, that is, thatevents are predetermined, that individual agency islimited, and that people cannot influence out-comes using tactics such as rational persuasion,consultation, or collaboration.

Although we did not hypothesize any moderatingeffects, our exploratory examination showed thatfuture orientation and in-group collectivismstrengthen the relationship between beliefs in fatecontrol and perceived effectiveness of assertivestrategies, whereas uncertainty avoidance weakensit. As mentioned earlier, in long-term relationship-oriented cultures, managers believing in fate con-trol are more likely to use assertive strategiesbecause they would trust a third person or higher


298


authority to influence the target rather thanthemselves since, believing in fate, they are lesslikely to think that their individual actions candirectly influence the target, that is, by persuasion.The interactional effect of high future orientationmay be due to the concept of delayed gratification.Managers who believe in fate control in the contextof a future-oriented society may assert their influ-ence more autocratically because rewards will comein the future; by contrast, in societies low on futureorientation, managers may place more emphasis onthe process of ensuring individual happiness andinvolvement now, rather than later.

It is interesting to see that managers endorsingfate control in a society high on uncertaintyavoidance are less likely to perceive the relation-ship-based strategy as being effective. This resultshows that, when individuals do not have a highsense of security, those believing in fate controlwould tend to rely more on fate rather than rely onthe relationship they have with the target whentrying to influence the target.

Limitations and implications for future researchUnlike most previous studies on influence tactics,our study included cultures from all four continentsand used a comprehensive set of influence tactics.Our scenario-based approach enabled us to controlthe effect of some of the external variables, such asthe direction and nature of the request, and thegender of the target. The consistent factor loadingsof the belief and influence items across the 12cultural groups showed that we were able toidentify conceptually similar constructs with prob-able universal status. Also, we brought into theanalyses measures of cultural values, and used HLMto examine statistically the effect of these values onthe relationship between social beliefs and per-ceived effectiveness of influence strategies.

However, the study is not free from limitations.Our model was based on the theory of reasonedaction and the theory of planned behavior. Thesetheories suggest that attitudes are more likely to becongruent with behavioral intentions to the extentthat beliefs salient at the time of attitude assess-ment are also salient when plans are formulatedand executed. Equivalence of salient beliefs is morelikely under the controlled or reasoned mode ofbehavior, which occurs when people are suffi-ciently motivated and have the required time andresources; it is less likely under the automatic orspontaneous mode, in which people are moresusceptible to situational forces that can differ from

occurrence to occurrence. Although Greenwald andBanaji (1995) argued that beliefs and attitudes canguide behavior without conscious awareness of anykind, it is possible that our model connecting socialbeliefs and influence behavior may be more likelyto occur under the controlled or reasoned mode ofbehavior, an issue that needs to be investigated infuture research. Moreover, the theory is mostpredictive when the behavior is under the actor’svolitional control. In the scenarios, the fictitiousactor (e.g., marketing manager) may not haveavailable the necessary resources (e.g., power, skills,and support from a third party) to decide at will toperform or not to perform a certain tactic regardlessof how effective the tactic is perceived to be.

The scenarios measure only a respondent’s per-ceptions about tactic effectiveness, not their actualuse of tactics. Although empirical studies haveshown that, under certain circumstances, attitudescan be used to predict behavior (see Jaccard, 1981),the nature of this relationship needs furtherresearch. One particularly interesting avenue wouldbe to investigate situations where managers mayneed to make a trade-off between expected effec-tiveness and the acceptability of a tactic within aculture. Such speculation raises further considera-tions regarding the criteria used to determine‘effectiveness’ in different cultures. In our ques-tionnaire, the effectiveness rating was based on thelikelihood of the target carrying out the requestedaction. Although this is an important part of‘effectiveness’, other components (such as main-tenance or enhancement of the relationshipbetween influencer and target) are likely to varyin importance across cultures. Research into cross-cultural variations in the criteria for successfulinfluence is likely to provide important insightsinto the selection and use of different influencetactics.

Our finding of a consistent across-cultures rela-tionship between ratings of influence strategyeffectiveness and two social beliefs (social cynicismand religiosity) is interesting, and warrants furtherresearch. Investigation in other behavioral areas(e.g., negotiation, leadership, or team processes)will help clarify the extent to which these socialbeliefs act consistently across diverse cultures.Exploration of the reasons why relationships invol-ving these two beliefs are not moderated by culturewill provide further insights into the interplaybetween individual and cultural constructs.

Collapsing multiple influence tactics into threebroad strategies created parsimony, which made the


299


analyses manageable and served the purposes ofour research, but at the cost of reduced richness ofthe information. Trade-offs between generaliza-bilty, accuracy, and simplicity are hard to balance(Weick, 1979). The level of correlation we identifiedbetween the relationship and assertiveness strate-gies also indicates the need to further improvemeasurement of these constructs. Two tactics(ingratiation, coalition formation) that have beenprominent in past research had to be excluded fromthe influence strategies because they did not fit intothe culturally comparable framework determinedby the factor analysis. A more fine-grained study ofspecific tactics would assist in applications such asexecutive training. For example, the persuasivestrategy demonstrated the greatest variability acrossthe 12 cultures, and further research could profit-ably focus on cross-cultural variation in the indivi-dual tactics constituting this strategy (rationalpersuasion, inspirational appeal, and consultation).

Despite the fact that phenomena in and aroundorganizations occur inherently at multiple levels,organizational scientists often risk biases of mis-specification. A methodological fallacy occurswhen data available from one level are applied toanother level without being statistically accommo-dated. An ecological fallacy is committed when, forexample, group (e.g., society) level data are disag-gregated to form variables at the individual leveland investigations are made at this lower level,whereas a reverse ecological fallacy is committedwhen data at the individual level are aggregated toconstruct group indices for higher-level analysis(e.g., Hofstede et al., 1993; Hofstede, 2001). Wetried to avoid these fallacies through our statisticaltechniques, which allowed us to conduct bothindividual-level analyses and the second-level ana-lyses that included cultural values. Thus we wereable to examine how the relationship betweenindividual-level social beliefs and preferences forinfluence strategies within each culture vary acrosscultures as a result of differences in country-leveldimensions of cultural values.

As we collected data from 12 different countries,the issue of demographic differences across thesamples arises. A recent study has highlighted therole of personality in choice of influence tactics(Cable and Judge, 2003), and other personal anddemographic differences may affect influence beha-vior. We were interested in focusing on theinfluence of only one macro-level factor – nationalcultural values – but note that our samples were notall equivalent on key demographic variables (e.g.,

gender, education). Although our findings arerobust in the face of these differences, futureresearch could usefully explore the extent to whichsuch variables influence both social beliefs andpreferences for choice of influence strategy acrosscultures.

In order to avoid potential common methodvariance problems, we chose to use the GLOBE(House et al., 1999) values for cultural variables.These measures came from different samples,collected some years prior to our study. The abilityof these values to explain cross-cultural variation ininfluence strategies is therefore a demanding test.In the House study, culture variables measured atthe organizational level were found to explain morevariance (in preferred leader behaviors) than socie-tal cultural variables. In our study we used onlysocietal-level measures of culture, and their abilityto explain variance both in mean ratings ofstrategies, and in the relationship between indivi-dual beliefs and strategy ratings, is particularlyimpressive.

In the interests of parsimony, we used previousresearch to select three cultural dimensions toinclude in our model. The three cultural variableswe selected, however, did not explain all of thecultural differences in our data. Adoption of themore fine-grained study of tactics recommendedearlier could be combined with identification ofadditional cultural measures relevant to the choiceof influence tactic. For example, a case couldpotentially be made for the inclusion of othercultural values such as power distance. We chosenot to include this cultural dimension in our study,however, for two reasons. First, previous researchers(e.g., Kennedy et al., 2003) have concluded that in-group collectivism can account for more uniquevariation, as well as capture much of the varianceexplained by power distance. Hence we includedonly in-group collectivism, and not power distance,in our study. In addition, we believe that powerdistance may be more useful in distinguishing theuse of influence strategies across targets withincultures. For example, people in high powerdifference cultures may be more likely to useassertive strategies when influencing subordinates,but may use other strategies when influencingsuperiors. In contrast, people in low power distancecultures may not vary their use of influencestrategies by position of the target. As we were notexamining the connection between influence stra-tegies and target position, we did not include powerdistance in our model. We included only cultural


300


dimensions such as in-group collectivism, futureorientation, and uncertainty avoidance, which webelieved would affect tactics irrespective of thehierarchical position of the target. We recommend,however, that future researchers extend this studyby including power distance and varying theposition of the target of the influence strategy.Extension of the sample to include more countries,with greater representation from all cultural clus-ters, would also facilitate the identification of theeffects of more cultural variables. Such research willenable us to develop an even better understandingof the way in which individual managers’ beliefsand their cultural contexts interact in order todetermine the effectiveness of influence tactics inthe workplace.

Several other lines of research can be developedfrom our model. Although we do not focus on thelong-term impact of influence strategies, the effec-tiveness of an influence attempt will be determinednot by one interaction, but by the cumulative effectof having used numerous strategies and theirsequencing. Further research is needed to examinethe effect of different sequences of different types ofinfluence tactics across cultures.

Implications for organizationsThe findings of this study have several implicationsfor managers and organizations. Organizationalinteractions, especially intercultural ones, canresult in miscommunication and conflict. Thisconflict is often escalated, not only by differencesin cultural styles (or influence styles), but also bypeople’s ignorance of such differences. People tendto react negatively to behavior that appears todeviate from their own norms and standards, andaccurate perception is often impaired because ofpeople’s tendencies to interpret others’ behaviorfrom their own perspective. An understanding ofinfluence styles across cultures can be useful inorganizational leadership, team management, andnumerous other situations. For example, peoplewho believe in reward for application mightperceive assertive influence strategies as ‘pushy’and relationship-based strategies as inappropriatefor the workplace. The use of inappropriate stylesmight not only result in the influence attemptbeing ineffective, but might also backfire in theform of increased conflict.

Such conflict can be managed in organizations bytraining organizational leaders and managers to beaware of different perceptions of influence stylesacross cultures, and to recognize that their own

preferred styles might not be effective with allemployees. Managers and leaders who have a goodunderstanding of the various types of effectiveinfluence strategy as well as the conditions underwhich such strategies are effective are more likely tobe successful in their influence attempts. Therefore,it could be important for managers to have knowl-edge of the influence strategies that are effectiveacross cultures, as well as to understand thestrategies that are relevant to specific cultures.

Leadership training programs in organizations,especially training programs for managers on over-seas assignments, could ensure that the managersare knowledgeable about and skilled in the use ofmultiple influence strategies. It might be importantto keep in mind that the results of this study foundthe persuasive influence strategy to be the mosteffective and the relationship-based strategy to bethe least effective across cultures. Perhaps managersskilled in rational persuasion, inspirational appeal,and consultation are more likely to be effective atinfluencing others, in general, than managers whouse influence tactics such as making personalappeals, offering gifts, and socializing with thetarget.

Another interesting implication of our study isthat it suggests a move away from the traditionalcross-cultural training in leadership and negotia-tions toward training individuals to respond todifferent targets by focusing on differences in socialbeliefs rather than cultural differences in values.Managers and leaders who are knowledgeable aboutthe relationship between different social beliefs andinfluence strategies can be more effective in theirinfluence behavior. In addition, a clear under-standing of their own social beliefs could helpmanagers understand the reasons underlying theiruse of and comfort with specific influence strategies.

ConclusionAlthough a lot of research effort has been put intostudying determinants of influence tactics, this isthe first time that social beliefs have been includedas a determinant. One unique contribution of ourpaper is the finding that social beliefs are a usefulpan-cultural predictor of the effectiveness ratings ofinfluence strategies by managers in different cul-tures. The finding has significant implications forcross-cultural research on influence and leadership,in that it suggests a move away from macro-levelcultural variables and towards micro-level indivi-dual factors. In essence, social beliefs help usprovide a more fine-grained analysis of influence


301


strategies compared with previous research, andallow us to develop empirically grounded models ofindividual social behavior across cultures (Smithand Bond, 2003).

This study is also the first empirical test of therelationships between cultural values and perceivedeffectiveness of influence strategies. Prior studiesdiscussed the effect of cultural values on influencetactics but did not directly assess them. We not onlyillustrated the utility of cultural values in explain-ing significant variance in the rated effectiveness ofinfluence tactics across cultures but also showedthat cultural values can serve as moderators of theeffects of social beliefs on perception of influencestrategies in different cultures. What emerges is arich and complex picture of the nature of therelationship between cultural values, social beliefs,and influence strategies.

AcknowledgementsThis research project was made possible by fundingfrom the Research Grants Council of the Hong KongSAR (1999/2000 CUHK4050/99H). We would like toexpress their appreciation to the following individuals:to Professor Arie Y Lewin, JIBS Editor in Chief, andDanielle T Trojan, JIBS Managing Editor, for theirthoughtful directions and help during the reviewprocess; to three JIBS reviewers, for their detailedcomments and suggestions for improving the manu-script; and to Liu Jun for his help with the analyses ofthe data. A preliminary report of this project waspresented at the Academy of Management Confer-ence in Washington DC, August 2001.

Notes1Three influence strategies (persuasive, assertive,

and relationship based) were obtained by collapsing16 proactive influence tactics (see Sun and Bond,2000; Lee and Sweeney, 2001) in a pilot study to referto a higher level of generality than the specific tacticsfor the purpose of the study (see Methods section forthe details). Most of the 16 tactics were identified byprevious studies (e.g., Kipnis et al., 1980; Kipnis andSchmidt, 1982; Yukl and Tracey, 1992; Yukl et al.,1995; Fu and Yukl, 2000).

2The nine cultural dimensions developed by ProjectGLOBE are: (1) uncertainty avoidance, (2) powerdistance, (3) societal emphasis on collectivism, (4) in-group collectivism, (5) gender egalitarianism, (6)assertiveness, (7) future orientation, (8) performanceorientation, and (9) humane orientation.

3We decided to restrict our investigation to threecultural dimensions so as to increase the power of our

statistical analyses. We examined the existing literatureon influence behavior to ascertain which dimensions ofnational culture would have the strongest theoreticaland empirical support, and used our judgment toidentify those dimensions that we felt could be bestconnected to both influence strategies and socialbeliefs. A case could be made for including othervariables, and power distance is a leading example.Kennedy et al. (2003) identified the role of both powerdistance and in-group collectivism in distinguishingbetween patterns of influence tactics across countries,and concluded that in-group collectivism accountedfor more unique variance (as well as capturing much ofthe variance explained by power distance). We there-fore included in-group collectivism in preference topower distance. As stated in our Discussion section, werecommend that future researchers examine othercountries and expand our model to include additionalcultural dimensions.

4Countries were not all equivalent across demo-graphic variables such as age, gender, and education.However, there were no significant gender differenceson any of the social belief or influence strategyvariables. The largest correlation with a demographicvariable was between education and reward forapplication (r¼�0.14, Po0.001), but controlling foreducation did not affect the positive relationshipbetween reward for application and endorsement ofthe persuasive strategy (H2). Therefore, for the sake ofparsimony, we excluded demographic variables fromthe analyses reported in the results section.

5In our pilot study, coauthors in the 12 participatingcultures were asked to use the scenarios as exercises inMBA classes or executive leadership training programs,recording participants’ answers to the open-endedquestion: ‘What tactics would be effective in influen-cing the target person to y (influence purposetailored to the situation)?’ Responses relevant to thescenario were all listed together and sent to the firstauthor. There were several hundred tactics when thelists from several cultures were combined. Two of theauthors went through the lists and coded the items tomake sure that we had obtained a relatively compre-hensive set of tactics. No ‘unique’ tactic was encoun-tered, but a few of the responses prompt our decisionto include ‘socializing’ as a new tactic. Our final choiceof the 16 tactics thus combines an imposed-eticcomponent, using tactics previously identified in(predominately) American research, with an emiccomponent generated by researchers within eachcountry to yield a derived-etic measure.

6To check the effect of possible country-level responsebiases, we followed Triandis’ (1995) suggestion and


302


standardized responses to all items within individualsbefore composing the scales. We then used thestandardized scores to make up the influence strategyscales. The patterns of results for raw scores and the

standardized scores were very similar. Given theequivalence of results, and the greater ease ofinterpretation of raw score analysis, we report theanalyses based on raw scores.

ReferencesAjzen, I. (1991) ‘The theory of planned behavior’, Organizational

Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50: 179–211.Ajzen, I. (1996) ‘The Directive Influence of Attitudes on

Behavior’, in P.M. Gollwitzer and J.A. Bargh (eds.) ThePsychology of Action: Linking Motivation and Cognition toBehavior, Guilford Press: New York pp: 385–403.

Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. (1980) Understanding Attitudes andPredicting Social Behavior, Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Bond, M.H., Wan, W.C., Leung, K. and Giacalone, R. (1985)‘How are responses to verbal insult related to culturalcollectivism and power distance?’, Journal of Cross-CulturalPsychology 16: 111–127.

Brislin, R. (1970) ‘Back-translation for cross-cultural research’,Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 1: 185–216.

Bryk, A.S. and Raudenbush, S.W. (1992) Hierarchical LinearModels: Applications and Data Analysis Methods, Sage Publica-tions: Newbury Park, CA.

Cable, D.M. and Judge, T.A. (2003) ‘Managers’ upwardinfluence tactic strategies: the role of manager personalityand supervisor leadership style’, Journal of OrganizationalBehavior 24(2): 197–214.

Fiske, S.T. and Taylor, S.E. (1998) Social Cognition, 3rd edn.McGraw-Hill: New York.

Fu, P.P. and Yukl, G. (2000) ‘Perceived effectiveness of influencetactics in the United States and China’, Leadership Quarterly11(2): 251–266.

Goldstein, H. (1996) ‘Consistent estimators for multilevelgeneralized linear models using an estimated bootstrap’,Multilevel Modeling Newsletter 8(1): 3–6.

Greenwald, A.G. and Banaji, M.R. (1995) ‘Implicit socialcognition: attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes’, Psychologi-cal Review 102: 4–27.

Hackman, J.R. (2003) ‘Learning more by crossing levels:evidence from airplanes, hospitals, and orchestras’, Journal ofOrganizational Behavior 24(8): 905–922.

Hayden, F.G. (1988) ‘Values, beliefs, and attitudes in a socio-technical setting’, Journal of Economic Issues 22(2): 415–427.

Hirokawa, G. and Miyahara, A. (1986) ‘A comparison ofinfluence strategies utilized by managers in American andJapanese organizations’, Communication Quarterly 34:250–265.

Hofstede, G. (1980) Culture’s Consequences: International Differ-ences in Work-related Values, Sage: Beverly Hills, CA.

Hofstede, G. (2001) Cultures’ Consequences: Comparing Values,Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations, Sage:Thousand Oaks, CA.

Hofstede, G., Bond, M.H. and Luk, C.L. (1993) ‘Individualperceptions of organizational cultures: a methodologicaltreatise on levels of analysis’, Organizational Studies 14(4):483–503.

House, R., Rousseau, D.M. and Thomas-Hunt, M. (1995) ‘TheMeso Paradigm: A Framework for the Integration of Micro andMacro Organizational Behavior’, in L.L. Cummings and B.M.Staw (eds.) Research in Organizational Behavior, JAI Press:Greenwich, CT pp: 71–114.

House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Ruiz-Quintanilla, S.A., Dorfman, P.W.,Javidan, M. and GLOBE associates (1999) ‘Cultural Influenceson Leadership and Organizations: Project GLOBE’, in W.H.Mobley, M.J. Gessner and V. Arnold (eds.) Advances in GlobalLeadership, Vol. 1 JAI Press: Stamford, CT pp: 71–114.

Jaccard, J. (1981) ‘Attitudes and behavior: implications ofattitude toward behavioral alternatives’, Journal of ExperimentalSocial Psychology 11: 286–307.

Kennedy, J.C., Fu, P.P. and Yukl, G. (2003) ‘Influence TacticsAcross Twelve Cultures’, in W.H. Mobley and P.W. Dorfman(eds.) Advances in Global Leadership, Vol. 3 JAI/Elsevier Science:Oxford pp: 127–147.

Kerr, S. and Jermier, J.M. (1978) ‘Substitutes for leadership: theirmeaning and measurement’, Organizational Behavior andHuman Performance 22(3): 375–403.

Keung, D.K.Y. and Bond, M.H. (2002) ‘Dimensions of politicalattitudes and their relations with beliefs and values in HongKong’, Journal of Psychology in Chinese Societies 3: 133–154.

Kipnis, D. and Schmidt, S.M. (1982) Profiles of OrganizationalInfluence Strategies, University Associates: San Diego, CA.

Kipnis, D., Schmidt, S.M. and Wilkinson, I. (1980) ‘Intra-organizational influence tactics: explorations in getting one’sway’, Journal of Applied Psychology 65: 440–452.

Klein, K.J. and Kozlowski, S.W.J. (2000) ‘A Multilevel Approachto Theory and Research in Organizations: Contextual, Tem-poral and Emergent Processes’, in K.J. Klein and S.W.J.Kozlowski (eds.) Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods inOrganizations: Foundations, Extensions, and New Directions,Jossey-Bass: San Francisco pp: 3–90.

Lee, D.R. and Sweeney, P.J. (2001) ‘An assessment of influencetactics used by project managers’, Engineering ManagementJournal 13(2): 16–24.

Leung, K. and Bond, M.H. (2004) ‘Social axioms: a model forsocial beliefs in multi-cultural perspective’, Advances inExperimental Social Psychology 36, (in press).

Leung, K., Bond, M.H., de Carrasquel, S.R., Munoz, C.,Hernandez, M., Murakami, F., Yamaguchi, S., Bierbrauer, G.and Singelis, T.M. (2002) ‘Social axioms: the search foruniversal dimensions of general beliefs about how the worldfunctions’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 33(3): 286–302.

Leung, K., Bond, M.H. and Schwartz, S.H. (1995) ‘How toexplain cross-cultural differences: values, valences, and expec-tancies?’, Asian Journal of Psychology 1: 70–75.

McGregor, D. (1960) The Human Side of Enterprise, McGraw-Hill:New York, NY.

O’Reilly, C.A., Chatman, J. and Caldwell, D. (1991) ‘People andorganizational culture: a profile comparisons approach toassessing person–organization fit’, Academy of ManagementJournal 34(3): 487–516.

Offermann, L.R. and Hellmann, P.S. (1997) ‘Culture’s conse-quences for leadership behavior: national values in action’,Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 28(3): 342–351.

Ralston, D.A., Holt, D.H., Terpstra, R.H. and Yu, K.-C. (1997)‘The impact of national culture and economic ideology onmanagerial work values: a study of the United States, Russia,Japan, and China’, Journal of International Business Studies28(1): 177–207.

Ralston, D.A., Vollmer, G.R., Srinvasan, N., Nicholson, J.D.,Tang, M. and Wan, P. (2001) ‘Strategies of upward influence:a study of six cultures from Europe, Asia, and America’, Journalof Cross-Cultural Psychology 32(6): 728–735.

Rohner, R.P. (1984) ‘Toward a conception of culture for cross-cultural psychology’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 15(2):111–138.

Rousseau, D.M. and House, R.J. (1994) ‘Meso OrganizationalBehavior: Avoiding Three Fundamental Biases’, in C.L. Cooperand D.M. Rousseau (eds.) Trends in Organizational Behavior,Vol. 1 Wiley: New York pp: 13–30.

Sagie, A. and Elizur, D. (1996) ‘Work values: a theoreticaloverview and a model of their effects’, Journal of Organiza-tional Behavior 17: 503–514.


303


Schermerhorn Jr, J.R and Bond, M.H. (1991) ‘Upward anddownward influence tactics in managerial networks: acomparative study of Hong Kong Chinese and Americans’,Asia Pacific Journal of Management 8(2): 147–158.

Schmidt, S.M. and Yeh, R.-S. (1992) ‘The structure of leaderinfluence: a cross-national comparison’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 23: 251–262.

Sheppard, B.H., Hartwick, J. and Warshaw, P.R. (1988) ‘Thetheory of reasoned action: a meta-analysis of past research’,Journal of Consumer Research 15: 325–343.

Smith, P.B. and Bond, M.H. (2003) ‘Honoring Culture Scienti-fically when doing Social Psychology’, in M.A. Hogg and J.Cooper (eds.) Sage Handbook of Social Psychology, Sage:London pp: 43–61.

Smith, P.B. and Peterson, M. (1988) Leadership, Organizationsand Culture, Sage: Beverly Hills.

Sun, H. and Bond, M.H. (2000) ‘Interactant’s Personality andStatus as Determinants of Influencer’s Choice of Tactics’, in J.T.Li, A.S. Tsui and E. Weldon (eds.) Management andOrganizations in the Chinese Context, Macmillan: New Yorkpp: 283–302.

Ting-Toomey, S. (1988) ‘Intercultural Conflict Styles: A FaceNegotiation Theory’, in Y.Y. Kim and W.B. Gudykunst (eds.)Theories in Intercultural Communication, Newbury Park, CA:Sage pp: 213–235.

Triandis, H.C. (1995) ‘Cross-Cultural Industrial and Organiza-tional Psychology’, in H.C. Triandis, M.D. Dunnette and L.M.Hough (eds.) Handbook of Industrial and OrganizationalPsychology, 2nd edn, Vol. 4 Consulting Psychologists Press:Palo Alto, CA pp: 113–120.

Van Knippenberg, B. and van Knippenberg, D. (2003) ‘Leader-ship, Identity and Influence: Relational Concerns in the Use ofInfluence Tactics’, in: D. van Knippenberg and M. Hogg (eds.)Leadership, Identity and Power, London: Sage, 153–167.

Weick, K.E. (1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing, Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA.

Xin, K.R. and Tsui, A.S. (1996) ‘Different strokes for differentfolks? Influence tactics by Asian-American and Caucasian-American managers’, Leadership Quarterly 7(1): 109–132.

Yukl, G. (2002) Leadership in Organizations, 5th edn Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Yukl, G., Guinan, P.J. and Sottolano, D. (1995) ‘Influence tacticsused for different objectives with subordinates, peers, andsuperiors’, Group and Organization Management 20(3): 272–296.

Yukl, G. and Tracey, B. (1992) ‘Consequences of influencetactics used with subordinates, peers, and the boss’, Journal ofApplied Psychology 77: 525–535.

Zaidman, N. and Drory, A. (2001) ‘Upward impression manage-ment in the work place cross-cultural analysis’, InternationalJournal of Intercultural Relations 25(6): 671–689.

Appendix ASee Table A1.

Table A1 Demographic characteristics for participating countriesc

Countries Age Males Educationa Job typeb Industry Firm size Level (H/M/L)

China 35.8 75.2 2 1 1 2 26/63/11

(N¼156) 65.8 29.1 72.4 40.1

France 42.4 69.6 1 4 1 1 4/68/28

(N¼184) 35.2 21.4 35.9 44.3

Hong Kongc 34.4 58.1 2 4 1 1 26/55/19

(N¼109) 59.6 21.7 35.6 46.8

India 37.3 92.3 2 3 2 3 31/59/11

(N¼184) 51.1 27.5 44 62.9

Japan 42.3 99.1 2 4 1 (Missing) 40/48/13

(N¼118) 79.7 50 52.5

Mexico 35.9 65.6 2 1 2 1, 3 54/39/7

(N¼181) 69.6 26.5 55.2 41

Netherlands 42.7 88.8 3 1 4 2 6/46/48

(N¼155) 40.4 52.5 59.4 49

New Zealand 42.4 71.9 2 3 1 2 21/47/32

(N¼187) 51.9 29.1 61.3 38.6

Taiwan 39.6 81.4 2 3 1 3 30/44/25

(N¼129) 74.2 33.3 46.5 48.8

Thailand 35.8 58.7 2 2, 4 1 2 35/45/20

(N¼152) 48.3 17.5 42.5 44.4

Turkey 36.6 66.7 2 4 4 2 13/69/18

(N¼106) 52.4 26.9 58.5 52.5

United States 36.6 54.9 2 4 2 2 11/80/10

(N¼103) 81.4 34 56.3 46.7

aWith the exception of age (where the mean is reported), the statistic reported is the percentage for the most frequently noted response category,coded as follows: education – (1) post-graduate, (2) university or equivalent, (3) high school or equivalent, and (4) below high school.bJob type – (1) general administration, (2) finance, (3) production/manufacturing/operations management, and (4) sales management; industry – (1)manufacturing, (2) financial services, (3) telecommunications, and (4) other; firm size – (1) less than 100, (2) 100–1000, and (3) over 1000. Responseswhere more than one job type was endorsed have been excluded from the percentage calculation.cAlthough not a separate country, Hong Kong’s different developmental trajectory argues for its inclusion as a sample separate from China.


304


About the authorsPing Ping Fu is an assoiciate professor of Manage-ment at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Herresearch interests are mainly in leadership andcross-cultural comparisons. She coordinated forthe Global Leadership and Organizational Effec-tiveness (GLOBE) in China and is currently workingon relationships between personal values andexecutive leadership.

Jeff Kennedy is an I/O psychologist on the facultyof Nanyang Business School, Singapore. His pri-mary research interest is cross-cultural OB andHRM, including the study of expatriate effective-ness and leadership in cross-cultural contexts.

Jasmine Tata is associate professor of Managementat Loyola University Chicago. She has publishednumerous journal articles and book chapters onorganizational justice, teams, gender, and globalissues. Before commencing her academic career, shepracticed architecture and worked on severalproject teams.

Gary Yukl received a Ph.D. in Industrial-Organiza-tional Psychology from the University of Californiaat Berkeley in 1967. He has several books, manyarticles in professional journals, and has receivedfour best paper or best article awards for hisresearch. He is a fellow of SIOP, APS, and theAcademy of Management.

Michael Harris Bond has been practicing socialpsychology for the last three decades at the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong. Fascinated by culture, heis currently co-authoring a text with Peter Smithand Cigdem Kagitcibasi titled Social Psychology in aChanging World, examining the interface betweenculture and social behavior.

Tai-Kuang Peng is a professor of Management at I-Shou University, Taiwan. He obtained his Ph.D.from Texas Tech University. His research interestsinclude vertical harmony and conflict, groupjustice climate, and OCB. His papers published injournals including Journal of Organizational Beha-vior, Organizational Dynamics, and InternationalJournal of Cross-Cultural Management.

Ekkirala S Srinivas is a professor of OrganizationalBehavior at the Xavier Labour Relations Institute(XLRI), Jamshedpur, India. His areas of interest areleadership, cross-cultural issues, positive psychol-ogy, citizenship behavior, and work-life balance. He

is currently conducting research and training in theareas related to positive psychology and spirituality.

Jon P Howell is a professor of Management in theCollege of Business Administration and Economicsat New Mexico State University. He is currentlyworking on the second edition of a book, Under-standing Behaviors for Effective Leadership, publishedby Prentice-Hall and is a member of the GLOBEresearch team.

Leonel Prieto is a Research Assistant at New MexicoState University, USA.

Paul Koopman is a professor of Psychology at theVrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He isinterested and actively involved in cross-culturalresearch, in particular, in issues of HRM, leadership,and organizational culture (Department of Work andOrganizational Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amster-dam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam,The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]).

Selda Pasa is a faculty member at Bogazici Uni-versity at Instanbul in Turkey.

Marie-Francoise Lacassagne practices social psy-chology at Universite de Bourgogne in France. Sherecently obtained a chair in Faculty of sport Sciencesand leads a research group in Human Sciences (ISOS,Social Interactions and Sport Organizations).

Hiro Higashide is presently an associate professorat Waseda Business School, Waseda University,Tokyo, Japan, publishing articles in such journalsas Journal of Business Venturing. While beinginvolved in property development in Europeancountries, he received an MBA and Ph.D. inEntrepreneurship at Imperial College, London.

Jaap J Boonstra is a professor in OrganizationalChange and Development at the University ofAmsterdam, The Netherlands. He is Dean andScientific director in Sioo, inter-university centerfor organizational change and learning. He haspublished over a hundred articles and is on theeditorial board of several journals.

Adith Cheosakul has been teaching, researchingand consulting in the area of management and OBat the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Admin-istration of Chulalongkom University since 1992.Interested in the concept of codetermination, he iscurrently authoring a monograph encouragingcodetermination practice in Thailand.

Accepted by Arie Lewin, Editor in Chief, 6 April 2004. This paper has been with the author for one revision.


305


the impact of societal cultural values and individual ... · the impact of societal cultural values...

Documents