George, "soundbites of bigots", I like that almost as much as "nattering nabobs of negativism".
Concerning the generalisability of the GLOBE results from small samples, I believe that thoughtful, well-educated, experienced practitioners and academic researchers involved in intercultural communication are aware that the national results of the GLOBE project (which is not completed) are snapshots of a subset of the �national culture� (which is represented by a collection of means). Those who are not thoughtful, well-educated, and experienced may indulge in unwarranted stereotyping.
I haven't finished the House et al. 2004 GLOBE book yet, almost 900 pages of really interesting data, information, and interpretation, but House discusses the above problems at least once in the Preface, pp. xxiii-xxv.
In a personal communication a couple of years ago with Fu Ping Ping who collected the data in <st1:city><st1:place>
<st1:city><st1:place>Shanghai</st1:place></st1:city></st1:place></st1:city>
, she commented on the lack of generalisability from a sample from a single cultural area.
I facilitate a small project of self-supported voluntary collaborators working on a number of aspects of managerial leadership and values across nations. I have some empathy for the GLOBE project, as collecting large volumes of data is expensive, and countries such as <st1:country-region><st1:place>
<st1:country-region><st1:place>China</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
, <st1:country-region><st1:place>
<st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
, the <st1:country-region><st1:place>
<st1:country-region><st1:place>USA</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
, have so many cultural areas and ethnolinguistic fractionalisation that "understanding the culture" would be life-long projects themselves. When you do research in Sub-Saharan African countries it's even worse in terms of ethnolinguistic fractionalisation. See for example the working paper on differences in cultural areas in <st1:country-region><st1:place>
<st1:country-region><st1:place>China</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
at http://crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/WorkingPapers.html
<u1:p></u1:p>
Personally, I disagree with the GLOBE project�s �clustering� national cultures even more than I disagree with the concept of �national culture�. When I first read Fred Fielder�s work as a student in the 2nd half of the last Millennium I found the idea of a contingency explanation for leader and follower behaviour to be the most useful, and still do, with nationality, ethnicity, religion, language, organisation, etc. to be significant contingent variables.
In reading Neal Ashkanasy, Edwin Trevor-Roberts, and Jeffrey Kennedy�s interpretation of the GLOBE results from <st1:country-region><st1:place>
<st1:country-region style="font-family: arial;"><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region><st1:place>
<st1:country-region style="font-family: arial;"><st1:place>New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>
, I see a bit of forcing the data of those two national cultures into supporting the �charismatic� dimension as universal. The methods of analysis in that study indicate to me that the survey item composition of a �charismatic� factor in leadership across cultures is culturally contingent. Lmxlotus@AOL.COM wrote:
HI ROMIE
WHAT ABOUT YOUR DYSFUNCTIONAL STEREOTYPES THAT ARE ABUSED BY THE MASSES? IT IS BETTER TO UNDERSTAND THE REAL CULTURE THAN DEPEND ON SOUNDBITES OF BIGOTS I BELIEVE. OF COURSE, YOU MAY BELIEVE THE OPPOSITE
GEORGE
message
Hello George, statistical analysis processes provide numbers to which we assign cognitive meaning. Using means to describe cultures is stereotyping them, to me at least. That's why whomever invented medians, modes, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis measures and bar charts, radar diagrams, smallest space analysis diagrams, and distribution curves invented them. We're still developing depictions of data and printing journal articles as if we're in the 19th century. (Me too; I promise I'll do better.)
Regards,
Romie
Lmxlotus@AOL.COM wrote: Stereotyping is valuable; in our publications, an average (mean) is a stereotype; However, when I see a mean I don't conclude "Hmm, so that's how those New Zealanders behave." Stereotypes reflect
THE MEAN IS A MATH PARAMETER AND NOT A STEREOTYPE OF A CULTURE. STEROTYPES MAY BE PRESENTED AS MEANS OF A SMALL SAMPLE OF OUTSIDERS PERCEPTIONS. GLOBE IS A GREAT EXAMPLE: IT STEREOTYPES CHINA WITH 300 CHINESE
MANAGERS FROM ONE SITE IN CHINA. CHINA HAS OVER A HUNDRED DIFFERENT CULTURES AND ABOUT 1.3 BILLION PEOPLE. HOW USEFUL IS THAT?
GEORGE GRAEN
"Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An f�na� fi�in
Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
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