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Power Distance (power + distance)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Psychology	62%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	37%

Selected Abstracts

Preferences for changing power positions and power distances: a social value orientations approach

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2003
Matthijs Poppe
Participants were asked to put themselves in the position of one of three persons who differed in the amount of power they had in a small work unit. Subsequently, they could allocate points on a power scale to themselves and the two others, and thus, change the power positions and the power distances between the positions. The least powerful individuals had the strongest tendency to increase their power. They wanted to reduce the power distance to the person in the higher position more than the power distance to the person in the middle position. The most powerful wanted to increase the power distance to the person in the middle position but not the power distance to the least powerful. Most results were consistent with social comparison theory and contrary to power distance theory. Because the dependent measures were derived from the social value orientations model, the scope of this model has been expanded. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Otra Empanada en la Parilla: Examining the Role of Culture and Information Sharing in Chile and Australia

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1 2008
Stephen B. Salter
One of the biggest assets of a firm is its information base. Included in this information base is a knowledge of prior errors and failures. Extant research suggests that while the propensity to share "bad news" (i.e. a prior error) is dependent on the cost of sharing, the perceived value of that cost may be culturally dependent. One area of interest that has received substantial attention in the prior literature has been cross-cultural differences in negative information sharing in general, as well as the particular context in which the individual's superior is either present or absent during the information-sharing process. Our study examines the role of the two cultural values (individualism/collectivism and to a lesser extent power distance) in explaining national differences in information sharing. By focusing on a sample from Chile and Australia, we were able to remove the regional cultural dimension of face, which has been inherent in prior studies that used Greater China as the representative of a collectivist society. Results from our quasi experiment show that when a supervisor is present during information sharing, collectivist Chilean decision-makers are more willing to share negative information with their colleagues than their counterpart and individualist Australian decision-makers. Our results also show that when a supervisor is absent, both Australian and Chilean decision-makers are willing to share more negative information but the increase in the Australian propensity is significantly greater than that of the Chileans. [source]

Where intrinsic job satisfaction fails to work: national moderators of intrinsic motivation,

JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 2 2003
Xu Huang
This study sought for national characteristics that moderate the individual-level relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction. Data from two distinct questionnaire surveys administered to 107,292 employees in 49 countries was analyzed by employing multilevel modeling. Results showed that the link between intrinsic job characteristics and job satisfaction is stronger in richer countries, countries with better governmental social welfare programs, more individualistic countries, and smaller power distance countries. By contrast, extrinsic job characteristics are strongly and positively related to job satisfaction in all countries. In addition, we found that intrinsic job characteristics tend to produce motivating satisfaction in countries with good governmental social welfare programs irrespective of the degree of power distance, while they do not tend to work so in countries with poor governmental social welfare programs as well as a large power distance culture. Socio-economic and cultural approaches to explaining cross-national variation in work motivation are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Comparing Innovation Capability of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Examining the Effects of Organizational Culture and Empowerment

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010
Nigar Demircan Çakar
This study analyzes the impact of organizational culture and empowerment on innovation capability, and examines the peculiarities of these effects. The study's hypotheses are tested by applying both individual and firm-level analyses to survey data collected from 743 employees from 93 small and medium-sized firms located in Turkey. For medium-sized enterprises on both the individual and firm level of analysis, results suggest that collectivism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with empowerment, whereas power distance is negatively related to empowerment. Assertiveness focus has no relations with empowerment and innovation capability, yet among cultural dimensions, only uncertainty avoidance is related to innovation capability. For small-sized enterprises, findings suggest that both power distance and uncertainty avoidance are linked to both empowerment and innovation capability on the individual level, whereas two new paths between collectivism and innovation capability and between assertiveness focus and empowerment are found on the firm level. Also, empowerment is found to be positively related to innovation capability for both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on both the individual and firm level. In terms of managerial practice, our study helps clarify the key role played by cultural dimensions in the process of shaping an empowering and innovative work environment. Findings also reveal that managers should focus on participative managerial practices (e.g., empowerment) to promote innovation capability of SMEs. [source]

Organisational Justice and Citizenship Behaviors: A Study in the Portuguese Cultural Context

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2010
Arménio Rego
Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that justice and organisational citizenship behaviors (OCB), as well as the relationship between them, are not culture free. However, most studies have been carried out in parts of Asia and Northern Europe, and especially in the USA, shedding little understanding on the dynamics of justice and OCB in less-studied contexts. We show how four dimensions of organisational justice predict four dimensions of OCB in an under-studied context,Portugal, a feminine, collectivistic, high power distance and low performance-oriented culture,a profile that is antipodal to that of US culture. A sample of 269 employees reported their justice perceptions, their OCBs being described by supervisors. The findings suggest that: (a) employees are more sensitive to the interactional dimensions of justice than to the procedural and distributive ones; (b) among the interactional dimensions, the interpersonal one is more predictive of some OCB dimensions than the informational one. Des données théoriques et empiriques suggèrent que la justice et les comportements de citoyenneté organisationnelle (OCB), tout comme la relation entre eux, ne sont pas sans base culturelle. Toutefois, la plupart des études ont été menées dans certaines parties de l'Asie, de l'Europe du Nord, et plus particulièrement aux USA, ce qui restreint la compréhension des dynamiques de la justice et des OCB qui peuvent être appréhendés dans d'autres contextes. Nous montrons comment 4 dimensions de la justice organisationnelle prédisent 4 dimensions des OCB dans un contexte peu étudié,le Portugal, une culture féminine, orientée vers la collectivité, avec une forte distance au pouvoir et de faibles performances,, un profil aux antipodes de la culture américaine. Chacun des 269 employés de l'échantillon indique ses perceptions de la justice, ses OCB ont été décrits par ses supérieurs. Les résultats montrent que (a) les employés sont plus sensibles aux dimensions interactionnelles de la justice qu'à celles procédurales et distributives (b) parmi les dimensions interactionnelles, l'interpersonnelle est plus prédictive de certaines dimensions des OCB plutôt que l'informationnelle. [source]

Common Cultural Relationships in Corporate Governance across Developed and Emerging Financial Markets

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2008
Alex W.H. Chan
This study investigates the corporate governance (CG) practice of business organisations in 43 countries with developed and emerging financial markets from the perspective of cross-cultural psychology. We find significant relationships between CG practice and Hofstede's cultural dimensions, and discover that the cultural dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance significantly explain the development of CG practice. These two cultural dimensions fully capture the power of stock market history to explain the development of CG practice across developed and emerging financial markets, which indicates that cultural factors are more important than the length of stock market history in the development of CG. Cette étude se propose d'étudier, dans une perspective de psychologie inter-culturelle, la pratique de la gouvernance d'entreprise dans des organismes d'affaire de 43 pays différents dont les marchés financiers sont développés ou émergents. Nous trouvons une relation significative entre la pratique de la gouvernance d'entreprise et les dimensions culturelles de Hofstede. Nous montrons que les dimensions culturelles de distance du pouvoir et d'évitement de l'incertitude expliquent le développement de la pratique de la gouvernance d'entreprise. Ces deux dimensions culturelles déterminent totalement la puissance de l'histoire du marché boursier pour expliquer le développement de la pratique de la gouvernance d'entreprise sur des marchés financiers développés ou émergents. Les facteurs culturels ont donc plus de poids que la durée de l'histoire du marché boursier dans le développement de la pratique de la gouvernance d'entreprise. [source]