Methodology
“Cross-cultural research is tricky and difficult” (Triandis, 2004, p. xv), in part because measuring concepts such as culture and leadership is a complex and demanding process. “The logistics problems are harsh and trying” (Leung, Foreword, this volume, p. xiv). The GLOBE project took a multipronged approach to this issue, starting with the fundamentals such as defining the concepts and developing the measuring instruments for them, and deploying “diverse methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative, to enhance the robustness and richness of the findings” (Leung, Foreword, this volume, p. xv). This chapter describes first the methodology of the GLOBE project as a whole and then the country-general and country-specific methodology followed by the country chapter authors.
1. OVERALL METHODOLOGY OF GLOBE1
One of the major and unique strengths of GLOBE is the combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The quantitative methodology consisted of starting without any preexisting definitions of concepts. All definitions including those of culture and leadership were developed ab initio. All the instruments for measuring these concepts were also developed from first principles starting with item generation and item analysis (across the participating cultures, e.g., by collaborative development of dimensions and respective Q-sorting of items) followed by comprehensive and rigorous psychometric analyses to establish properties such as reliability, validity, and so forth. Generalizability of the instruments across various cultures and countries was ensured through two pilot studies. The quantitative data were collected through the administration of the standardized questionnaires to middle managers in at least two of three industries per country, food processing, financial services, and telecommunication services. The specification of middle managers and specific industries was done to ensure comparability of the data across countries. The data thus collected from all the participating 61 countries were analyzed through a variety of statistical techniques to test various hypotheses.
The qualitative methodology consisted of focus groups, in-depth ethnographic interviews, media analysis, participant observation, and unobtrusive measurement within each country. The findings of the focus groups and ethnographic interviews were used to ensure that various items and instruments were applicable in all the countries, and that the concepts and definitions developed were understandable, not culturally offensive, in and relevant to respondents in all the participating countries. Media analysis, participant observation, and unobtrusive measurement were done along with the data collection for Phase 2.
The following section describes the quantitative methodology of GLOBE as a whole, which is followed by the more specific quantitative and qualitative methodologies that are also used in the country chapters included in this book.
Quantitative Methodology for GLOBE
Phase 1 of GLOBE concerned the development and validation of the GLOBE questionnaire scales designed to measure societal and organizational culture variables as well as Culturally Endorsed Implicit Theories of Leadership (CLTs). The original item pool contained 753 items, of which 382 were leadership items and 371 were societal and organizational culture items. The initial scales were refined through several techniques, such as double-blind translation-back translation, item evaluation reports, Q-sorts, and were also tested in two pilot studies. The final GLOBE scales possess sound psychometric properties, and the findings indicate justification for the use of the scales as aggregate measures of cultural phenomena. All 54 GLOBE scales demonstrate significant and nontrivial within-culture response agreement, between-culture differences, and respectable reliability of response consistency. Generalizability coefficients, which are joint measures of these psychometric properties, exceed 0.85 for all the scales. These coefficients indicate that the scales can be meaningfully applied to measure culture differentiation in terms of societal, organizational, and leadership phenomena. Details of the analytic procedures and results are available in Hanges and Dickson (2004, in press).
Organizational and societal culture items were written for the nine core GLOBE dimensions, described in the previous chapter at both the societal and the organizational levels. Items were written to capture two culture manifestations: institutional practices reported “As Is” and values reported in terms of what “Should Be.” This schema is shown in Fig. 2.1.
Accordingly, items were written for all the nine dimensions of culture, as “quartets” having isomorphic structures across two units of analysis (societal and organizational) and across two manifestations of culture (“As Is” and “Should Be”), as shown in Fig. 2.1. Though the four items in a quartet are similar in terms of their structure, what is different is the frame of reference that the respondent is cued to use while responding to each item. The frame of reference is changed according to the particular manifestation of culture and the unit of analysis. An example of such a quartet is shown in Fig. 2.2, which contains essentially the same statement in the following four forms: Society “As Is,” Society “Should Be,” Organization “As Is,” and Organization “Should Be.” Items representing the nine dimensions of culture were derived from (a) a review of literature on societal and organizational culture, and (b) interviews and focus groups conducted in several of the participating countries. Appropriate psychometric analyses showed that grouping the items into nine scales each corresponding to one of the dimensions of culture was amply justified (Hanges & Dickson, 2004, in press).
Figure 2.1 GLOBE's multilevel approach to measuring culture
In generating leadership items, focus was on developing a comprehensive list of leader attributes and behaviors rather than on developing a priori leadership scales. The initial pool of leadership items was based on leader behaviors and attributes described in several extant leadership theories. The theories are described in House and Aditya (1997) and in House et al. (2004). These leadership items consisted of behavioral and attribute descriptors. Items were rated on a 7-point scale that ranged from a low of “This behavior or characteristic greatly inhibits a person from being an outstanding leader” to a high of “This behavior or characteristic contributes greatly to a person being an outstanding leader.”
Country Co-Investigators (CCIs) made significant contributions in the development of the quantitative methodology. Starting with Q-sorting of the items, they provided Item Evaluation Reports, in which they noted any items containing words or phrases that were ambiguous or could not be properly translated in the target country's native language. CCIs also identified questions and items that might be culturally inappropriate. Most of the items that proved to be potentially problematic were dropped from further consideration. In a few cases, it was possible to rewrite items to eliminate potential problems yet still retain the original item's core intent and dimensionality.
In order to avoid any inherent systematic bias that may be present when respondents complete a survey not in their native language (Brislin, 1986), CCIs were responsible for translating the survey from English into the respondents’ native language. This was done by the CCI, by another person fluent in both languages, or by a professional translator. The translation was then independently retranslated, from the specified culture's native language, into English. This back-translation was then submitted to the GLOBE Research Assistants, who compared the translated survey to the original English-language survey to verify the translation's accuracy. Through a process of elimination based on sorting, item evaluation, and translation, the item pool was reduced and also made more relevant and appropriate for the project. CCIs also conducted two pilot studies, the first in 28 countries and the second in 15 countries (different from the 28 in the first pilot study), which contributed immensely to the refinement of the scales. Eight hundred and seventy-seven individuals participated in the first pilot study and 1,066 participated in the second.
Figure 2.2 Example of a GLOBE item quartet addressing societal and organizational culture
The process just described resulted in nine scales to measure the nine culture “As Is” (cultural practices), and nine “Should Be” (cultural values) dimensions for each culture.
The questionnaire data collected in GLOBE Phase 2 consisted of (a) responses to approximately 17,300 questionnaires from middle managers of approximately 950 organizations in 61 countries, relevant to societal and organizational dimensions of culture, (b) unobtrusive measures of the societal culture dimensions, and (c) factors facilitating or inhibiting effective leadership.
Measurement of Organizational Practices and Values. In each organization where the questionnaires were administered, the respondents were divided into two groups. One group responded to questions designed to capture the societal-level dimensions described previously and the other group responded to questions designed to capture the same dimensions, but at the organizational rather than the societal level.
Samples. Because numerous countries have large and varied subcultures within their sovereign borders, demarcating cultural boundaries according to sovereign borders may prove inadequate. It is impossible to obtain representative samples of such multicultural nations as China, India, or the United States. Nonetheless, the samples drawn from such countries need to be comparable with respect to the dominant forces that shape cultures, such as ecological factors, history, language, politics, and religion. The country samples also needed to be relatively homogeneous within cultures. For multicultural countries, whenever possible, that subculture was sampled in which there was the greatest amount of commercial activity. More than one subculture was sampled whenever possible, such as indigenous and White subcultures in South Africa, French and German subcultures in Switzerland, and East and West subcultures in Germany.
The units of analysis for the GLOBE project consisted of cultural-level aggregated responses of samples of typical middle managers in at least two of three industries: food processing, financial services, and telecommunications services. The food-processing industry is a relatively stable industry. The telecommunications and financial industries may be stable or unstable, depending on the country and its economic conditions. By including these industries, we have obtained a fair number of dynamic industries and high-technology industries in the overall sample. These three industries were chosen as they are expected to exist in most countries regardless of their level of economic development. This requirement of existing in all participating countries precluded the use of industries such as automobile manufacturing or large chemical refineries as they exist in only a very small subset of the countries in the world.
Respondents were all middle managers. A middle manager was defined as one who had at least two levels above and at least two levels below him or her in an organization. In the case of very small organizations, a middle manager was defined as one who reported directly to the CEO of the organization or had at least one level below him or her in their organization.
Respondents were asked to use a 7-point scale to describe leader attributes and behaviors that they believed either enhanced or impeded exceptional leadership. They were also asked to critique their resident society's practices and values (in the form of “As Is” and “Should Be” responses, respectively), and the practices and values of the organizations in which they were employed, using 7-point scales as illustrated in Figure 2.2. Independent samples of middle managers completed one of two questionnaires. Half of the respondents in each culture completed the societal culture questionnaire (Sample 1), and the other half completed organizational culture questionnaire (Sample 2). All respondents completed the Leadership Attributes Questionnaire. Thus, the societal culture and the organizational culture questionnaires were completed by independent samples of respondents, thus ensuring no common-source variance.
Through employing a strategy of obtaining responses of middle managers in two of the three target industries in each country studied, samples were taken from approximately 40 countries in each of the target industries.
Our research design also permitted an assessment of whether common source response bias affected our results. Specifically, within each culture, different samples of middle managers completed the two versions of the survey. We were able to compare the responses to the leadership items for these two samples because the identical leadership items were contained on both versions of the survey. The means of the leadership item responses of Sample 1 and Sample 2 within each country were not significantly different. Thus, because separate samples from each society provided responses about organizational culture (Version A of the survey) and societal culture (Version B of the survey), and because the mean CLT responses across the two survey versions in each culture were not different, common-source response bias was not a factor in the quantitative GLOBE study. Given this result, we averaged the individual leadership scale scores for the two samples to produce means on the leadership scales for all cultures.
Phase 2 CLT Scales. One of the objectives of GLOBE is to determine whether there are dimensions of CLTs that are universally endorsed and dimensions that are differentially endorsed across cultures. Recall that CLTs are culturally endorsed profiles of perceived effective or ineffective leader attributes or behaviors about which members within each culture agree. Profiles of CLT dimensions reflect what is commonly referred to as “leadership styles” in the leadership literature.
Shaw (1990) suggests that much of the cross-cultural literature indicating differences in managerial beliefs, values, and styles is parallel to leader prototypes influenced by cultural differences, which are analogous to CLTs as conceptualized for Project GLOBE. A study by O'Connell, Lord, and O'Connell (1990) supports the argument that culture plays a significant role in determining leader attributes and behaviors that are perceived as desirable and effective. Their study specifically examined Japanese and American CLT similarities and differences. For the Japanese, the traits of being fair, flexible, a good listener, outgoing, and responsible were highly rated in many domains, such as business, media, and education. For Americans, traits of intelligence, honesty, understanding, verbal skills, and determination to succeed were strongly endorsed as facilitating leader effectiveness in numerous domains. A study by Gerstner and Day (1994) also provides additional evidence that cross-cultural variances affect ratings of leadership attributes and behaviors. These investigators identified three dimensions relevant to distinct CLTs expressed by university students from eight nations. These dimensions had rank order correlations with Hofstede's (1980) measures of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism of 0.81, 1.00, and 0.70, respectively. The GLOBE Research Project follows in the tradition of these studies.
The data from Phase 2 were used to reconfirm the 21 subscales of the Leader Attribute Questionnaire. A multilevel confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test for the dimensionality of these scales at the society and organizational level of analysis. The multilevel CFA has been found to provide unbiased estimates of group-level (e.g., society, organizational) factor structures because it statistically controls for the biasing influence of the within-group factor structure (Hanges & Dickson, 2004, in press). During the Calgary meeting, held after Pilot Study 1 and before Pilot Study 2, it was realized that some leadership dimensions may have been left out. New items were developed during the meeting and the new factors were tested in Pilot Study 2. These additional items reflected the findings from ongoing interview and focus group research. The factor analyses in both the pilot studies were conducted on societal-item responses. Using the societal-level means of these additional items, a societal-level maximum likelihood exploratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation was conducted of these CLT items. This analysis resulted in five additional CLT subscales that displayed sound psychometric properties. Thus, Phase 2 resulted in a total of 21 leadership subscales, which can be seen in Table 2.1.
The discovery of significant interrelationships among the 21 leadership subscales resulted in the need to conduct a second-order factor analysis. The second-order factor analysis of the 21 subscales produced four factors: (a) Charismatic/Value-Based Leadership that is Team-Oriented, (b) Autonomous Leadership, (c) Humane Leadership, and (d) Nonparticipative Self-Protective Leadership. Assisted by prevailing theory, Factor 1 was divided into Charismatic/Value-Based Leadership and Team-Oriented Leadership to create two dimensions. Factor 4 was also divided into two dimensions: Self-Protective Leadership and Participative Leadership (the scores of the nonparticipative subscales were reversed to reflect participative leadership). Empirically derived from the second-order factors, these divisions preserved conceptual clarity while possessing dimensions related to current leadership theory and prior empirical studies.
TABLE 2.1
Leadership Second-Order Factors and Their Component Subscales
|
1. Charismatic/Value-Based Charismatic 1: Visionary Charismatic 2: Inspirational Charismatic 3: Self-sacrifice Integrity Decisive Performance oriented |
2. Team-Oriented Team 1: Collaborative team orientation Team 2: Team integrator Diplomatic Malevolent (reverse scored) Administratively competent |
|
3. Self-Protective Self-centered Status-conscious Conflict inducer Face saver Procedural |
4. Participative Autocratic (reverse scored) Nonparticipative (reverse scored) |
|
5. Humane-Oriented Modesty Humane oriented |
6. Autonomous Autonomous |
The 21 subscales were grouped into six higher order leader behavior/attribute dimensions, which are also shown in Table 2.1. The higher order dimensions are referred to as global CLT dimensions because they represent classes of leader behavior rather than specific leader behaviors. The 21 first-order factors are referred to as CLT subscales. These subscales measure more specific leader attributes and behaviors. Composite profiles of the six CLT dimensions represent what is generally referred to as leadership styles. Several studies using subsamples of the GLOBE data have supported the CLT profiles. Brodbeck et al. (2000), for example, present convincing evidence that clusters of European cultures sharing similar cultural values also share similar CLT profiles. den Hartog et al. (1999) show that attributes of charismatic-transformational leadership are universally endorsed as contributing to outstanding leadership.
2. SPECIFIC METHODOLOGY FOR COUNTRY CHAPTERS
Quantitative Methodology
The quantitative methodology for country chapters was the same as described previously for the overall GLOBE project. CCIs of individual countries contributed to scale development through item evaluation, Q-sorting, and pilot studies. Several of the CCIs also participated in the first GLOBE conference at Calgary in 1994 where the operational definitions of culture and leadership were agreed on. Subsequently, CCIs collected the Phase 2 data in their respective countries through administration of GLOBE questionnaires.
Although the overall statistical analyses of the quantitative data for all the participating 61 countries were done centrally at the University of Maryland, the data for each country, particularly of those that are included in this volume, were also analyzed at the country level and in the country by the CCI teams. This included, in some cases, factor analysis, exploratory or confirmatory or both, or cluster analysis and similar methods. The results of these analyses are reported in some of the chapters of this volume whereas in some these have been omitted for a variety of reasons. The decision whether to include these analyses or not has generally been made by the authors of these chapters primarily depending on what they considered to be the most appropriate for presenting their country data.
A word of caution is necessary here about the within-society factor analysis of the data included in several chapters of this book. As discussed in Hanges and Dickson (2004), the GLOBE scales were designed to measure organizational- or societal-level variability. The scales were never intended to meaningfully differentiate among individuals within a particular society. However, even though the scales were not constructed to provide such information, it may be interesting to assess whether similar factors differentiate individuals within a society. It should be noted, however, that we expect that the loadings of the GLOBE scales’ items on within-society factors should be lower than reported in Hanges and Dickson (2004) (i.e., because the GLOBE scales’ true-score variability was based on between-society differences and there is probably restriction of variability within society). Further, one should not interpret these within-society factor analyses as replications of the GLOBE factor structure. This analysis is intended as an exploration of the themes captured by GLOBE in a new domain (individual differences within a society). Finally, the absence of a GLOBE factor within a society should not be automatically interpreted as the factor being irrelevant to the people in that country. Rather, a factor may fail to emerge within a society even when that theme is extremely critical because there was no variability in how the individuals from a single society rated the items (e.g., they all rated the items a 7). Factor analysis requires variability and so a factor could fail to emerge because it is extremely critical or completely irrelevant to the people within a society.
Qualitative Methodology
The qualitative methodology consisted, in the main, of focus groups, in-depth ethnographic interviews, media analysis, participant observation, and unobtrusive measurement. Although the CCI teams of all the 61 countries participating in GLOBE collected quantitative data to some extent or the other, not all of them were able to implement the qualitative methodology to the same intensity and depth. And though the CCI teams in all the 25 countries represented in this volume conducted qualitative research in considerable depth, there is a variation in the extent of using them even amongst the 25 countries represented in this volume. The general process followed for each component of qualitative methodology is described in the following subsections. The specifics of the use of these methods are described in more detail in subsequent chapters.
Focus Groups. The purpose of focus groups was to learn what the middle managers in each culture thought about outstanding leadership. The focus groups provided participants with an opportunity to reflect on and formally discuss effective, above-average, and outstanding managers. It was hoped that at the end of the focus group the participants would have greater insights into various behaviors generally employed by managers when leading organizational work units. The standard material and process for conducting focus groups was provided to the CCIs by the GLOBE Coordinating Team. This is summarized in Boxes 2.1 and 2.2.
Focus Group Exercise
(Given to participants a couple of days before the focus group was actually conducted) To begin, think of a person whom you know, or have observed several times, who you judge to be an outstanding leader. If you do not know such an individual personally, select a prominent leader about whom you have read or one whom you have observed in the media, whom you judge to be an outstanding leader.
Now visualize an important incident in which the leader has interacted with one or more of her or his subordinates or followers. Spend a few minutes recalling the incident in detail, and visualizing the behavior of both the leader and the subordinates/followers.
Please write a short story about the incident using the following questions as guides. Devote one or two paragraphs to each of the questions. The total story should take no more than about 15 minutes to write.
1. What were the background circumstances which lead up to the event?
2. Who were the people involved? What were their formal positions, relationships to each other?
3. What was said during the incident? Did the leader do anything that was particularly effective? Ineffective? Please describe.
4. What feelings were experienced by each party?
5. What was the outcome? Was it a successful incident? Did the manager achieve his or her objective?
Now think of a person whom you know, or have observed several times, whom you judge to be a competent manager but not an outstanding leader. Visualize an important incident in which the manager has interacted with one or more of her or his subordinates or followers. Spend a few minutes recalling the incident in detail, and visualizing the behavior of both the manager and the subordinates/followers.
Now please write a short story in which you address the earlier questions.
Now please develop a list of attributes (skills, abilities, personality traits, values, behaviors) that you believe distinguish outstanding leaders from competent managers in general.
BOX 2.2
Process of the Focus Group
At the start of the focus group, inform participants that they are participating in a cross-cultural research project in which large number of nations is participating. Also inform them that the purpose of the focus group is to understand the meaning of the terms leadership and management in different cultures, and to gather information concerning the attributes of individuals that are characteristic of effective leaders and managers. Also inform them that this is the beginning step of the research, and that the information obtained will help ensure that the terms leadership and management will be defined for each nation in terms of the culturally appropriate meaning for each nation.
Subsequently, request the participants to define the term leadership. List their contributions and attempt to come to a consensus concerning the definition of the term leadership. Record the majority definition and also any minority opinions.
Now, conduct the same exercise for the term management.
Then request the participants to share their thoughts concerning the attributes that distinguish outstanding leaders, above-average managers, and normally effective managers. Follow it up by a discussion of distinguishing behaviors of each class of managers.
After this, request the participants to describe how managers in their culture differ from managers in another country that is one of their major trading partners. After clearly specifying the country chosen for comparison, list the differences pointed out by the participants between managers of the two countries. Further request the participants to mention how managers of their county should behave in order to be effective when dealing with managers of the trading partner.
In-Depth Ethnographic Interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to explore, in some depth, how managers in each culture defined leadership, explicitly or implicitly. It was recommended to the CCI teams that interviews should be conducted with at least five to seven middle managers, till some clear and unambiguous patterns emerged. It was also suggested that the interviews be tape-recorded for subsequent content analysis. Guidelines for the in-depth ethnographic interviews are summarized in Box 2.3.
BOX 2.3
Guidelines for In-Depth Ethnographic Interview
Begin the interview with a brief explanation of GLOBE. Advise the interviewees of the broad purpose of the interview and that it is part of a multination study.
• Clarify to the interviewees that there are no correct, incorrect, or desirable or undesirable responses.
• Stress that their responses would contribute to an understanding of leadership and management in their culture.
• While the interview should be generally free-flowing and exploratory, following are some guiding and suggested questions to broadly guide your exploration:
1. What is your personal definition of outstanding leadership?
2. What is the difference between a competent manager and an outstanding leader?
3. What is your perception of the opposite of outstanding leadership? If the person is in the position of leadership and does not exercise outstanding leadership, what would be the kinds of behaviors in which he or she is likely to engage?
4. Please describe a couple of critical incidents that illustrate outstanding leadership.
5. Were there any obstacles or constraints faced by the leaders in these incidents? Any opposition, resistance, bureaucratic red tape, or lack of resources, for example?
6. Please name two or three well-known individuals who, you think, are or have been outstanding leaders.
7. Is there anything that these leaders have in common that makes them outstanding and differentiates them from others who have been in similar positions? How are the behaviors of these leaders similar?
8. Please describe a specific behavior, something each leader did, that illustrates his or her leadership.
9. Is there something a leader did that resulted in your strong acceptance of or support for the leader or resulted in significantly increased motivation on your part, or willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty in the interest of the leader's vision, objective, or mission? Please describe that in some detail.
CCI teams were informed that the guidelines in Box 2.3 were broad and were likely to enrich the interview and provide more meaningful data about implicit definitions of the leadership used by the interviewees.
Media Analysis. The purpose of the media analysis was to get yet another interpretation of leadership as it is perceived by members of the society and culture. This was because the portrayal of leadership by the media is expected to reflect what the society thinks of its leaders and the phenomenon of leadership. The analysis of media portrayal and reporting was also expected to provide insights into the process concerning how do the members of the society think about leadership. In order to do this, CCIs were advised to analyze media coverage and reports of leadership for arriving at the essence of leadership as reflected in the media. The general process recommended to the CCIs is described in Box 2.4.
BOX 2.4
Guidelines for Media Analysis
Choose some representative publications from different sections of the media, such as one of the most well-respected major national daily newspapers focusing on general issues and broad audience; one of the most well-respected major daily newspapers focusing on business, industrial, and financial audiences; a major national weekly news magazine reporting general news; a major weekly or fortnightly news magazine targeted at the business community. In countries with multiple languages, it is recommended that the focus be on the dominant language used by the larger managerial population.
1. Choose two time periods (anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks each) with a gap of 1 month between the two time periods. The time periods should be such when no large, regularly scheduled event was to happen such as a major public or religious celebration, an important anniversary of a public event, a major political election, or a major political convention. The reason for avoiding such periods is to get as “normal” representation of the portrayal of leadership in the media as possible.
2. Select all articles and stories related to or referring to leadership in any way whatsoever, appearing in the chosen publications during the chosen time periods. Content-analyze these stories and articles to develop the concepts of leadership relevant to that society, as portrayed in the media.
Though it was left to the CCIs to do the content analyses in the way most appropriate and suitable for them, using the guidelines provided in Agar (n.d.) and Thomas (n.d.), a basic process suggested to the CCIs was to (a) transcribe the extracts of the stories and articles, highlighting the important phrases containing any verbs, adjectives, and nouns relevant to leadership, (b) gather all the phrases together and typify the phrases with one word that best described the event, and (c) sort the phrases by typification categories, leading to a description of how leadership was portrayed in the media.
Subsequently, this portrayal of leadership was related to the countries’ profiles on the core GLOBE dimensions. The results of the media analyses also helped provide insights on the various ways in which the GLOBE dimensions get enacted in the culture, and to elaborate and explain the findings of the in-depth ethnographic interviews. In addition, the large amount of information gathered during the media analyses also helped in understanding the findings of the quantitative analyses.
Some countries performed a specific media analysis, such that job advertisements for leaders were analyzed (e.g., the characteristics that were required); for example, see the chapter about Sweden or Germany. Some did extensive analyses of the ethnographic interviews, for example, the chapter on Colombia.
Unobtrusive Measurement and Participant Observations. Given that most of the CCIs were residing in the cultures that they were to study, they were requested to collect data relevant to unobtrusive measurement of the theoretical dimensions of culture. Unobtrusive measures and participant observations of the researchers were used in conjunction with other qualitative data and questionnaire measures to triangulate measurement of culture dimensions.
Power stratification may be reflected by the number of hierarchical levels in a particular kind of organization, such as in a sample of organizations included in the quantitative data collection. The number of titles and hierarchical levels of domestic help hired by wealthy individuals in the society might also reflect power stratification. It could be expected that there would be more such titles in highly power-stratified society and fewer in societies characterized by low power stratification. The number of status-relevant occupational titles (or other relevant samples) found in the industries in which quantitative data were to be collected could also reflect the power stratification of the society.
The average age of top executive officers in industry might be an unobtrusive measure of tolerance of uncertainty. The higher average age of high-level managers was expected to reflect low tolerance of uncertainty. Some of the sample unobtrusive measurement items are presented in Table 2.2.
TABLE 2.2
Sample Unobtrusive Measurement Items
| Uncertainty Avoidance: Existence of laws concerning minimum age for marriage |
| Power Stratification: Prevalence of conspicuous use of symbols of authority |
| Collective Orientation: Prevalence of extended families |
| Gender Differentiation: Proportion of women in top two levels of organizations studied |
| Humane Orientation: Existence of laws to ensure safe employment conditions |
| Future Orientation: R & D expenditures in the three GLOBE target industries (controlling for GNP) |
| Achievement Orientation: Frequency of awards for outstanding student performance at universities |
CCIs were also requested to look for unique rituals, myths, and ceremonies in their culture that may have relevance to various societal culture dimensions. History of the society including the political and social history, history of leaders, of the economy, of the industries studied, and of the organizations from which the quantitative data were obtained, could also be a very rich source of information about the culture being studied. The CCIs were requested to develop a description of each of the societal culture dimensions based on their unobtrusive measurements and participant observations. Given the experience and skill of the CCIs in social sciences research, this was expected, and indeed turned out, to be a rich source of developing insights into the cultures studied.
3. RESPONSE BIAS
Triandis (1995) has noted that the various cultures have conflicting response patterns when responding to questionnaires. The presence of these different response patterns can potentially compromise cross-cultural comparisons. Thus several different statistical techniques have been developed to eliminate the contamination of survey responses.
The intercorrelations of the unobtrusive measures and the core “Should Be” scale scores for each dimension range from .38 to .88 (all significant, p < .05 and less). The intercorrelations of the unobtrusive measures and the core “As Is” scale scores for each dimension range from .51 to .65 (all significant, p < .05 and less) (Gupta, de Luque, & House, 2004, pp. 153, 171). These intercorrelations indicate validity of the GLOBE societal questionnaire measures. The middle-manager responses to the societal questionnaire also demonstrate that these inter-correlations reflect the society at large in which the managers also exist and not just the specifically defined culture of middle managers. Statistical analyses were also performed for response bias (for details, see Appendix B of House et al., 2004).
4. INTEGRATION OF QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE FINDINGS
Authors of the country chapters included in this book were requested to develop culture specific interpretations of local behaviors, norms, and practices based on the qualitative research methods listed earlier in this chapter, and integrate those interpretations with the findings derived from the quantitative analyses comparing the results of that particular country with all the countries participating in GLOBE. This integration of the findings of quantitative and qualitative research methods is one of the unique features of this book, and provides a rich and in-depth understanding of the culture of the 25 countries represented in this book.
The integration of the quantitative and qualitative findings of each country is followed by an overall integration in the concluding chapter of this volume which takes an integrative view to point out particularly interesting findings, to identify commonalities among culture-specific findings, and to discuss emerging theoretical and methodological issues. It also derives questions for future research and practical implications, from which researchers, students and practitioners can benefit; for societal culture, leadership, and the link between culture and leadership from between-country and multiple within-country perspectives.
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1 The methodology is described here in brief due to space constraints. For full details of methodology, please see Hanges and Dickson (2004, in press).