At 10:25 03.01.1996 -0800, Roy wrote:
> By having a cultural bias toward retribution, members of an
>organization see it as "just" to fire an employee or otherwise assess
>harsh penalties for a wide range of infractions against the rules (or
>procedures). This dynamic sets up the severity of the consequences. In
>addition, we frequently observe the organization reward "old Harlan" for
>enduring the organization for 25 years without making waves. While
>"Sally" is terminated because she argued with the boss about a procedure
>that required her to keep records that she believed didn't add value.
> What's a body to do? Some will take risks anyhow and learn from
>them, no matter how bitter the lessons. Others will follow old Harlan.
> What can organizations do? They can recognize their cultural
>proclivity toward retribution and design rules (or procedures) which tend
>to counteract that bias by providing an arena of consent for making
>mistakes in the pursuit of improvement.
I heartly agree, but I cannot understand why this should be a feature more
dominant for the American culture.
The fact that the American prison population is much higher than anywhere
else can also be interpreted as a higher degree of breaking the rules,
taking risks (although this is not desired).
I work in an Eropean context, and when I compare European and American
values there is a much higher level of risk-taking in American companies.
An indicator for the less risk-taking attitude is e.g. the cultural value
of formal adressing as Mr. Berger, Mrs. Schulz instead of John or Sally. I
think there is a lower amount of Europeans in prison due to their greater
fear of the consequences which follow breaking the rules.
Roy, I agree that taking a risk and failing is harder punished in America
because normally you have to leave the company but believe me the number
of people who take risks is much higher.
I would like to add much more ideas but this would get much to long.
Bye for now,
-- Thomas Bertels E-Mail: tb@knipp.de Homepage: http://www.ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de/~jseng/tom/home.htm Address: Ulrich-Jakobi-Wall-Str. 1a - 59494 Soest - Germany Phone: +49 2921 15726 FAX: +49 2921 31627