Performance Management: Putting Research into Action

The Role of Organizational Culture

Hofstede’s (2001) research on “culture’s consequences” with regard to organizational functioning is considered to be a landmark in the field of cross-cultural organizational studies. Nonetheless, critics have argued that even though the research was ambitious in terms of incorporating respondents from more than seventy countries, they were all IBM employees. Questions have been raised as to whether we can generalize his findings to other organizations operating in the same countries. This question still begs an answer, although the next phase of GLOBE research findings (still unpublished) might be able to partially address this issue.

Not only do nations and societies have cultures, but so do organizations. ...