The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Leadership, Change and Organizational Development

18

Culture and Change in Developing Western Countries

Anthony Montgomery

… a talent for speaking differently rather than for arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change.

Rorty (1989, p. 7)

18.1 Introduction to Culture and Change

There is an inherent assumption in the organization-development (OD) literature that change and leadership in an organization are helped or hindered by the culture that is found among the individuals that populate the “organization.” Additionally, layered upon this is the idea that national/ethnic cultures contribute to the dynamics of organizational change. This latter assumption is informed by the idea that different nationalities have “hard-wired” ways of coping with organizational life, and the work of Hofstede (1985, 2001) and Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner (1998) would appear to support the idea that national culture and societal values play a significant role in organizational life via organizational culture. Interestingly, the prevailing assumption is that the US/UK and Northern European models of organizational functioning are the ones that developing countries should aspire too, as evidenced by the predominance of neoliberal policies in post-communist countries and the increasing number of managers in developing countries who hold MBAs from the West. Undoubtedly, the latter is related to the former.

Organizational scientists ignore history at their own peril. The organizational models that have evolved in developing countries have carried ...