OML 8020 Module 6 Culture Research Seminar Paper: Meta-Analytic Tests and the Future of Culture Studies Example

Culture Is Not Standing Still: New Evidence and Research Questions for a Three-Country Firm

Student Name

Doctor of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

OML-8020: Seminar in Leadership and Culture: Organizational and National Perspectives

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Culture Is Not Standing Still: New Evidence and Research Questions for a Three-Country Firm

Introduction

Earlier papers in this seminar used classic frameworks to understand my team and plant. This final paper asks what newer research has added and where the field is going, and what questions my firm could help answer.

Testing Hofstede's Consequences

Taras et al. (2010) pooled 598 studies, covering over 200,000 people, that examined the effects of Hofstede's dimensions on outcomes. Cultural values predicted a range of outcomes, but the strength varied. Effects were strongest for emotions, such as organizational commitment and identification, and weaker for attitudes and behaviors, with the weakest effects on job performance. The predictive power of cultural values was comparable to that of personality traits and demographic characteristics for several outcomes. Effects were stronger in samples of older, male and more educated respondents and when culture was measured at the individual rather than the national level in some cases. Their conclusion: culture does matter, though how much depends on the outcome and on how culture is measured.

Updating National Scores

Taras et al. (2012) addressed a criticism raised since McSweeney: Hofstede's scores come from data collected decades ago. Using a longitudinal meta-analysis of studies conducted since then, they built updated indices for many countries and examined how scores had changed over time. National cultures had shifted, with individualism rising and power distance falling in many countries, and the original rankings correlated only moderately with the updated scores for some dimensions. They recommended that researchers use updated indices rather than original scores and that practitioners treat national culture as changing.

Reinvigorating Organizational Culture Research

Chatman and O'Reilly (2016) argued that organizational culture research had stalled because definitions became too broad and measures too varied. They proposed defining culture as shared norms, the expectations about appropriate attitudes and behavior that members hold and enforce, and studying culture strength, meaning how widely norms are shared and how intensely they are held. Viewing culture as a social control system clarifies how it shapes behavior. They called for research on how culture content and strength relate to outcomes, how subcultures form and how leaders change norms.

What the New Research Means for Practice

Three lessons stand out. First, culture's effects on commitment and identification may matter more for my firm right now than any effect on performance, since we are losing long-serving employees. Second, I should not rely on old national scores to understand my German and Mexican colleagues; younger Mexican engineers, for example, may expect more participation than older scores suggest. Third, the culture work at the plant should focus on specific norms, such as whether people speak up about quality problems, rather than broad values.

Research Questions for a Capstone

These lessons suggest several research questions suitable for a DBA capstone. How do the norms for raising quality concerns differ among the New Jersey, German and Mexican sites, and how strongly are they held? How do long-serving employees in an acquired firm describe the change in workplace norms, and how does this relate to their commitment? Does the strength of shared safety and quality norms differ between production lines, and does it relate to deviation rates? Each focuses on norms and their strength, as Chatman and O'Reilly recommend, and each can be studied within my firm.

Methods Considerations

Studying norms across sites would require measures translated and tested for equivalence in Spanish and German. A mixed-methods design, combining a norm survey with interviews, could capture both strength and meaning. Following Taras and colleagues, any comparison of national groups should measure culture in the sample itself rather than borrow published country scores.

Subcultures and Strength

Chatman and O'Reilly's focus on strength raises a question for my firm: a strong culture in one subgroup may coexist with weak or conflicting norms in another. The quality assurance staff at the New Jersey plant appear to hold strong norms about documentation, while packaging crews hold strong norms about helping one another finish a shift. Research that measures only plant-wide averages would miss this. A capstone could study whether alignment between subgroup norms predicts smoother operations better than overall strength.

How Findings Could Be Used

The point of these questions is practical. If norms for speaking up about quality differ across sites, the firm could adjust training and leadership behavior at each site rather than imposing one program. If long-serving employees' commitment depends on specific norms from the old culture, leaders could protect those norms deliberately during integration.

Ethical and Practical Considerations

Research in my own firm raises the same insider issues discussed in other DBA courses. Employees at the Mexican plant may be wary of a survey from a senior leader. Partnering with a local university and guaranteeing anonymity would help.

A Pilot Measure

Before a full capstone, a short pilot could test whether a norm survey works across languages. Ten respondents at each site would complete translated items about speaking up, and cognitive interviews would check whether the questions mean the same thing in English, German and Spanish, revealing any item that needs rewording before wider use.

Limits

Meta-analyses depend on the quality of the studies they combine. Updated indices still describe national averages. Research questions will need refinement with my committee.

Conclusion

Taras and colleagues showed that culture matters most for emotions and attitudes and that national cultures change over time, and Chatman and O'Reilly urged researchers to study norms and their strength. For a three-country firm in the middle of integration, these lessons point to research on shared norms, measured fresh in each site, as the next step.

References

Chatman, J. A., & O'Reilly, C. A. (2016). Paradigm lost: Reinvigorating the study of organizational culture. Research in Organizational Behavior, 36, 199-224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2016.11.004

Taras, V., Kirkman, B. L., & Steel, P. (2010). Examining the impact of Culture's Consequences: A three-decade, multilevel, meta-analytic review of Hofstede's cultural value dimensions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 405-439. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018938

Taras, V., Steel, P., & Kirkman, B. L. (2012). Improving national cultural indices using a longitudinal meta-analysis of Hofstede's dimensions. Journal of World Business, 47(3), 329-341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2011.05.001