The concept of culture is deeply contested. Between 1920 and 1950 alone, at least one hundred and fifty seven definitions were presented

Introduction
The concept of culture is deeply contested. Between 1920 and 1950 alone, at least one hundred and fifty seven definitions were presented (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952, 149). Having undergone dramatic transformation over the course of at least two centuries, the notion of culture is ubiquitous in political discourse yet conceptually elusive. Core debates revolve around the content of culture, its relationship to society and civilization as well as its function and role in the human condition. Having deliberately dealt vaguely with the term thus far, the aim of this chapter is to examine three related questions: of what does culture consist?; what does culture do?, and what should culture do? Using eudaimonia and the normative account of social goods developed so far as reference points, I examine symbolic, functionalist and structurationalist approaches to culture in order to develop an account suitable for present analytical purposes. The account I develop is fairly sweeping and the examination of the field somewhat cursory. However, consideration of the relationship between the content of culture, its purpose, its association with society and the wholeness of ‘cultures’ suffices to open up key concerns about its current treatment by culturalists, in particular. The conclusions I draw, are that talk of ‘cultures’ should be replaced by talk of ‘culture’, with recognition of the mass of complexities which enter into our cultural lives, that culture should serve particular ends, that the culture of relevance to political discussion is that which shapes basic institutions and that these institutions should be guided by three core values. In essence, I defend a normative functionalist account in which culture should serve certain ends. I begin by examining the history of the concept of culture.
Background and history Historically, the notion of culture was explicitly normative; representing, more often that not, eighteenth and nineteenth-century understandings of socio-psychological sophistication. Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy epitomized this belief. Arnold (1993, 190) held that culture is ‘a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits’; ‘the culture we recommend is, above all, an inward operation’. For Arnold (1993, 192), culture was a remedy to such human failings as ‘the want of sensitiveness of intellectual conscience, the disbelief in right
reason, the dislike of authority’. The goal of culture was, therefore, to overcome barbarity and realize higher goods, such as intellectual conscience, reason and deference to authority, encapsulated in a broad, neo-classical understanding of civility and civilization. Culture became, therefore, associated with products which were seen to embody these goods – classical music, opera, literature and haute cuisine.
Obviously, this idealized account of culture carried with it both ethnocentric and elitist connotations. If it were restricted to elite, Western social circles, then the vast majority of human beings were bereft of culture. In this sense, culture was afforded a similar meaning and value to normative invocations of civilization seen in the conflict between Hobbes’ defence of Leviathan and Rousseau’s affirmation of the 1 noble savage. The development of anthropology towards the end of the nineteenth- century checked this particular normative trend.
While anthropology’s antipathy towards this stance is now well established, the account of culture which was to form the basis for modern understandings was actually part of a socio-evolutionary account of religion. In trying to explain the shift from polytheism to monotheism, Edward Tylor suggested that culture amounted to ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired... as a member of society’ (Tylor 1871, 1). This totalizing description of culture, which has long been employed in both academic (see Malinowski) and non-academic circles, removed the explicit normative dimension of the concept. By this definition, any member of any society has a culture, with any normative discussion shifting from the presence to the content of culture. While this was certainly a step forward, the totalizing nature of the definition proved problematic, providing, in the first instance, too great a number of interpretations.
This is indicated, as Geertz (2000a, 4-5) notes, by Clyde Kluckhohn’s account of culture as (1) “the total way of life of a people”; (2) “the social legacy the individual acquires from his group”; (3) “a way of thinking, feeling, and believing”; (4) “an abstraction from behaviour”; (5) a theory on the part of the anthropologist about the way in which a group of people in fact behave; (6) a “storehouse of pooled learning”; (7) “a set of standardized orientations to recurrent problems”; (8) “learned behaviour”; (9) a mechanism for the normative regulation of behaviour; (10) “a set of techniques for adjusting both the external environment and to other men”; (11) “a precipitate of history”; and turning, perhaps in desperation, to similes, as a map, as a sieve, and as a matrix.
These disparate definitions raise several concerns about Tylor’s account: firstly, that it makes no distinction between mental and material processes; secondly, that it does not ascribe a function, purpose or telos to culture; thirdly, that it does not distinguish between the beliefs or behaviours of people within a society and the collective beliefs and behaviours of that society, and fourthly, that it suggests that cultures are wholes.
[B] Meaning and ideas According to Tylor, the idea, say, of wage labour, the behaviour or practice of factory work and the products, cars, are each part of a holistic culture of laissez faire, Western capitalism. Intuitively, this may be appealing. Each of these aspects is subject to ‘cultural’ variation and each of them is seen to be a defining characteristic of Western culture – perhaps ‘economic’, ‘social’ and ‘material’ culture. Walter Taylor (1948) sought, however, to challenge this intuition. For Taylor, culture is a ‘mental phenomenon, consisting of the contents of minds, not of material objects or observable behaviour’ (Taylor 1948, 96). Behaviour and produce are secondary and tertiary phenomena, constituting physical enactments and objectifications of the primary phenomenon of culture, which is both ‘unobservable and non-material’ (Taylor 1948, 100). This account has been challenged, in part, by those, such as Geertz, who emphasize much more the intersubjective, visible shape of culture. As noted in Chapter 1, throughout the twentieth-century, anthropologists were drawn to the conclusion that culture is, in a very real way, meaning transmitted through language, and that meaning differs so significantly from society to society 2 that, without understanding particular forms of meaning, it is impossible to understand people. This is epitomized by Geertz’s (2000a, 5) notion of humans as being ‘suspended in webs of significance’. This symbolic account of the human condition holds that culture separates us as a species from other species and us as part of a cultural group from those of a different group. Though of significance to certain ethical approaches, such as Singer’s (see Singer 1975 and Singer and Cavalieri 1994) utilitarianism, I shall not dwell on the first claim, except to say that there have been invocations of culture in other species (see Laland and Hopitt 2003). Of more importance, here, is the claim that culture in some way shapes us and separates us from other humans. The point is articulated effectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein. For Wittgenstein (2001, 190) some people are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country’s language. We do not understand the people… We cannot find our feet with them… If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
In order to understand the lion or any group of enigmatic humans, we have to be party to their set of meanings. Geertz (2000a, 6-7) deals with this through his account of ‘thick description’. In his example, three boys contract their eyelids, but for radically different reasons, expressing radically different meanings intelligible only to those with knowledge of the culturally specific nuances of blinking. He then demonstrates the real world complexities of culture and its interpretation through his engagement with the story of Cohen, a Jewish trader in the highlands of central Morocco during French colonial expansion in 1912. Each of the participants, Cohen, the Berbers, and the French enters into the conflict with particular codes. In order to understand the confusion, Geertz (2000a, 9) argues that we have to sort out the structures of signification… and [determine] their social ground and import. Here,… such sorting would begin by distinguishing the three unlike frames of interpretation ingredient in the situation, Jewish, Berber, and French, and would then move on to show how (and why) at that time, in that place, their copresence produced a situation in which systematic misunderstanding reduced traditional form to social farce. What tripped Cohen up, and with him the whole, ancient pattern of social and economic relationships within which he functioned, was a confusion of tongues. With regard to Taylor’s account of culture as mental phenomenon, Geertz is clear that what is required is comprehension, which must always be social, rather than the more automaton-like notion of internalization:
To say that culture consists of socially established structures of meaning in
terms of which people do such things as signal conspiracies and join them or
perceive insults and answer them, is no more to say that it is a psychological
phenomenon, a characteristic of someone’s mind, personality, cognitive
structure, or whatever, than to say that Tantrism, genetics, the progressive
form of the verb, the classification of wines, the Common Law, or the notion
of a “conditional curse” (as Westermarck defined the concept of “ar” in terms
3 of which Cohen pressed his claim to damages) is. What, in a place like Morocco, most prevents those of us who grew up winking other winks or attending other sheep from grasping what people are up to is not ignorance as
to how cognition works (though, especially as, one assumes, it works the same
among them as it does among us, it would greatly help to have less of that too)
as a lack of familiarity with the imaginative universe within which their acts
are signs. (Geertz 2000a, 13) This account of culture as ‘interworked systems of construable signs’ means that ‘culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviours, institutions, or processes can be causally attributed; it is a context, something within which they can be intelligibly – that is, thickly – described’ (Geertz 2000a, 14). In this respect, it is ‘best seen not as complexes of concrete behaviour patterns – customs, usages, traditions, habit clusters’, but ‘as a set of control mechanisms – plans, recipes, rules, instructions (what computer engineers call “programs”) – for the governing of behaviour (Geertz 2000a, 44). This ‘control mechanism’ account of culture makes the claim that our thinking is, fundamentally, social and public, produced by the words, ideas, symbols, noises and images with which we are confronted in our daily existence. Culture is the meaning placed upon experience – the means by which we orient and navigate ourselves through events (Geertz 2000a, 45) – such that, the dysfunction of Cohen,
the Berbers and the French was the result of the different interpretative schema and
programmes of behaviour experienced and applied by the different parties. In this
respect, we can see Gray’s multiply realizable values as symbolic reference points
within which people navigate their social existence. This, though, begs the question of
why we need culture and why we develop different cultures.
[B] Purpose and function
The second ontological claim invoked by Geertz is the notion that the importance of
culture to humans lies in the evolution key
topics in Chapter 1, for Geertz, humans lack the instinctual governing and focusing of
behaviour found in other species:
For man, what are innately given are extremely general response capacities,
which, although they make possible far greater plasticity, complexity, and, on
the scattered occasions when everything works as it should, effectiveness of
behaviour, leave it much less precisely regulated… Undirected by culture
patterns – organized systems of significant symbols – man’s behaviour would
be virtually ungovernable, a mere chaos of pointless acts and exploding
emotions, his experience virtually shapeless. Culture, the accumulated totality
of such patterns, is not just an ornament of human existence but – the principal
basis of its specificity – an essential condition for it. (Geertz 2000a, 45-46)
This position is, I suppose, supported by the various examples of ‘feral
children’ who, finding themselves without meaningful human company, fail to
develop linguistically and often adopt the behaviour of other species within their
environment. From this, Geertz (2000a, 50) argues that humans without culture would
not recognizably be human – that being Icelandic or Aztec or Roman is an essential
precondition of being human – and that culture is the key determinant in human
behaviour, such that ‘men build dams or shelters, locate food, organize their social
4
The concept of culture is deeply contested. Between 1920 and 1950 alone, at least one-hundred-and-fifty- seven definitions were presented (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952, 149). Having undergone dramatic transformation over the course of at least two centuries, the notion of culture is ubiquitous in political discourse yet conceptually elusive. Core debates revolve around the content of culture, its relationship to society and civilization as well as its function and role in the human condition. Having deliberately dealt vaguely with the term thus far, the aim of this chapter is to examine three related questions: Of what does culture consist? What does culture do? and What should culture do? Using eudaimonia and the normative account of social goods developed so far as reference points, I examine symbolic, functionalist and structurationalist approaches to culture in order to develop an account suitable for present analytical purposes. The account I develop is fairly sweeping and the examination of the field somewhat cursory. However, consideration of the relationship between the content of culture, its purpose, its association with society and the wholeness of ‘cultures’ suffices to open up key concerns about its current treatment by culturalists, in particular. The conclusions I draw are that: talk of ‘cultures’ should be replaced by talk of ‘culture’, with recognition of the mass of complexities which enter into our cultural lives; culture should serve particular ends; the culture of relevance to political discussion is that which shapes basic institutions and that these institutions should be guided by three core values. In essence, I defend a normative functionalist account in which culture should serve certain ends. I begin by examining the history of the concept of culture.
The English word ‘Culture’ is derived from the Latin term ‘cult or cultus’ meaning tilling, or cultivating or refining and worship. In sum it means cultivating and refining a thing to such an extent that its end product evokes our admiration and respect. This is practically the same as ‘Sanskriti’ of the Sanskrit language. The term ‘Sanskriti’ has been derived from the root ‘Kri (to do) of Sanskrit language. Three words came from this root ‘Kri; prakriti’ (basic matter or condition), ‘Sanskriti’ (refined matter or condition) and ‘vikriti’ (modified or decayed matter or condition) when ‘prakriti’ or a raw material is refined it becomes ‘Sanskriti’ and when broken or damaged it becomes ‘vikriti’.

Culture is a way of life. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the language you speak in and the God you worship all are aspects of culture. In very simple terms, we can say that culture is the embodiment of the way in which we think and do things. It is also the things

[A] 4
What is culture? What does it do? What should it do?

[B]Introduction
The concept of culture is deeply contested. Between 1920 and 1950 alone, at least one
hundred and fifty seven definitions were presented (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952,
149). Having undergone dramatic transformation over the course of at least two
centuries, the notion of culture is ubiquitous in political discourse yet conceptually
elusive. Core debates revolve around the content of culture, its relationship to society
and civilization as well as its function and role in the human condition. Having
deliberately dealt vaguely with the term thus far, the aim of this chapter is to examine
three related questions: of what does culture consist?; what does culture do?, and what
should culture do? Using eudaimonia and the normative account of social goods
developed so far as reference points, I examine symbolic, functionalist and
structurationalist approaches to culture in order to develop an account suitable for
present analytical purposes. The account I develop is fairly sweeping and the
examination of the field somewhat cursory. However, consideration of the relationship
between the content of culture, its purpose, its association with society and the
wholeness of ‘cultures’ suffices to open up key concerns about its current treatment by
culturalists, in particular. The conclusions I draw, are that talk of ‘cultures’ should be
replaced by talk of ‘culture’, with recognition of the mass of complexities which enter
into our cultural lives, that culture should serve particular ends, that the culture of
relevance to political discussion is that which shapes basic institutions and that these
institutions should be guided by three core values. In essence, I defend a normative
functionalist account in which culture should serve certain ends. I begin by examining
the history of the concept of culture.
[B] Background and history
Historically, the notion of culture was explicitly normative; representing, more often
that not, eighteenth and nineteenth-century understandings of socio-psychological
sophistication. Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy epitomized this belief. Arnold
(1993, 190) held that culture is ‘a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to
know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and
said in the world; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free
thought upon our stock notions and habits’; ‘the culture we recommend is, above all,
an inward operation’. For Arnold (1993, 192), culture was a remedy to such human
failings as ‘the want of sensitiveness of intellectual conscience, the disbelief in right
reason, the dislike of authority’. The goal of culture was, therefore, to overcome
barbarity and realize higher goods, such as intellectual conscience, reason and
deference to authority, encapsulated in a broad, neo-classical understanding of civility
and civilization. Culture became, therefore, associated with products which were seen
to embody these goods – classical music, opera, literature and haute cuisine.
Obviously, this idealized account of culture carried with it both ethnocentric
and elitist connotations. If it were restricted to elite, Western social circles, then the
vast majority of human beings were bereft of culture. In this sense, culture was
afforded a similar meaning and value to normative invocations of civilization seen in
the conflict between Hobbes’ defence of Leviathan and Rousseau’s affirmation of the
1
noble savage. The development of anthropology towards the end of the nineteenth-
century checked this particular normative trend.
While anthropology’s antipathy towards this stance is now well established,
the account of culture which was to form the basis for modern understandings was
actually part of a socio-evolutionary account of religion. In trying to explain the shift
from polytheism to monotheism, Edward Tylor suggested that culture amounted to
‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and
any other capabilities and habits acquired... as a member of society’ (Tylor 1871, 1).
This totalizing description of culture, which has long been employed in both academic
(see Malinowski) and non-academic circles, removed the explicit normative
dimension of the concept. By this definition, any member of any society has a culture,
with any normative discussion shifting from the presence to the content of culture.
While this was certainly a step forward, the totalizing nature of the definition proved
problematic, providing, in the first instance, too great a number of interpretations.
This is indicated, as Geertz (2000a, 4-5) notes, by Clyde Kluckhohn’s account of
culture as
(1) “the total way of life of a people”; (2) “the social legacy the individual
acquires from his group”; (3) “a way of thinking, feeling, and believing”; (4)
“an abstraction from behaviour”; (5) a theory on the part of the anthropologist
about the way in which a group of people in fact behave; (6) a “storehouse of
pooled learning”; (7) “a set of standardized orientations to recurrent
problems”; (8) “learned behaviour”; (9) a mechanism for the normative
regulation of behaviour; (10) “a set of techniques for adjusting both the
external environment and to other men”; (11) “a precipitate of history”; and
turning, perhaps in desperation, to similes, as a map, as a sieve, and as a
matrix.
These disparate definitions raise several concerns about Tylor’s account: firstly, that it
makes no distinction between mental and material processes; secondly, that it does not
ascribe a function, purpose or telos to culture; thirdly, that it does not distinguish
between the beliefs or behaviours of people within a society and the collective beliefs
and behaviours of that society, and fourthly, that it suggests that cultures are wholes.
[B] Meaning and ideas
According to Tylor, the idea, say, of wage labour, the behaviour or practice of factory
work and the products, cars, are each part of a holistic culture of laissez faire, Western
capitalism. Intuitively, this may be appealing. Each of these aspects is subject to
‘cultural’ variation and each of them is seen to be a defining characteristic of Western
culture – perhaps ‘economic’, ‘social’ and ‘material’ culture. Walter Taylor (1948)
sought, however, to challenge this intuition. For Taylor, culture is a ‘mental
phenomenon, consisting of the contents of minds, not of material objects or
observable behaviour’ (Taylor 1948, 96). Behaviour and produce are secondary and
tertiary phenomena, constituting physical enactments and objectifications of the
primary phenomenon of culture, which is both ‘unobservable and non-material’
(Taylor 1948, 100). This account has been challenged, in part, by those, such as
Geertz, who emphasize much more the intersubjective, visible shape of culture.
As noted in Chapter 1, throughout the twentieth-century, anthropologists were
drawn to the conclusion that culture is, in a very real way, meaning transmitted
through language, and that meaning differs so significantly from society to society
2
that, without understanding particular forms of meaning, it is impossible to
understand people. This is epitomized by Geertz’s (2000a, 5) notion of humans as
being ‘suspended in webs of significance’. This symbolic account of the human
condition holds that culture separates us as a species from other species and us as part
of a cultural group from those of a different group. Though of significance to certain
ethical approaches, such as Singer’s (see Singer 1975 and Singer and Cavalieri 1994)
utilitarianism, I shall not dwell on the first claim, except to say that there have been
invocations of culture in other species (see Laland and Hopitt 2003). Of more
importance, here, is the claim that culture in some way shapes us and separates us
from other humans. The point is articulated effectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein. For
Wittgenstein (2001, 190) some people
are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that
one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we
come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more,
even given a mastery of the country’s language. We do not understand the
people… We cannot find our feet with them… If a lion could talk, we could
not understand him.
In order to understand the lion or any group of enigmatic humans, we have to be party
to their set of meanings. Geertz (2000a, 6-7) deals with this through his account of
‘thick description’. In his example, three boys contract their eyelids, but for radically
different reasons, expressing radically different meanings intelligible only to those
with knowledge of the culturally specific nuances of blinking. He then demonstrates
the real world complexities of culture and its interpretation through his engagement
with the story of Cohen, a Jewish trader in the highlands of central Morocco during
French colonial expansion in 1912. Each of the participants, Cohen, the Berbers, and
the French enters into the conflict with particular codes. In order to understand the
confusion, Geertz (2000a, 9) argues that we have to sort
out the structures of signification… and [determine] their social ground and
import. Here,… such sorting would begin by distinguishing the three unlike
frames of interpretation ingredient in the situation, Jewish, Berber, and French,
and would then move on to show how (and why) at that time, in that place,
their copresence produced a situation in which systematic misunderstanding
reduced traditional form to social farce. What tripped Cohen up, and with him
the whole, ancient pattern of social and economic relationships within which
he functioned, was a confusion of tongues.
With regard to Taylor’s account of culture as mental phenomenon, Geertz is clear that
what is required is comprehension, which must always be social, rather than the more
automaton-like notion of internalization:
To say that culture consists of socially established structures of meaning in
terms of which people do such things as signal conspiracies and join them or
perceive insults and answer them, is no more to say that it is a psychological
phenomenon, a characteristic of someone’s mind, personality, cognitive
structure, or whatever, than to say that Tantrism, genetics, the progressive
form of the verb, the classification of wines, the Common Law, or the notion
of a “conditional curse” (as Westermarck defined the concept of “ar” in terms
3
of which Cohen pressed his claim to damages) is. What, in a place like
Morocco, most prevents those of us who grew up winking other winks or
attending other sheep from grasping what people are up to is not ignorance as
to how cognition works (though, especially as, one assumes, it works the same
among them as it does among us, it would greatly help to have less of that too)
as a lack of familiarity with the imaginative universe within which their acts
are signs. (Geertz 2000a, 13)
This account of culture as ‘interworked systems of construable signs’ means that
‘culture is not a power, something to which social events, behaviours, institutions, or
processes can be causally attributed; it is a context, something within which they can
be intelligibly – that is, thickly – described’ (Geertz 2000a, 14). In this respect, it is
‘best seen not as complexes of concrete behaviour patterns – customs, usages,
traditions, habit clusters’, but ‘as a set of control mechanisms – plans, recipes, rules,
instructions (what computer engineers call “programs”) – for the governing of
behaviour (Geertz 2000a, 44).
This ‘control mechanism’ account of culture makes the claim that our thinking
is, fundamentally, social and public, produced by the words, ideas, symbols, noises
and images with which we are confronted in our daily existence. Culture is the
meaning placed upon experience – the means by which we orient and navigate
ourselves through events (Geertz 2000a, 45) – such that, the dysfunction of Cohen,
the Berbers and the French was the result of the different interpretative schema and
programmes of behaviour experienced and applied by the different parties. In this
respect, we can see Gray’s multiply realizable values as symbolic reference points
within which people navigate their social existence. This, though, begs the question of
why we need culture and why we develop different cultures.
[B] Purpose and function
The second ontological claim invoked by Geertz is the notion that the importance of
culture to humans lies in the evolution of the species.¹ Returning to one of the key
topics in Chapter 1, for Geertz, humans lack the instinctual governing and focusing of
behaviour found in other species:
For man, what are innately given are extremely general response capacities,
which, although they make possible far greater plasticity, complexity, and, on
the scattered occasions when everything works as it should, effectiveness of
behaviour, leave it much less precisely regulated… Undirected by culture
patterns – organized systems of significant symbols – man’s behaviour would
be virtually ungovernable, a mere chaos of pointless acts and exploding
emotions, his experience virtually shapeless. Culture, the accumulated totality
of such patterns, is not just an ornament of human existence but – the principal
basis of its specificity – an essential condition for it. (Geertz 2000a, 45-46)
This position is, I suppose, supported by the various examples of ‘feral
children’ who, finding themselves without meaningful human company, fail to
develop linguistically and often adopt the behaviour of other species within their
environment. From this, Geertz (2000a, 50) argues that humans without culture would
not recognizably be human – that being Icelandic or Aztec or Roman is an essential
precondition of being human – and that culture is the key determinant in human
behaviour, such that ‘men build dams or shelters, locate food, organize their soc
that we have inherited as members of society. All the achievements of human beings as members of social groups can be called culture. Art, music, literature, architecture, sculpture, philosophy, religion and science can be seen as aspects of culture. However, culture also includes the customs, traditions, festivals, ways of living and one’s outlook on various issues of life. Culture thus refers to a human-made environment which includes all the material and nonmaterial products of group life that are transmitted from one generation to the next. There is a general agreement among social scientists that culture consists of explicit and implicit patterns of behaviour acquired by human beings. These may be transmitted through symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiment as artefacts. The essential core of culture thus lies in those finer ideas which are transmitted within a group-both historically derived as well as selected with their attached value. More recently, culture denotes historically transmitted patterns of meanings embodied in symbols, by means of which people communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and express their attitudes toward life. Culture is the expression of our nature in our modes of living and thinking. It may be seen in our literature, in religious practices, in recreation and enjoyment. Culture has two distinctive components, namely, material and non-material. Material culture consists of objects that are related to the material aspect of our life such as our dress, food, and household goods. Non-material culture refers to ideas, ideals, thoughts and belief. Culture varies from place to place and country to country. Its development is based on the historical process operating in a local, regional or national context. For example, we differ in our ways of greeting others, our clothing, food habits, social and religious customs and practices from the West. In other words, the people of any country are characterised by their distinctive cultural traditions.
The word ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’ are often used synonymously. However, they have clearly defined meanings differentiating them. ‘Civilization’ means having better ways of living and sometimes making nature bend to fulfill their needs. It also includes organizing societies into politically well-defined groups working collectively for improved conditions of life in matters of food, dress, communication, and so on. Thus some groups consider themselves as civilized and look down upon others. This disposition of certain groups has even led to wars and holocausts, resulting in mass destruction of human beings. On the other hand ‘culture’ refers to the inner being, a refinement of head and heart. This includes arts and sciences, music and dance and various higher pursuits of human life which are also classified as cultural activities. One who may be poor and wearing cheap clothes may be considered ‘uncivilized’, but still he or she may be the most cultured person. One possessing ostentatious wealth may be considered as ‘civlilized’ but he may not be cultured’ Therefore, when we think of culture, we have to understand that it is different from civilization. As we have seen, culture is the ‘higher levels of inner refinement’ of a human being. Humans are not merely physical beings. They live and act at three levels: physical, mental and spiritual. While better ways of living socially and politically and better utilization of nature around us may be termed as civilization. This is not enough to be cultured. Only when the deeper levels of a person’s intellect and consciouness are brought into expression can we call him/her ‘cultured’.
1.3 CULTURE AND HERITAGE Cultural development is a historical process. Our ancestors learnt many things from their predecessors. With the passage of time they also added to it from their own experience and gave up those which they did not consider useful. We in turn have learnt many things from our ancestors. As time goes we continue to add new thoughts, new ideas to those already existent and sometimes we give up some which we don’t consider useful any more. This is how culture is transmitted and carried forward from generation to next generation. The culture we inherit from our predecessors is called our cultural heritage. This heritage exists at various levels. Humanity as a whole has inherited a culture which may be called human heritage. A nation also inherits a culture which may be termed as national cultural heritage. Cultural heritage includes all those aspects or values of culture transmitted to human beings by their ancestors from generation to generation. They are cherished, protected and maintained by them with unbroken continuity and they feel proud of it. A few examples would be helpful in clarifying the concept of heritage. The Taj Mahal, Swami Narayan Temple of Gandhinagar and Delhi, Red Fort of Agra, Delhi’s Qutub Minar, Mysore Palace, Jain Temple of Dilwara (Rajasthan) Nizamuddin Aulia’s Dargah, Golden Temple of Amritsar, Gurudwara Sisganj of Delhi, Sanchi Stupa, Christian Church in Goa, India Gate etc., are all important places of our heritage and are to be protected by all means. Besides the architectural creations, monuments, material artifacts, the intellectual achievements, philosophy, treasures of knowledge, scientific inventions and discoveries are also the part of heritage. In Indian context the contributions of Baudhayan, Aryabhatta, Bhaskaracharya in the field of Mathematics, Astronomy and Astrology; Kanad and Varahmihir in the field of Physics; Nagarjuna in the field of Chemistry, Susruta and Charak in the field of Medicines and Patanjali in the field of Yoga are profound treasures of Indian Cultural heritage. Culture is liable to change, but our heritage does not. We individuals, belonging to a culture or a particular group, may acquire or borrow certain cultural traits of other communities/cultures, but our belongingness to Indian cultural heritage will remain unchanged. Our Indian cultural heritage will bind us together e.g. Indian literature and scriptures namely Vedas, Upanishads Gita and Yoga System etc. have contributed a lot by way of providing right knowledge, right action, behavior and practices as complementary to the development of civilization.
1.4 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE Now let us discuss some general characteristics, which are common to different cultures throughout the world. 1. Culture is learned and acquired: Culture is acquired in the sense that there are certain behaviours which are acquired through heredity. Individuals inherit certain qualities from their parents but socio-cultural patterns are not inherited. These are learnt from family members, from the group and the society in which they live. It is thus apparent that the culture of human beings is influenced by the physical and social environment through which they operate. 2. Culture is shared by a group of people: A thought or action may be called culture if it is shared and believed or practiced by a group of people. 3. Culture is cumulative: Different knowledge embodied in culture can be passed from one generation to another generation. More and more knowledge is added in the particular culture as the time passes by. Each may work out solution to problems in life that passes from one generation to another. This cycle remains as the particular culture goes with time. 4. Culture changes: There is knowledge, thoughts or traditions that are lost as new cultural traits are added. There are possibilities of cultural changes within the particular culture as time passes. 5. Culture is dynamic: No culture remains on the permanent state. Culture is changing constantly as new ideas and new techniques are added as time passes modifying or changing the old ways. This is the characteristics of culture that stems from the culture’s cumulative quality. 6. Culture gives us a range of permissible behaviour patterns: It involves how an activity should be conducted, how an individual should act appropriately. 7. Culture is diverse: It is a system that has several mutually interdependent parts. Although these parts are separate, they are interdependent with one another forming culture as whole. 8. Culture is ideational: Often it lays down an ideal pattern of behaviour that are expected to be followed by individuals so as to gain social acceptance from the people with the same culture.
1.5 IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE IN HUMAN LIFE Culture is closely linked with life. It is not an add-on, an ornament that we as human beings can use. It is not merely a touch of colour. It is what makes us human. Without culture, there would be no humans. Culture is made up of traditions, beliefs, way of life, from the most spiritual to the most material. It gives us meaning, a way of leading our lives. Human beings are creators of culture and, at the same time, culture is what makes us human. A fundamental element of culture is the issue of religious belief and its symbolic expression. We must value religious identity and be aware of current efforts to make progress in terms of interfaith dialogue, which is actually an intercultural dialogue. As the world is becoming more and more global and we coexist on a more global level we can’t just think there’s only one right way of living or that any one is valid. The need for coexistence makes the coexistence of cultures and beliefs necessary. In order to not make such mistakes, the best thing we can do is get to know other cultures, while also getting to know our own. How can we dialogue with other cultures, if we don’t really know what our own culture is? The three eternal and universal values of Truth, Beauty and Goodness are closely linked with culture. It is culture that brings us closer to truth through philosophy and religion; it brings beauty in our lives through the Arts and makes us aesthetic beings; and it is culture that makes us ethical beings by bringing us closer to other human beings and teaching us the values of love, tolerance and peace
The dictionary defines culture as 'customs and civilization of a particular time or people' and 'intellectual and artistic achievement or expression'. Through time, various thinkers and philosophers have defined and explored the meaning of culture in their own ways. In the 1950s, A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn collected over a hundred definitions of culture. Culture is spoken of as sanskriti in Vedic terms, the word originating from sanskara which is imbued with the sense of a process of enhancement and cleansing. Sanskriti could then be taken to mean a collection of techniques or a system that purifies and elevates Man's existence by showing him how to coexist in harmony with others and teaches him the courtesies of living in human society and the practice philanthropy. It also gathers into its ambit, those values and modes of conduct which bring about refinement and instills those sanskara which will take them on the road to enlightenment and will refine their talents. In his book, Knowledge, Culture and Man, Pritibhushan Chatterji says that culture "means something cultivated or ripened… 'Culture' also refers to some kind of refinement which is born of education and enlightenment." This seems to be very close to culture as envisioned in our ancient Vedic view. Perhaps one of the very first comprehensive statements about culture in the Western world was offered by an anthropologist, Prof. Edward Burnett Tylor who said that culture was a multifaceted set of "knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society". Another anthropologist,William A. Haviland, offered this modern view of culture: "Culture is a set of rules or standards that, when acted upon by the members of a society, produce behaviour that falls within a range of variance the members consider proper and acceptable." Describing culture as both the result and foundation of instruction, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru declared that it was fundamental for the creation and growth of both physical and mental attributes. Cultural historian RaymondWilliams views culture as a whole way of life, or a structure of feeling. In her book Culture and Modernity, Roop Rekha Verma defines culture as "a system of the patterns and the modes of expectations, expressions, values, institutionalization and enjoyment habits of people in general." Sri Rajgopalacharya, a great Indian philosopher and the first Governor General of independent India, said that culture was the collective expression of the thoughts, speeches and deeds of the learned, talented or creative members of a society or a nation. Thus we can see that the various definitions of culture do not lay stress on the outward behaviour that can be observed but on the ethics and ideas from which attitudes and behaviour originate. With so many different perspectives on culture, it is difficult to give one, universal, blanket definition that would cover all aspects because both the meaning and aim of culture is so vast. In culture can be found, the origin and evolution of all the thoughts, customs, objectives and ethics of a particular country or society. It can rightly be said that culture is traditional yet dynamic as it keeps expanding and developing. It is the foundation of the lifestyle of a nation and continuously supports the progress of the members of that society towards a civilized, liberal and enlightened way of life. It is a collection of abstract concepts that have gradually evolved from time immemorial which have contributed to the growth of human society. For any nation, its cultural values form the basis of its progress and its power which can thus, without exaggeration, be called the real wealth of a nation.
The characteristics of culture According to William Haviland, there are four basic characteristics of culture. The first thing we can say about culture is that it is common to a group of people who make up a particular society. It can be said that culture is like an ensemble of signs that every person puts up for the others so that he can be identified in a distinct manner. It marks out and shows how we are different. It is not hereditary but something that is learned after birth during the period of socialization. Culture is the different ways we have of knowing not only others but also ourselves. The culture of urban spaces - the indifference that is so much a part of urbanization - allows an intermingling of various cultures. When two people of different cultures meet and interact in an urban social situation, that space is, in a sense, a sort of no-man's-land and belongs to neither in particular. So, as sociologist George Simmel says, modern, urban culture is as much about indifference as it is about difference. Culture is associated with various symbols such as an image, an object of worship, rituals, texts and artefacts to continue its flow and it is dependent on people following the codes of conventions associated with a specific culture. It is something that is learnt and internalized by that particular community. However, none of these symbols should be confused with the culture itself. They may be the conduit into the processes of a culture but they have meaning, only insofar as, a network of people make use of them in particular ways. In this way, a colour, a stone, a gesture may become a sign.We cannot saythat we can understand a culture merely by looking at its signs. We have to see what part they play in the lives of the people, how they are used - and abused - in their daily lives. It is an amalgamation of social, economic and political features. Cultural historian Raymond Williams refers to culture as a whole way of life, or a structure of feeling. This definition underlies the idea of culture being something that one imbibes, often unconsciously and which influences and shapes all things in your life, your attitudes, how you perceive something, how you react to it etc. Since culture is a collection of rules or signs that regulate our actions and reactions, they can also determine whether or not we are tolerant of differences and how we get along with those of other cultures or with rule-breakers. Some cultures deal strictly with those who break their rules while others, which are more secure about themselves, take such things in their stride. Thus culture, depending on the conventions, place, time etc, can be either closed or open to differences. Quite often, the openness or otherwise of a particular culture is determined by ethical or political factors both towards those on the inside of that culture and towards those on the outside of it. This gives rise to cultural politics and cultural relativism. Culture provides a sense of identity to its members, thus helping them cope with difficulties during times of stress and lends meaning and continuity. Where the forces of capitalism and the marketplace have eroded the sense of continuity due to rapid political and economic changes and, as Karl Marx said, 'all that is solid melts into air, all that is sacred is profaned', culture is the one process that affirms one's sense of self and identity in this increasingly divided and fragmented world of consumerism. Sometimes, there is a conflict between the forces that drive the economy of a nation and the passions that fuel a culture and which view economy as being a supplement to culture and not the other way around. Culture can never be the result of any one single person's initiative or endeavour nor can it be said to be the consequence of any particular incident at any particular time. It is a slow and gradual evolution over epochs and history. Culture is the collected legacy of innumerable ventures, trials and experiences over time as societies and civilizations evolve over time. It is not something that is established or altered within the span of one generation or period but is what slowly develops over a period of centuries. Within the infinite ramifications of culture is encompassed the history of all aspects of all human societies. It registers the movement and waves of thoughts and deeds; the ascent and descent of empires and civilizations; the barriers that came in the way of human progress; the cycles of ruin and regeneration of societies at the social, national and global levels. All and any advancements made - whether in psychology, art, science, politics, economy or dealing with the spiritual realm - are recorded in culture. So we can say that the backbone of any society is its culture. Whether it is the art, traditions, festivals, ceremonies, even dress and food, it is the culture of the community which is a deciding factor. If, for any reason there is any block or interference in the growth and transmission of cultural values, the entire structure of that particular society would change. Civilization can be said to be the external appearance of culture and the two are inextricably connected. Civilization is the expression of culture while culture is the origin and strength of a civilization. If culture cannot exist without people, people also cannot survive without culture. Perhaps it would not be wrong to state that the social function culture performs in a society is its true meaning as it primarily plays the role of expressing, informing and socializing. However, likethe products of culture which mirror a social actuality, so also, we can say that the meaning of culture mirrors a reality that goes beyond factual, prosaic and scientific explanations. For some people, culture is the reflection of a spiritual force that precedes all thought and interaction. Everyone's life is influenced by the culture that surrounds them. If we were to distance ourselves from our culture, our lives would cease to have a direction and flow and it is therefore essential for us to maintain vibrant contact with our cultural heritage. Culture differs according to place, time, community and race and this is natural. However, when a particular culture is founded upon values of universal significance, it expands and lasts even after the society that gave rise to it is wiped out. On the other hand, if a culture has its source in greed or fanatically rigid ideology, it will not stand the test of time and will soon die away. Any culture that is too rigid, does not adapt, or is not dynamic, would be lost. In its truest sense, culture is like a stream or river that flows around obstacles, changing course when needed without stopping its flow. None of the cultures that established their realm over a period of centuries and over different geographical spaces remained static. The secret behind their influence and longevity was their readiness to accept new inputs and to assimilate them all into a harmonious whole.
TYPES OF CULTURE We have 'corporate culture' that refers to the wheeling-dealing world of the corporate sector; there is the 'competitive culture' in educational institutions that encourages the students to give their best; there is 'consumerist culture' which highlights status and spending power and is related to greater material satisfaction; there is 'emerging culture' that is an index of attitudes and behaviour patterns of a specific group. By such free use of this word, it almost appears as though the basic meaning of culture has been lost! Culture may be broadly divided into the following types: 1) High culture
2) Low culture.
3) Popular culture.
4) Folk culture
High culture The term 'high culture' was introduced in English by the Victorian poet-critic, Matthew Arnold through his work Culture and Anarchy (1869). For him, 'high culture' was a force that encouraged moral and political good. He said that this meant to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world" and he defined 'high culture' as the "study of perfection". The poet T. S. Eliot, in his Notes towards the definition of Culture (1948) felt that both high culture and popular culture were essential for there to be a complete culture. Much of 'high culture' pertains to the appreciation of 'high art', a term that includes Literature, Performing Arts, Music and the Visual Arts. What was regarded as being a part of this 'high culture' was that which had mostly been created during a time when the artist had the patronage of wealthy, sophisticated and aesthetically inclined people and was thus able to produce works of art in an atmosphere that was free of financial or other tensions. Hence, the Western concept of 'high art' flows from the Graeco-Roman period and through the Renaissance. Of course, it existed in other societies as well, notably the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, Byzantium, Persia and China etc. 'High Culture' refers to paintings or cinema by the acknowledged masters, classical music or dance and writing that has been established as canons. Although it has been criticized as being elitist and catering only to the educated, urban, affluent class, efforts have frequently been made to involve the general public in exhibitions or concerts that featured 'high culture'. Governments of various countries also promote it by funding museums and libraries and subsidizing theatre or music groups. As access to books and education gradually opened up, academicians took up the study of all aspects of high culture and courses that focus on liberal arts promote this concept although they do not nowadays, use this specific term. In the fields of Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Critical Theory, Sociology, Marxist thought and Postmodernism, the issue of high culture vis-a-vis popular or mass culture has been focused on in a variety of ways. It has also been an important concern in the field of political theory on Nationalism. For instance, Ernest Gellner viewed it as an essential feature in the formation of a composite national identity and he defined high culture as"...a literate codified culture which permits contextfree communication". He distinguishes between various cultures rather than on the differences within a particular culture and contrasts 'high culture' with less complicated, agriculture-based 'low cultures'. Yet another Sociology related, broader, class based concept of 'high culture' defines it as, "taste", under which can be found etiquette, appreciation of fine food and wine etc. It also refers to certain social rules that are meant for the upper class and which are not accessible to the lower classes.
2 Low culture This is a disparaging term, used for some varieties of popular culture and is viewed as the opposite of 'high culture'. Some culture theorists opine that both 'high' and 'low' cultures are subcultures. In the post-Modern era, it often appears that the line of distinction between both has almost been erased. Examples of 'low culture' are kitsch, slapstick, escapist or pulp fiction or cinema and popular music and dance (as opposed to classical music and dance). The Romantic Movement was among the first to take another look at the supposed 'low culture' and re-value it at a time when medieval romances that had earlier been disparaged began to influence literature. 'Low culture' is also another term for popular culture ie, that which has mass appeal. This could include things in society as diverse as gossip magazines or talk shows, sports like football or cricket, film music and books that are currently best sellers or even take-away food.
1.3.3 Popular culture In the fifteenth century, the word 'popular' when used in law and politics, denoted 'low', 'base', 'vulgar' and 'of the common people'. It was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that the word gained the positive connotation of what it is taken to mean today 'widespread' and 'well-liked'. This type of culture, also known as pop culture, as the term suggests, is related to all those activities (along with their associated symbols) that are popular or common. The question which arises is how is this determined? It is determined most often by the mass media which defines and even determines what is popular in the social context - i.e. all that is accepted by the majority of the members of a society. Popular culture is also taken to mean all those cultural factors that are widely prevalent in a particular society and which are transmitted through the local language. Popular culture features constant change and is limited by both space and time. It flows, forms alternative streams and whirlpools which together create values and attitudes that are inter-dependent and influential in various ways. Elements of pop culture may actually diversify or evolve into a separate sub-culture as well. Whatever constitutes popular culture appeals to an extensive section of the public. Popular culture is also often defined as Mass Culture, which is commercially driven, mass-produced and is meant for mass consumption. It can also be termed as the 'authentic' culture because it most reflects the tastes and fashions of the majority of that period. It is often seen as being almost antithetical to the exclusive, elitist 'high culture' and a sign of resistance by the masses. Popular culture has been seen to have emerged from the shift to urbanization after the Industrial Revolution. Popular culture embraces a range of fields from mass media and entertainment to cooking, literature, clothing, sports, fashion, music, etc. and is expressed through circulation in large numbers. It has had great influence on art, notably that which was produced from the fifties onwards in the UK and the USA. It is frequently viewed as superficial, driven by consumerist motives, corrupted (and capable of corrupting), sensationalist in nature and catering to the lowest common denominator and therefore criticized, especially by religious organizations. There is the view that it is debased and inconsequential and one which not only skirts the deep realities of life but also, at the same time, ignores the simple, artless joys of existence. Some works appear to blur the fine line that demarcates 'high' and 'popular' culture and seem to belong to both categories for one or the other reason Folk culture This is the tradition and customs of a particular community or society that is reflected in the local lifestyle. Folk culture is usually transmitted from generation to generation through the oral tradition and is imbued with a strong feeling of community. It also shows up the differences between what used to be done and the new ways of doing it. In earlier times during the pre-industrial eras, folk culture was equivalent to mass culture and hence could also be called the popular culture of that time. Folklore was and is a part of popular culture that is usually spread through word of mouth and in these modern times, through the Internet and SMS, evolving over time and usage. Folk culture is firmly rooted to a sense of place. Even when some elements of it are shifted to a new locale, as in the case of migration, the displaced elements still carry strong connotations of the place of their origin. What distinguishes folk culture from popular culture is that the former places emphasis on looking inward without reference to the outside, unlike the latter. However, it must not be forgotten that folk culture has always influenced both 'popular' and 'high' culture and many features of folk culture have gone on to become an indistinguishable and inextricable part of both these cultures.
Globalization is a natural path for firms that intend to sustain their competitive advantages worldwide. Firms in developed countries extend their operations toemerging economies (e.g. building offshore factories) to achieve strategic advantages.Transferring quality practices from a home country to another country is required toachieve overall business objectives and to consider diverse cultural differences in thecontext of globalization. Successful practices in a home country may not necessarilygenerate similar results to other cultural settings. International comparative studies oncultural differences and quality practices can provide an insight into benchmarkingquality implementation on a global scale. Child and Kieser (1979) present two differentarguments to explain successes and failures associated with cross-cultural applicationsof business practices: (1) the convergence hypothesis; (2) the national specificity argument
The convergence hypothesis states that industrialized countries become morestructurally alike in proportion to the degree of industrialization. On the other hand, thenational specificity argument states that different countries exhibit relatively distinct,persistent cultures. This study takes the viewpoint of the national specificityargument. In fact, much research has supported the national specific argument (Vanceet al., 1992; Harrison and McKinnon, 1999; Frucot and Shearon, 1991; Harrison, 1992).The objective of the study is to find the impact of cultural differences on employeeempowerment and associated quality results. Employee empowerment is an importantpredictor of quality practices and empowered employees improve quality results(Deming, 1986; Lawler, 1992; Cardy, 1996; Sigler and Pearson, 2000). Effectiveorganizations that attempt to empower their employees in the context of total qualitymanagement (TQM) examine their cultures. Otherwise, TQM practices may not bringout desired results (Sigler and Pearson, 2000). For example, most US firms establishedquality circles during the 1980s. However, in contrast to Japan’s effectiveness, they didnot realize long-term benefits from it due to cultural differences (Lawler, 1992).This study, using (Hofstede, 1991) measures of culture, examines four countries todetermine:.a relationship between cultural differences and employee empowerment;.a relationship between employee empowerment and quality results; and.a relationship of culture with quality results in each country.In view of the above objectives, a research model is presented. The following sectionsdescribe a literature review, a research model, testable hypotheses, research methods,statistical testing, and the results. The paper concludes with findings and implicationsfor managers and researchers.A literature review and a research modelA number of researchers have paid attention to research on cross-cultural comparisons.Frucot and Shearon (1991) and Harrison (1992) explain the relationship betweencultures and employee participation. Chow et al. (1991) focus on individualism in theirexperimental study of workflow to compare Singapore with the USA. Vance et al.(1992) study perceptions of management performance systems in the USA, Thailand,Indonesia, and Malaysia. Harrison et al. (1994) conduct cross-cultural comparisonswithin four countries such as Australia, the USA, Singapore, and Hong Kong and findthat power distance and individualism have directional similarities to dimensions ofHofstede (1991) but uncertainty avoidance and masculinity are equivocal. Smith et al.(1996) provide no direct confirmation of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance.Harrison and McKinnon (1999) review cross-cultural research on management control systems.Much research has been conducted to illuminate the relationship between employeeempowerment and performance (Thomas and Tymon, 1994; Spreitzer, 1995; McEwanand Sackett, 1998; Kirkman and Rosen, 1999; Rao et al., 1999b; Steeples, 1992). Thesestudies, however, did not consider national cultural issues.As noted above, one stream of research has explored cultural differences whileanother has focused on the relationship between employee empowerment andquality performance. As these two different streams of research are integratedCulturesHofstede (1991) defines culture as the collective programming of the mind thatdistinguishes members of one society from another. He also measures culture inmultiple dimensions. One important measure of culture is power distance. Powerdistance refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions andorganizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally(Hofstede, 1991). The relationship between a boss and subordinates is interdependentin low power distance cultures. In contrast, less powerful people should be dependenton more powerful people in higher power distance cultures. Subordinates expect to beconsulted in lower power distance cultures, but expect to be told what to do in higherpower distance cultures. Powerful people should try not to look too powerful inlower power distance cultures. In higher power distance cultures, people try to look aspowerful or impressive as possible, since power gives privileges. The role of employeesis focused in low power distance cultures while the role of managers is emphasized inhigh power distance cultures. High power distance cultures tend to respect a hierarchyin an organization (i.e. centralization), whereas low power distance cultures exhibitrelatively a few layers (i.e. decentralization).Another important measure of culture is collectivism. Collectivism refers to asociety in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesivein-groups . High collectivistic cultures typify societies with close tiesbetween individuals and reinforce collectives where everyone takes on responsibilityfor fellow members of the group. Such cultures show a low score on individualismPeople in the collectivistic cultures learn to think in terms of “we”. Harmony andconsensus are ultimate goals. Low collectivistic cultures indicate that individuality andindividual rights are paramount within a society. Such cultures show a high score onindividualism. Individuals in these societies tend to form looser relationships and learnto think in terms of “I”. Self-actualization by every individual is an ultimate goal.Hofstede (1991) develops “Individualism Scores” over 50 countries and three regionsand the paper uses the Individualism Scores as an indication of the degree ofcollectivism.Employee empowermentEmpowerment refers to increased intrinsic task motivation manifested in a set of fourcognitions (i.e. meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) reflecting anindividual orientation to his or her work role (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). This paperdefines employee empowerment as the extent to which groups of employees participatein activities to make a decision of quality, implement quality practices, and takeresponsibility for quality results. The level of employee empowerment represents whata large body of employees perceives their tasks as a group.With increasing automation, the role of human beings is regarded to be uncertainand unreliable and thus is being downplayed. But human beings are a critical source ofimproving quality results and empowered employees will increase efficiency andproductivity (McEwan and Sackett, 1998). Innovative processes have to beemployee-generated and employee-centered. Empowered employees are moreproductive (Locke and Schweiger, 1979), display greater initiative (Thomas andVelthouse, 1990), and are more willing to change and innovate (Spreitzer, 1995).Quality resultsIn this study, we take internal and external quality results as a surrogate for firmperformance. One of the obvious goals of TQM is to improve quality results. Internalquality results refer to the extent to which materials, processes, and products meet thestandard of inner functions of the firm. Steeples (1992) addresses that the first andimmediate goal of most quality management practices is to enhance internal qualityresults. Failures in internal quality results will lead to a significant negative impact ona firm. Examples of internal quality results are reductions in defect, error, scrap andreprocessing rates, short production lead-time, competitive cost, and productivity(Rao et al., 1999b; Steeples, 1992; Deming, 1986).External quality results are the external measure that assesses the degree ofcustomer satisfaction with the organization’s products/services. If a firm delivers goodquality of products or services, it generates satisfied customers, who reward the firmwith continuous customer loyalty and result in external quality results (Rao et al.,1999b; Evans and Lindsay, 1996). External quality results are typified by customersatisfaction, competitive market position, and profitability (Deming, 1982, 1986).Hypotheses developmentUsing hypotheses as a research tool has both strengths and weaknesses. As a way totest a research model, researchers formulate hypotheses. If an analysis of the datagathered is consistent with the hypotheses, this confirmation provides a basis ofsupport for the theory of model. The weakness of using hypotheses may promoteIJQRM23,6610
built-in preconceptions in research. Some qualitative research is deliberately carriedout without stated hypotheses, so that researchers’ preconceptions may not bias theresults (Harris, 1998). In spite of limitations we use hypotheses to test ourunderstanding of the literature-supported relationships.It has been found that the effectiveness of employee empowerment often depends onnational cultures (Child, 1981; Barrett and Bass, 1976). Cultural norms and beliefs arepowerful forces to shape people’s perceptions, depositions, and behaviors (Markus andKitayama, 1991). It can be argued that national cultures will influence employeebehaviors and business practices either directly or indirectly. The failure to takecultural differences between countries into account has beenthe cause of performancelosses (Steenkamp, 2001; Ricks, 1993).Sigler and Pearson (2000) also argue that minimizing differences between managersand employees an emphasis on the basic respect and value of employees. In adecentralized structure, employees freely share decision-makings and activelyparticipate in activities to define and solve problems. A decentralized structureemphasizes the interdependence between management and employees and the focus isthe role of employees (Hofstede, 1991). A decentralized structure also operates in lowpower distance cultures and accordingly people take on more responsibilities forquality results and engage in quality decisions. Power distance is an important culturalinfluence on employee empowerment and low power distance is associated withpositive participation (Frucot and Shearon, 1991).Countries that have more collectivistic cultures will be perceived as more empoweredbecause they emphasize the importance of working for a group. The social support of thecollectivistic cultures should increase perceptions of empowerment, since membersassist to meet organizational goals (Sigler and Pearson, 2000). Collectivism is also animportant influence to employee empowerment and high collectivism is associated withpositive empowerment (Harrison, 1992). Spreitzer (1995) states that group dynamicscontribute to the feeling of empowerment. Thus, we propose the following:H1a. Countries with lower levels of power distance cultures will have higher levelsof employee empowerment.H1b Countries with higher levels of collectivistic cultures will have higher levels ofemployee empowerment.Higher levels of quality results depend on the better use of the talents and abilities of acompany’s workforce (Rao et al., 1999a, b; Steeples, 1992; Harber et al., 1991). Spreitzer(1995) reports a positive relationship between perceptions of empowerment andperformance: employees with a high level of self-perceived empowerment performbetter than those with a low level of self-perceived empowerment. According toKirkman and Rosen (2000), teams with highly perceived empowerment are moreproductive than teams that lack a sense of empowerment. Empowering employees isan important factor contributing to the long-term success of quality management in acompany (Rao et al., 1999b). Empowered employees are key to creating opportunitiesand improving quality (McEwan and Sackett, 1998). Continuous quality improvementprocesses have to be employee-generated and employee-centered. Empoweredemployees are more productive (Locke and Schweiger, 1979), display greaterinitiative (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990), and are more willing to change and innovateCulturaldifferences andquality practices611
(Spreitzer, 1995). Highly empowered employees will have positive effects on the qualityresults of company. Since, employee empowerment is expected to influence bothinternal and external quality results, we propose the following:H2a. Countries with higher levels of employee empowerment will have higherlevels of internal quality results.H2b Countries with higher levels of employee empowerment will have higherlevels of external quality results.MethodologyInstrumentThe national cultural frameworks are from the work of Hofstede (1991) and Schwartz(1994, 1997). Hofstede (1991) develops the most influential national cultural framework,defining four dimensions of cultures – individualism/collectivism, power distance,masculinity/femininity, and uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (1991) also provides thescores of 50 countries and three regions on these four dimensions. Schwartz (1994,1997) develops dimensions to build on national cultures – conservatism/autonomy,hierarchy/egalitarianism, and mastery/harmony. Of these different categories, powerdistance and collectivism (individualism) are chosen because they have received themost attention across studies (Schwatz, 1994; Smith et al., 1996; Harrison andMcKinnon, 1999). Power distance is a substantial cultural influence on reactions toparticipate, with high (low) power distance associated with negative (positive)reactions (Frucot and Shearon, 1991). Collectivism is also a significant influence onparticipation, with high (low) collectivism associated with positive (negative) reactions(Harrison, 1992). These two dimensions of cultures can be more closely related toemployee empowerment. Hofstede’s dataset also contains more countries form Asiaand Latin America and our dataset are compatible to his work.For this research, we target four countries (i.e. Korea, Taiwan, the USA, and Mexico)with two reasons. First, these countries have actively adopted TQM practices and haveengaged close relationships. Korea and Taiwan have maintained close economic tieswith the USA over the past decades. Mexico is geographically very close to the USA.Many US firms expand their operations to Mexico through foreign direct investment oroutsourcing. Second, these countries are culturally dissimilar. Korea and Taiwan arecountries with Asian cultures and are quite different from the USA. The countries arealso successfully developed their economy and achieved higher standards amongAsian countries. Understanding their cultural characteristics will give a number oftheoretical and managerial implications to firms who plan to expand their operations inAsian countries. Mexico is also different from the USA culturally and can showessential characteristics of countries in Latin America. Exploring their culturaldifferences may provide rich theoretical and managerial implications to researchersand firms operating beyond these countries.National culture scales (i.e. power distance and collectivism) were taken fromHofstede (1991). Employee empowerment, internal quality results, and externalquality results were measured with items developed and tested by Rao et al. (1999b).The items chosen are shown in Appendix 1. All items were measured on a 5-pointLikert scale with 1, indicating “Very Low” and 5, indicating “Very High”.IJQRM23,6612
Data collectionThe large-scale survey was used to collect data from four countries with the samequestionnaire. The first questionnaire was designed in English and was used for datacollection in the USA. For other countries such as Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico,questionnaires were translated into local languages. The processes were as follows.The English version of the questionnaire was first translated into Chinese by a native,who has sufficient knowledge of employee empowerment and TQM. Then the Chinesequestionnaire was translated back into English by another Chinese native who hadsufficient knowledge in the areas. The original English version of the questionnairewas compared with the English translation of the Chinese version. Wordings werecorrected based on these comparisons and the final Chinese version was obtained forthe survey in Taiwan. MethodologyInstrumentThe national cultural frameworks are from the work of Hofstede (1991) and Schwartz(1994, 1997). Hofstede (1991) develops the most influential national cultural framework,defining four dimensions of cultures – individualism/collectivism, power distance,masculinity/femininity, and uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (1991) also provides thescores of 50 countries and three regions on these four dimensions. Schwartz (1994,1997) develops dimensions to build on national cultures – conservatism/autonomy,hierarchy/egalitarianism, and mastery/harmony. Of these different categories, powerdistance and collectivism (individualism) are chosen because they have received themost attention across studies (Schwatz, 1994; Smith et al., 1996; Harrison andMcKinnon, 1999). Power distance is a substantial cultural influence on reactions toparticipate, with high (low) power distance associated with negative (positive)reactions (Frucot and Shearon, 1991). Collectivism is also a significant influence onparticipation, with high (low) collectivism associated with positive (negative) reactions(Harrison, 1992). These two dimensions of cultures can be more closely related toemployee empowerment. Hofstede’s dataset also contains more countries form Asiaand Latin America and our dataset are compatible to his work.For this research, we target four countries (i.e. Korea, Taiwan, the USA, and Mexico)with two reasons. First, these countries have actively adopted TQM practices and haveengaged close relationships. Korea and Taiwan have maintained close economic tieswith the USA over the past decades. Mexico is geographically very close to the USA.Many US firms expand their operations to Mexico through foreign direct investment oroutsourcing. Second, these countries are culturally dissimilar. Korea and Taiwan arecountries with Asian cultures and are quite different from the USA. The countries arealso successfully developed their economy and achieved higher standards amongAsian countries. Understanding their cultural characteristics will give a number oftheoretical and managerial implications to firms who plan to expand their operations inAsian countries. Mexico is also different from the USA culturally and can showessential characteristics of countries in Latin America. Exploring their culturaldifferences may provide rich theoretical and managerial implications to researchersand firms operating beyond these countries.National culture scales (i.e. power distance and collectivism) were taken fromHofstede (1991). Employee empowerment, internal quality results, and externalquality results were measured with items developed and tested by Rao et al. (1999b).The items chosen are shown in Appendix 1. All items were measured on a 5-pointLikert scale with 1, indicating “Very Low” and 5, indicating “Very High”.IJQRM23,6612
Data collectionThe large-scale survey was used to collect data from four countries with the samequestionnaire. The first questionnaire was designed in English and was used for datacollection in the USA. For other countries such as Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico,questionnaires were translated into local languages. The processes were as follows.The English version of the questionnaire was first translated into Chinese by a native,who has sufficient knowledge of employee empowerment and TQM. Then the Chinesequestionnaire was translated back into English by another Chinese native who hadsufficient knowledge in the areas. The original English version of the questionnairewas compared with the English translation of the Chinese version. Wordings werecorrected based on these comparisons and the final Chinese version was obtained forthe survey in Taiwan. Similar processes were followed to create the Spanish version forMexico and the Korean version for Korea, respectively.Data were collected from four countries – Korea, Taiwan, the USA, and Mexico. InKorea, 530 questionnaires were mailed to firms based on a list provided from KoreaProductivity Center and Korean Standards Association. A total of 109 companiesresponded to the survey with a response rate of 21 percent. In Taiwan, 500questionnaires were mailed to firms based on a list of manufacturing and serviceenterprises published by the Commonwealth Magazine and a list of manufacturing andservice enterprises published by the Chinese Productivity Center. A total of 131companies responded to the survey with a response rate of 26 percent. In the USA,1,500 questionnaires were mailed based on a list provided by the American Society forQuality in the Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana region. A total of 259 companies respondedto the survey with a response rate of 17 percent. In Mexico, 200 questionnaires weremailed to firms based on a mailing list provided by the Monterrey Institute ofTechnology. A total of 113 companies responded to the survey with a response rate of57 percent. Table I shows demographic features of the sample. In this study, themajority of respondents were from top or middle management. The Mexican sampleshows the younger workforce with a median age of 30 years, while the USA has theolder workforce with a median age of 36 years. Respondents from Taiwan, the USA,and Mexico were mainly from small firms (41, 61, and 70 percent, respectively), whilein Korea, 45 percent of respondents were from large firms. In all the courtiers over twothirds of the respondents belongs to middle and top management levels.Hofstede (1991, p. 54) categorizes countries with the dimensions of individualismand power distance and the index is shown in Appendix 2. In his work, Hofstede putsCharacteristic Korea Taiwan USA MexicoTitle of respondentTop manager (percent) 30 29 24 39Middle manager (percent) 60 52 46 34Other (percent) 10 19 30 27Workforce age (median) 31 33 36 30Number of employeesLess than 500 (percent) 35 41 61 70Between 500 and 1,000 (percent) 30 31 8 8More than 1,000 (percent) 45 27 31 22Table I.Demographic features ofthe sample studiedCulturaldifferences andquality practices613
Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico into one group, “Large power distance and Collectivist”and the USA into another group, “Small power distance and Individualist”. However,in this paper, we divided Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico. The reasoning is as follows.Taiwan and Korea have similar power distance and individualism because thecountries have been affected by Confucianism for a long time, have a similar history ofindustrialization after the World War II, and are geographically, historically, andculturally close. Mexico, however, is significantly different from Korea and Taiwan interms of culture. As such, in this paper, we formed three groups for our analysis –Korea and Taiwan, Mexico, and the USA.AnalysisThe data rigorously tested and validated the various scales across countries (Rao et al.,1999b) and we have reconfirmed the validity and reliability of the scales in this paper.Confirmatory factor analysis was performed using LISREL to test unidimensionalityof the scales (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988). Convergent validity was provided throughan examination of completely standardized coefficients in Table II. The coefficientsdescribe relationships between each observed indicators and its latent construct.Loadings . 0.7 are considered good (Hair et al., 1998). Only one item’s loading isbelow 0.7; ee3(0.64).Discriminant validity was tested by comparing the lowest correlation for aparticular item and any other item within the factor (within factor correlation) tocorrelations of that item and all items outside of the factor (between-factor correlation)(Campbell and Fiske, 1959). If a within-factor correlation is less than a between-factorcorrelation, it is considered as a violation. If the number of violations is less than half ofall comparisons, it is taken as an indication of discriminant validity (Campbell andFiske, 1959). An examination of the correlation matrix reveals a total of 53 violationsout of 110 total comparisons. This supports the claim that there is good discriminantvalidity between the factors. Cronbach (1951)awas computed to assess the reliabilityof each scale.avalues . 0.80 are considered as very good (Nunnally, 1978). As shownConstructsItems Employee empowerment Internal quality results External quality results Errors aee1 0.72 0.48 0.85ee2 0.75 0.44ee3 0.64 0.59ee4 0.83 0.31ee5 0.71 0.49Iqr1 0.77 0.40 0.90Iqr2 0.78 0.39Iqr3 0.79 0.38Iqr4 0.84 0.30Iqr5 0.80 0.37eqr1 0.76 0.43 0.82eqr2 0.82 0.33eqr3 0.75 0.43 is 40. Hofstede’s Power Distance Score of Mexico is 81. The USAexhibits a very lower power distance country, while Mexico represents a very higherpower distance nation. The mean difference of the USA and Mexico in employeeempowerment is 0.1580, which is not significant (F ¼ 2.701, p ¼ 0.101). Therefore, H1ais not supported. Power distance does not have a significant effect on employeeempowerment in the sample of countries studied.H1b examines the relationship between collectivism and employee empowerment.It states that countries with higher levels of collectivistic cultures will have higherlevels of employee empowerment. Hofstede’s Individualism Scores of Taiwan andKorea are 17 and 18, respectively. Hofstede’s Individualism Score of the USA is 91.Korea and Taiwan represent collectivistic countries, while the USA is a veryindividualistic society. The mean difference between a group of Korea and Taiwan andthe USA in employee empowerment is 0.1872, which is significant (F ¼ 6.812,p ¼ 0.009). Results of one-way ANOVA test show that the group of Korea and Taiwanis significantly different from the USA in employee empowerment. Thus, H1b issupported and collectivistic cultures have a significant effect on employeeempowerment in the sample of countries studied.H2a and H2b posit that countries with higher levels of employee empowerment willhave higher levels of quality results. Discriminant analysis was carried out to identifythe impact of employee empowerment on internal and external quality results. Therespondent firms were classified into two categories: the low performing category andthe high performing category. We would like to see the impact of employeeempowerment on two classified categories. The median value of internal or externalquality results was used to create the two groups. Respondent firms were classified asa high performing category as the median value of an individual firm was greater thanthe overall median of the whole group. Discriminant analysis estimates the relationshipbetween a single non-metric dependent variable and a set of metric independentvariables. The primary objective of discriminant analysis is to identify the category towhich an individual belongs and to identify critical discriminating variables. Theapplication and interpretation of discriminant analysis is much the same as inregression analysis; that is the discriminant function is a linear combination betweenindependent variables and a single dependent variable (Hair et al., 1998). The keydifference is that discriminant analysis is appropriate for research problems in whichthe dependent variable is categorical, whereas regression is utilized in case of a metricdependent variable (Hair et al., 1998). Also, one of our objectives is to find successCulturaldifferences andquality practices615
factors for internal and external quality results in each country. Multiple regression isunlikely to explore key success factors, whereas discriminant analysis provides them(Mertler and Vannatta, 2002). For our purpose of analysis, discriminant analysis ismore appropriate.The unweighted group means for each independent variable such as internal andexternal quality results indicated that there were substantial differences between themean ratings of the lower performing and the higher performing categories. Stepwisediscriminant analysis shows that employee empowerment is a significantdiscriminating variable for both internal and external quality results. The Wilks’Lambda values of all discriminant analyses in the model are highly significant for allcountries studied (For internal quality results: 0.685 (Korea and Taiwan), 0.697(Mexico), 0.815 (USA); for external quality results: 0.711 (Korea and Taiwan), 0.641(Mexico), 0.804 (USA)). Therefore, H2a and H2b are supported.Since, the dependent variable is non-metric, it is not possible to use a measure suchas R2, as is done in multiple regression, to assess predictive accuracy. Rather eachobservation must be assessed as to whether it was correctly classified. With multiplediscriminant analysis, the hit-ratio (percentage correctly classified) analogous to R2inregression analysis was used for this purpose. A classification matrix for theobservations was developed – a minimum of 69.9 percent was correctly classified asshown in Table III.Identifying specific success factors for internal and external quality results will helpdistinguish between strengths and weaknesses in each country’s employeeempowerment. For this purpose, two-group stepwise discriminant analysis wascarried out for each country separately and the results are shown in Table IV. It isdiscussed that employee empowerment enhances internal and external quality results.However, critical successful employee empowerment practices are not all the sameacross the countries. For Korea and the USA, quality awareness building amongemployees and employee morale are regarded as key practices to enhance internal andexternal quality results. For Taiwan, implementation of employee involvementprograms, employees’ responsibility for the output, and employee morale are importantelements to improve internal and external quality results. For Mexico, employeeparticipation in quality decision and quality awareness building among employee drivedesired results for internal quality. Quality awareness building among employees andemployee morale improve external quality results. Firms that expand their operations tothe countries may consider each aspects of employee empowerment to achieve desiredquality results.DiscussionResearch on cross-cultural comparisons is hard and some studies are limited todifferences between one or two countries (Mueller and Thomas, 2000). Internationalcomparative studies are difficult due to limited access to data in other countries, highcost of data collection, and lack of reliable secondary data. Even so, cross-culturalstudies are valuable in evaluating the impact of cultural differences on businesspractices and outcomes.Many leading firms in the world expand their operations around the world to takeadvantage of market opportunities. Some firms routinely apply business practices toothers countries without careful considerations of cultural differences. (1999).Another finding from this study is that higher levels of employee empowermentlead to higher levels of internal and external quality results. Many researchers havedeveloped dimensions of TQM (Rao et al., 1999a; Martinez-Lorente et al., 2000). Ofvarious aspects of TQM, human beings should be still considered to be one of the mostimportant factors in order to enhance quality. With increasing automation, the role ofhuman beings has a tendency to be diminished. People, however, manage larger capitalCountry Quality results ItemsKorea Internal quality Quality awareness building among employees ee4Results Employee morale ee5External Quality Quality awareness building among employees ee4Results Employee morale ee5Taiwan Internal quality Implementation of employee involvement programs ee1Results Employees' responsibility for the output ee3Employee morale ee5External quality Implementation of employee involvement programs ee1Results Employees' responsibility for the output ee3Employee morale ee5Mexico Internal quality Employees participation in quality decisions ee2Results Quality awareness building among employees ee4External quality Quality awareness building among employees ee4Results Employee morale ee5USA Internal quality Quality awareness building among employees ee4Results Employee morale ee5External quality Quality awareness building among employees ee4Results Employee morale ee5Table IV.Discriminating variablesof employeeempowerment on qualityresults based ontwo-group stepwisediscriminant analysisresultsIJQRM23,6618
resources, engage in innovative problem solving (i.e. knowledge work), and determinethe bigger impact of business practices. In this environment, employee empowermentis important for quality improvement because it facilitates a sense of ownership fortheir problem discovery and solution. Many global firms need to carefully consideremployee empowerment for better quality results.The last finding from this study is that for each country studied in this paper, thereare specific employee empowerment practices that can improve internal and externalquality results. It is found that successful employee empowerment practices in onecountry do not generate similar results in another country. Cultural patterns andmanners of quality program implementation results have a different impact on qualityresults in different countries. Thus, firms need to carefully select particular aspects ofemployee empowerment to achieve desirable quality results, depending on the culturalpatterns of the country.Some limitations of this research need to be mentioned. First, the generalization ofthese results is limited because the study is conducted in four countries. To more fullyunderstand the empirical generalizability of the extended model, additional research inother countries may need to be conducted, or more cultural and contextual variablesmay need to be included and refined. Second, our study also employed a singleinformant per surveyed organization, seeking self-assessments of quality managementpractices and outcomes. To a certain extent, therefore, the findings are prone to perceptual bias on the part of the respondents.
Conclusion This study examines cross-cultural comparisons on employee empowerment and quality results in four countries. It provides empirical evidence of affirming the rich interelationships among national cultures (i.e. power distance and collectivism),employee empowerment, and quality results (i.e. internal and external quality results).It also provides useful management insights for better implementation oforganizational change programs (e.g. TQM). Hofstede (1991) cultural dimensionshave been extensively invoked by researchers to explain cross-cultural differences.Cultural dimensions (e.g. power distance and collectivism) seem to have importanteffects on employee empowerment. The results of the study support that some culturesare more conducive for employee empowerment than others. Firms increasinglyemphasize productivity gains and higher quality results in the global contexts. Moreattention to the cultural impacts on group behaviors and performance patters may reaprich rewards in terms of effective implementation of business practices andaccordingly outstanding business outcomes.ReferencesAgresti, A. and Finlay, B. (1997), Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, 3rd ed., Prentice-Hall,Upper Saddle River, NJ.Barrett, G. and Bass, B. (1976), “Crosscultural issues in industrial and organizationalpsychology”, in Dunnette, M. (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology,Rand McNally, Chicago, IL.Campbell, D. and Fiske, D. (1959), “Convergent and discriminant validation by themultitrait-multimethod matrix”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 56 No. 1, pp. 81-105.Culturaldifferences andquality practices619
Cardy, R. (1996), “From the editor: introductory statement”, Journal of Quality Management,Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 1-4.Child, J. (1981), “Culture, contingency, and capitalism in the cross national study oforganizations”, in Cummings, L. and Staw, B. (Eds), Research in OrganizationalBehavior,Vol. 3, pp. 303-56.Child, J. and Kieser, A. (1979), “Organizational and managerial roles in British and West Germancompanies: an examination of the culture-free thesis”, in Lammers, C. and Hickson, D.(Eds), Organizations Alike and Unlike: International and Interinstitutional Studies in theSociology of Organizations , Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, pp. 251-71.Chow, C., Shields, M. and Chan, Y. (1991), “The effects of management controls and nationalculture on manufacturing performance: an experimental investigation accounting”,Organizations and Society, Vol. 16, pp. 209-26.Cronbach, L. (1951), “Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests”, Pshyometricka, Vol. 16,pp. 297-334.Deming, W. (1982), Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position, MIT Center for AdvancedEngineering Study, Cambridge, MA.Deming, W. (1986), Out of the Crisis, MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study, Cambridge,MA.Evans, J. and Lindsay, W. (1996), The Management and Control of Quality, 3rd ed., WestPublishing Co, Cincinnati, OH.Eylon, D. and AU, K. (1999), “Exploring empowerment cross-cultural differences along the powerdistance dimension”, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 23 No. 3,pp. 373-85.Frucot, V. and Shearon, W. (1991), “Budgetary participation, locus of control, andMexican managerial performance and job satisfaction”, The Accounting Review, Vol. 66,pp. 80-99.Gerbing, D. and Anderson, J. (1988), “An updated paradigm for scale developmentincorporating unidimensionality and its assessment”, Journal of Marketing Research ,Vol. 25, pp. 186-92.Hair, J., Anderson, R., Tatham, R. and Black, W. (1998), Multivariate Data Analysis withReadings, Prentice-Hall, New York, NY.Harber, D., Marriot, F. and Idrus, N. (1991), “Employee participation TQC: an integrative review”,International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 8, pp. 24-34.Harris, M. (1998), Basic Statistics For Behavior Science Research, 2nd ed., Allyn and Bacon,Boston, MA.Harrison, G. (1992), “The cross-cultural generalizability of the relation between participation,budge emphasis and job related attitudes”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 17,pp. 1-15.Harrison, G. and McKinnon, L. (1999), “Cross-cultural research in management control systemsdesign: a review of the current state”, Accounting Organizations and Society, Vol. 24,pp. 483-506.Harrison, G., McKinnon, J., Panchapakesan, S. and Leung, M. (1994), “The influence of culture onorganizational design and planning and control in Australia and the United Satescompared with Singapore and Hong Kong”, Journal of International FinancialManagement and Accounting, Vol. 5, pp. 242-61.Hastings, D. (1999), “Lincoln electric’s harsh lessons from international expansion”, HarvardBusiness Review, Vol. 77 No. 3, p. 163.IJQRM23,6620
Hofstede, G. (1991), Cultures And Organizations: Software of the Mind, McGraw-Hill, New York,NY.Kirkman, B. and Rosen, B. (1999), “Beyond self-management: the antecedents and consequencesof team empowerment”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 58-74.Kirkman, B. and Rosen, B. (2000), “Power up teams”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 28 No. 3,pp. 48-65.Lawler, E. (1992), The Ultimate Advantage: Creating the High Involvement Organization,Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.Leavitt, H. (1996), “The old days, hot groups and manager’s lib”, Administrative ScienceQuarterly, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 288-300.Locke, E. and Schweiger, D. (1979), “Participation in decision-making: one more look”, Researchin Organizational Behavior, pp. 265-339.McEwan, A. and Sackett, P. (1998), “The human factor in CIM systems: worker empowermentand control within a high-volume production environment”, Computers in Industry, Vol. 36,pp. 39-47.Markus, H. and Kitayama, S. (1991), “Cultural and the self: implications for cognition, emotion,and motivation”, Psychological Review, Vol. 98 No. 2, pp. 224-53.Martinez-Lorente, A., Dewhurst, F. and Gallego-Rodriguez, A. (2000), “Relating TQM, marketingand business performance: an exploratory study”, International Journal of ProductionResearch, Vol. 38 No. 14, pp. 3227-46.Mertler, C. and Vannatta, R. (2002), Advanced and Multivariate Statistical Methods: PracticalApplication and Interpretation , 2nd ed., Pyrczak, Los Angeles, SC.Mueller, S. and Thomas, A. (2000), “Cultural and entrepreneurial potential: a nine countrystudy of locus of control and innovativeness”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 16,pp. 51-75.Nummally, J. (1978), Pshsychometric Theory, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.Rao, S., Raghu-Nathan, T. and Solis, L. (1999a), “The best commonly followed practices in thehuman resource dimension of quality management in new industrializing countries: thecase of China”, India and Mexico, International Journal of Quality & ReliabilityManagement, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 215-25.Rao, S., Solis, L. and Raghu-Nathan, T. (1999b), “A framework for international qualitymanagement research: development and validation of a measurement instrument”, TotalQuality Management, Vol. 10 No. 7, pp. 1047-75.Ricks, D. (1993), Blunders in International Business, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA.Schwartz, S.H. (1994), “Cultural dimensions of values: towards an understanding of nationaldifferences”, in Kim, U., Triandis, H., Kagitcibasi, C., Choi, S. and Yoon, C. (Eds),Individualism and Collectivism: Theoretical and Methodological Issues, Sage, ThousandOaks, CA, pp. 85-119.Schwartz, S.H. (1997), “Values and culture”, in Munro, D., Carr, S. and Schumaker, J. (Eds),Motivation and Culture, Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 69-84.Sigler, T. and Pearson, C. (2000), “Creating an empowering culture: examining the relationshipbetween organizational culture and perceptions of empowerment”, Journal of QualityManagement, pp. 27-52.Smith, P., Dugan, S. and Trompenaars, F. (1996), “National culture and the values oforganizational employees – a dimensional analysis across 43 nations”, Journal ofCross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 27, pp. 231-64.Culturaldifferences andquality practices621

the relationships will yield interesting insights that may have been overlooked before. As part of the effort, Sigler and Pearson (2000) find the relationships among cultural differences, employee empowerment, and performance at the orga

distinguishes members of one society from another. He also measures culture in
multiple dimensions. One important measure of culture is power distance. Power
distance refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and
organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally
(Hofstede, 1991). The relationship between a boss and subordinates is interdependent
in low power distance cultures. In contrast, less powerful people should be dependent
on more powerful people in higher power distance cultures. Subordinates expect to be
consulted in lower power distance cultures, but expect to be told what to do in higher
power distance cultures. Powerful people should try not to look too powerful in
lower power distance cultures. In higher power distance cultures, people try to look as
powerful or impressive as possible, since power gives privileges. The role of employees
is focused in low power distance cultures while the role of managers is emphasized in
high power distance cultures. High power distance cultures tend to respect a hierarchy
in an organization (i.e. centralization), whereas low power distance cultures exhibit
relatively a few layers (i.e. decentralization).
Another important measure of culture is collectivism. Collectivism refers to a
society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive
in-groups (Hofstede, 1991). High collectivistic cultures typify societies with close ties
between individuals and reinforce collectives where everyone takes on responsibility
for fellow members of the group. Such cultures show

groups, or find sexual partners under the guidance of instructions encoded in flow

charts and blueprints, hunting lore, moral systems and aesthetic judgments:
conceptual structures moulding formless talents’. While Geertz emphasizes, more
clearly, the definitional role of the particular than the universal in outlining his
account of the distinctive feature of the species, there remain implicit features which
are compatible with the thread developed thus far in the eudaimonic account of
wellbeing and the normative theory of social goods. In particular, there is the notion
that culture, itself, is a means by which humans realize their intrinsic features:
When seen as a set of symbolic devices for controlling behaviour,
extrasomatic sources of information, culture provides the link between what
men are intrinsically capable of becoming and what they actually, one by one,
in fact become. Becoming human is becoming individual, and we become
individual under the guidance of cultural patterns, historically created systems
of meaning in terms of which we give form, order, point, and direction to our
lives. And the cultural patterns involved are not general but specific – not just
“marriage” but a particular set of notions about what men and women are like,
how spouses should treat one another, or who should properly marry whom;
not just “religion” but belief in the wheel of karma, the observance of a month
of fasting, or the practice of cattle sacrifice. Man is to be defined neither by his
innate capacities alone, as the Enlightenment sought to do, nor by his actual
behaviours alone, as much of contemporary social science seeks to do, but
rather by the link between them, by the way in which the first is transformed
into the second, his generic potentialities focused into his specific
performances. It is in man’s career, in its characteristic course, that we discern,
however simply, his nature, and though culture is but one element in
determining that course, it is hardly the least important. As culture shaped us
as a single species – and is no doubt still shaping us – so too it shapes us as
separate individuals. This, neither an unchanging subcultural self nor an
established cross-cultural consensus, is what we really have in common.
(Geertz 2000a, 52)
This is in keeping with Gray’s notion of culture as the realization of value and
wellbeing and, at least in part, with the notion, outlined in the capabilities approach,
of the essential part played by society in the development of our most distinctive
features. While there is certainly scope for individual differences explicable through
neurological and genetic diversity, it seems reasonable to suggest that, as humans, it is
our social life which gives great substance to the shape we take as particular human
beings. While this may appear to grant support to anti-foundationalist attempts to
disavow the possibility of any evaluation of culture, examination of the reasons for
our need for culture leads us back to evaluative possibility.
For Geertz (2000a, 49), echoing Gray’s concern for adaptation to
circumstance, culture played an integral role in enabling humans to deal with a
number of problems in a number of environments. Unlike many other species, human
beings are able to exist in a great multitude of environments due to their capacity to
shift from genetic to cultural means of adaptation and alloplasty. As Norbert Elias
(1978b, 108-109) puts it, ‘Animals of the same species always form societies of the
same type, except for very slight local variations… Human societies on the other hand
can change without any change occurring in the species – that is, in the biological
constitution of man’: Human ‘“Behaviour” means adjustment to changing situations’.
5
What is implied is that humans have a set of innate needs, requirements or capabilities
which must be satisfied or realized in order for the species to exist. Culture enables us
to satisfy these in different circumstances.
A crude account of this notion has typically been associated with functionalist
analysis. According to Malinowski, for example, functionalist enquiries are attempts
‘to define the relation between a cultural performance and a human need – For
function can not be defined in any other way than the satisfaction of a need by an
activity in which humans cooperate, use artefacts, and consume goods’ (Malinowski
1944, 38-39). This view takes, at its starting point, not irreducible diversity, as in anti-
foundationalism but, what are seen to be, objective human categories. This suggests
that Geertz’s emphasis on difference and unintelligibility masks a significant aspect of
the human condition, in which, beneath diversity lies ‘a vast apparatus, partly
material, partly human and partly spiritual, by which man is able to cope with the
concrete, specific problems that face him’ (Malinowski 1944, 36). While humans,
unlike other species, have few specific, instinctual responses to environmental
pressures, the general response capacities and the pressing biological needs which
remain, lead humans to broad categories of action. As Malinowski (1944, 36-38) puts
it,
Human beings are an animal species… subject to elemental conditions which
have to be fulfilled so that individuals may survive, the race continue and
organisms one and all be maintained in working order… [Man] has to create
arrangements and carry out activities for feeding, heating, housing, clothing,
or protection from cold, wind, and weather. He has to protect himself and
organize for such protection against external enemies and dangers, physical,
animal, or human. All these primary problems of human beings are solved for
the individual by artefacts, organization into cooperative groups, and also by
the development of knowledge, a sense of value and ethics… In order to
achieve any purpose, reach any end, human beings have to organize…
[Organization] implies a very definite scheme or structure, the main factors of
which are universal in that they are applicable to all organized groups, which
again, in their typical form, are universal throughout mankind. (Malinowski
1944, 37-38)
This means that functionalism is focused on an institutional understanding of
culture, with analysis directed towards the specific forms in which universal social
means of satisfying needs are realized. Through this method, institutions are seen to
be organizations for the collective pursuit of some socially agreed upon purpose in
some socially agreed upon manner. Prima facie, this ties in neatly with the notion,
outlined in the previous two chapters, that human beings are fundamentally social and
have needs which can only be satisfied socially. The belief, here, is that culture is the
means by which humans satisfy their needs in specific circumstances, constituting ‘an
integral composed of partly autonomous, partly co-ordinated institutions’, ‘integrated
on a series of principles such as the community of blood through procreation; the
contiguity in space related to cooperation; the specialization in activities; and last but
not least, the use of power in political organization’, in which ‘Each culture owes its
completeness and self-sufficiency to the fact that it satisfies the whole range of basic,
instrumental and integrative needs’ (Malinowski 1944, 40). In order to understand ‘a
culture’, we have first to analyse, interpret and categorize its institutions and the ways
in which it responds to needs.
6
In dealing with these institutions, Malinowski (1944, 91) begins by outlining a
series of putative basic needs and necessary cultural responses: 1) Metabolism and
Commissariat; 2) Reproduction and Kinship; 3) Bodily Comforts and Shelter; 4)
Safety and Protection; 5) Movement and Activities; 6) Growth and Training, and 7)
Health and Hygiene. The cultural responses are social in nature and are seen as
meeting specific needs. So long as a culture is not ‘on the point of breaking down or
completely disrupted,… we find that need and response are directly related and tuned
up to each other’. People ‘under their conditions of culture wake up with their
morning appetite ready, and also with a breakfast waiting for them or else ready to be
prepared. Both appetite and its satisfaction occur simultaneously’ (Malinowski 1944,
94).
While the notion of culture as a means of promoting fundamental human
interests is appealing, functionalism of the sort developed by Malinowski is extremely
problematic. There is, of course, the issue of identifying and defining accurately
genuine needs at both a biological and social level (see Malinowski 1944, 93), while
the claim that the nature of certain responses to particular needs is uniform is putative
– Malinowski’s (1944, 95) belief, that ‘in any society the act of eating happens within
a definite institution’ and place, being indicative. Perhaps the most significant risk,
analytically, is the assumption that institutions serve some fundamental human end of
importance to each human being. As Sen and Nussbaum have suggested, there are
many cases in which this assumption is false, with certain cultural forms serving
particular, pernicious ends. There is the danger, simply, that functionalist analysis can
be circular, leading to misleading and unfalsifiable accounts of particular institutions
which may actually undermine, say, the satisfaction of needs. Moreover, in
Malinowski’s case, there is simultaneously a neglect of the co-ordinating, explicative
features of culture highlighted by Geertz, and a treatment of ‘cultures’ as integrated,
self-sufficient, almost isolable wholes.
One attempt to deal with elements of these issues is apparent in the shift from
the functionalism of Malinowski into the structural-functionalism of the likes of
Talcott Parsons. In approaches such as this, the focus lies not on the biological but on
the social function of institutions. By this, societies are analogous to individual human
beings, requiring their own stability, equilibrium and self-perpetuation, pursuing
interests which may or may not correspond to those of specific people (Giddens 1976,
127-128; see Durkheim 1993, 45). This view of society as an organism with
independent agency and reality was inherited, in part, from the work of Durkheim
(1981, 66; 1982, 129). Parsons (1982, 113-117), mirroring elements of Gray and
Maslow, believes that people appear to seek certainty of role, expectation and
function. This focus on identity and interaction places emphasis on the role of culture
as a mediator of goods, without specifying the nature or quality of those goods. These
assumptions are both conservative and organicist.
Without controls over ‘anti-social’ belief and behaviour, society is seen to face