4.6 IMPACTOS 4.6.1 – Impacto social.

Obotetukudo (2001) argues that Africans as individuals do not know how to maximize opportunities to benefit oneself, but rather, take actions that benefit the community as a whole. The author asserts further that, in Western Europe and America the concept of the self resides in the individual, whereas in Africa the self is inseparable from the community and evolves in the company of others. In the USA the ideology of individualism is more important than society; African cultures do not, however, share this concept of individualism. Health decisions, for example, are made by a society, family, or a group and not by individuals (Ludwick and Silva, 2000).

The most commonly used dimension in discussing cultural differences is the individualism-collectivism contrast (Suh, 1999). In collectivist cultures people are “interdependent within their in-groups (family, tribe, nation, etc.), prioritize the goals of their in-groups, shape their behaviour primarily on the basis of in-group norms, and behave in a communal way” (Mills and Clark, 1982, quoted in Triandis, 2001:909). In collectivist cultures, the concern is particularly placed on relationships (Triandis, 2001).

In individualist societies individuals function largely independently from their in-groups. They prioritize their personal goals over the goals of their in-groups and they behave primarily on the basis of their attitudes rather than the norms of their in-groups (Triandis, 2001:909). Triandis (1989) found that in surveys aimed at examining

the attitudes of people in individualist cultures, such as those of North and Western Europe and North America, there was a high probability of people emphasizing elements of the personal self (for example, ‘I am kind’). People from collectivist cultures, such as those of Asia, Africa and South America, tend to emphasize elements of the collective self (for example, ‘my family thinks I am kind’).

Halman and Muller (2006) introduced into the formula the relationship between individualism and materialism and they concluded that, contrary to their expectation, people in more individualistic societies tended to stress extrinsic work orientations. This implies a correlation between individualism and materialism.

In a South African study, Mann (1962) compared the values of a group of black, coloured, and Indian students at the University of Natal (Durban) with those of white participants. He found that the group of black students, when compared to the whites, preferred community-related values to private ones and favoured public well- being and democratic values.

Watkins and Mauer (1994), using a British measure of achievement motivation, found that the typical structure of work values found in a sample of white managers was absent among black managers from South Africa. The findings showed that, with the exception of values relating to mastery skills, black managers did not possess typical Western performance values. This was explained by the historical exclusion of South African black people from human resource practices; for example, performance appraisal for incentives and

promotions. Watkins and Mauer (1994:82) concluded that this lack of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards hampered the development of performance values among blacks. They refer to Moerdyk (1986), who reported that most whites were also educated in values related to the PWE in which the accumulation of wealth is justified as opposed to blacks, who were raised to believe in the concept of sharing or ‘Ubuntu’. Orpen (1978) reported that black South African employees who had lived in a city for a long time and had been influenced by Western attitudes and lifestyles scored higher on a measure of the PWE than those from rural areas who had more traditional attitudes.

Theron and Strydom (1966) found that Zulu-speaking South Africans had a greater preference for conformity than whites, who preferred independence. They attribute this tendency to conform on the part of Zulus to Ubuntu, whose major principle is an orientation towards others. Independence on the part of the white South Africans, and perhaps whites in general, can be linked to individualism.

Although collectivism is the opposite of individualism, a degree of both is also common where elements of both cultures are borrowed and applied according to different situations. Triandis (2001) warns that not everybody in an individualistic culture will have all the characteristics of that culture. He also states that there are as many varieties of collectivism and individualism as there are collectivist and individualist cultures. Moreover, there are many other dimensions defining varieties of individualism and collectivism. Most importantly, he notes that, as cultures interact, the possibility of acculturation increases, resulting in changes in some domains, which

include job behaviour, while other domains may remain unchanged, including religious or family life.

Such variations cannot be ignored. For example, Harvey, Carter and Mudimu (2000) — in a study that compared work values and motives among Zimbabwean and British managers — report that, while traditional values are important in managerial motivation in Africa, there is also need for autonomy and self-fulfilment, values that are characteristic of Western societies. They also report high levels of bureaucracy in organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa but these same highly structured organizations are characterized by some mutually- understood ground rules about “when, how and by whom the regulations may be bypassed” (Harvey et al., 2000:725, citing Lamb, 1990). Yet, for Western managers, such ground rules may be hard to understand as they reflect different sets of values. They quote Munro (1986) and state, “an interaction of value systems is occurring in Africa …(and) ...indigenous theories (of work motivation and values) have not emerged and research methods that embody African values remain to be invented” (Harvey et al., 2000:726). This observation is supported by Harries (1997), who in his review of Atkins’s (1993) book, “The moon is dead! Give us our money!”, explains that the author related the phenomenon of migrant workers, who left their rural homes and entered the labour market, with a strict work ethic that their “culturally arrogant employers” were frequently unable to grasp. Atkins referred to this as a misunderstanding that underlies the struggle over labour. Harries points out that “Africans who refused to subject themselves to a work regime that ignored the parameters of their culture were simply regarded as lazy by their racist employers”

(Harries, 1997:668). To Atkins, he states, failure to relativise the virtues of indigenous culture resulted in conflicts between white employers and their African employees. More recently, Sartorius, de la Nuez and Carmichael (2011), confirm the importance of traditional humanist values in the workplace in Mozambique.

A further concern, voiced by Ludwick and Silva (2000), on the possibility of a coexistence of a diversity of values is that, although diversity is accepted as positive in today’s workplace, individual workers can experience conflict and confusion where too many value systems are at play. It remains perplexing as to what the best scenario should be!