La Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE): un proyecto modélico

In many countries throughout the world today, just as there were in the Eastern European countries in the 1990s, a number of transformations are taking place which involve political democratization and liberal capitalization (Lynham and Cunningham, 2006). The degree of openness of the Libyan market remains comparatively limited, but as was previously mentioned there are a number of encouraging signs that the government is pursuing a more conciliatory approach towards foreign businesses. In Libya today there is a new government. As an outcome of such transformations social changes are becoming apparent which may hinder national human resource development or cause it to prosper. Simultaneously these new democracies are under pressure from various institutions ranging from the International Monetary Fund, through the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, to adhere to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which impose often impossible barriers to their entry into the global marketplace (Lynham and Cunningham, 2006). Government leadership have offered their support for redressing inequalities and promoting the need to partner with other institutions (notably industry) to develop the requisite labour and people skills. These skills are needed to grow and develop social, human, cultural, transformational, and physical capital to meet national goals and aspirations in a sustainable manner (Lynham and Cunningham, 2006).

In his work with IBM in 66 countries across the world, Hofstede (1980, 1991, 1997 and 2001) identified four dimensions of cultural difference between nations and clustered cultures according to, whether they were high or low on a number of dimensions. He labelled them as: ‘Power-distance’, ‘Uncertainty avoidance’, ‘Individualism- collectivism’ and ‘Masculinity-Femininity’. Hofstede then produced a ranking of countries and regions that participated in his study, allocating a score for each of the four dimensions, and thereby allowing for comparisons to be made across cultures, with respect to behaviour in the workplace, such as for instance: attitudes towards working

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conditions, security of employment, working in a co-operative environment, having a well-defined job, preferred type of managerial style, the best way to get ahead, conflict, hierarchical structures, and rules. Interestingly for this current research, whilst Hofstede grouped a number of countries together to create his category of Arab countries, Libya was one of those included, so his analysis provides a strong starting point for any discussion of Libyan culture. Countries from East, and West Africa, were also treated regionally to provide the following clusters:

Arab Countries: Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. East Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia.

West Africa: Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone.

Table 3.1 shows the index scores and ranks for these regions, from which it can be seen that the Arab countries score extremely high on Power Distance, with an index of 80 (compare with the UK which scores 35), high on Uncertainty Avoidance, scoring 68 (UK score 35), low on Individualism scoring 38 (UK 89), and relatively low on Masculinity, scoring 53 (UK 66).

Table 3.1: Index Scores and Ranks for the Arab Countries and East, and West Africa Country Power Distance Uncertainty Avoidance Individualism Collectivism Masculinity Femininity Long/Short Term Orientation Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Arab Countries 80 7 68 27 38 26-27 53 23 East Africa 64 21-23 52 36 27 33-35 41 39 25 28-29 West Africa 77 10-11 54 34 20 39-41 46 30-31 16 33 Source: (Hofstede, 2001 p. 500)

A fifth dimension of culture can be seen in Table 3.1, this being Long/Short-Term Orientation. This was not identified in Hofstede’s original research, but was later seen in the Chinese Values Survey (McSweeney, 2002; Bei Yu and Egri, 2005). Essentially, this dimension (Hofstede, 2001 p. 351)

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“…opposes long-term to short-term aspects of Confucian thinking: persistence and thrift to personal stability and respect for tradition; “

This dimension includes philosophical themes, expressing the extent to which virtuous living is seen as a worthy goal, independent of any religious justification. The Arab countries were not included in the research with the Chinese Value Survey, although some Muslim countries were, in which case Bangladesh scored 40, and Pakistan scored 0 showing the lowest score of the 23 participating countries, while China scored 118. Nevertheless, since Libya shares some cultural characteristics with other African countries, it is useful to be aware of the rankings in this respect which, as shown in Table 3.1, are very low, at 25 and 16 for East Africa, and West Africa respectively. The cultural relevance of religion is minimised by (Hofstede 2001), who believes that religious affiliation is less culturally relevant than is often assumed. Humphreys (1996), however, perceived religion to be the major source of cultural perspective, whilst testing Hofstede’s dimensions with Egyptian and British respondent’s he shows his results in Table 3.2

Table 3.2 : Culture Dimensions Responses

Source: Humphreys, 1996:36).

As Libya shares some cultural characteristics with other African countries especially Egypt it is possible to paint a picture of culture from Hofstede’s four dimensions. According to Humphreys, (1996) there is a moderate power-distance index that indicates the less powerful person in society accepts inequality in power and considers it normal. There is a high uncertainty avoidance index which means that in Libyan society strict codes of behaviour are adopted and there is strong a belief in absolute truths. As was previously mentioned Libya has a very collective culture this is reflected in the

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extremely low individualism index which shows that collectivism is seen to operate and people perceive themselves as, belonging to one or more cohesive groups like family or tribe from which they cannot detach themselves. Libyan society as whole, according to the moderate masculinity index, places social values between the masculine which emphasise a work ethic expressed in terms of money, achievement and recognition and the feminine social values, which show more concern for people and quality of life.

There are many differences in national culture characteristics in cross cultural comparisons between eastern and western countries (Lok & Crawford, 2004). A number of previous studies suggest that organisational culture is significantly influenced by the national culture at which the organisation is located (Tata & Prasad, 1998; Lindholm, 2000). In their research Lok and Crawford (2004) investigated the effect of organisational culture and leadership style on job satisfaction and organisational commitment in Australian and Hong Kong. Their results showed that although the Australian managers surveyed were innovative and supportive and were satisfied in and committed to their organisation. There were no significant differences between the Australian and Hong Kong managers’ results with regard to bureaucratic organisational culture or their consideration and initiating of leadership styles. These findings are of interest because studies carried out previously suggested that the cultural influence of Confucian values, high power distance, autocratic decision making style, and family ownership in Chinese firms would provide a stronger bureaucratic culture and initiating structure leadership style in the organisation. In his research Lindholm (2000) wanted to find out to what extent the practices and processes of human resource management (HRM) can be transferred from one country to another. The most significant conclusion from his research for the purposes of this study is the fact that he states the need to examine the style of setting job objectives in high power-distance countries. Furthermore he states that practices related to the conveying of performance feedback and to using performance evaluations also require further study. Finally Lindholm (2000) believes his work demonstrated that further research should focus on individual HRM practices, in the international and/or multi-national (MNC) context. According to Lindholm (2000) there have been a number of researchers who applied Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to their studies and found them useful in understanding cultural differences and the transferability of management practices.

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