Principales defectos de los cueros lanares

Chapter one has explained that tha research is a cross-natlonal study, involving two countries, Singapore and Britain. A starting point would

be to examine the theories in the field of comparative management. The - 8 7 -

dominant position In comparative management Is that some forms of functions or behaviours are universal while others are culture-bound

or contextual (Adler, 1983b). The researcher's prime task Is to differentiate between these two categories.

Historically, there was a bias towards universal Ism because In the period between 1971 and 1980, 80 percent of the single-culture studies

were conducted In the United States and by Americans; most of the cross-cultural management studies replicate what has been done In the

West or use the concepts and Instruments derived from western cultures (Adler, 1983b). What has also added to the universal 1stlc bias Is that 'good' comparative survey is very costly and the time and effort Involved In sectioning relevant concepts from a sample of cultures and developing an Instrument meaningful across the cultures can be difficult. What Is also Interesting, according to Khln (1988) Is that most researches done In the last 15 years are concerned with the cross-cultural study of managerial values which Is an aspect of cross- cultural social psychology (Halre et. al, 1966; Hofstede, 1984a). The commonly-held notion Is that culture-related studies are unsuitable for comparison across cultures, which also contributes to this universaltstlc bias.

The economic success and efficiency of Japan stirred new interest In

their use of traditional methods and practices which were previously thought obsolete. The further study of ways to apply traditional management principles and methods to improve productivity and efficiency In other "backward" countries encouraged the emergence of a new cultural school. Maruyama (p.100, 1984) asserted that

"Large-scale, complex business planning and management existed In the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and several other parts of the world. In our age there has been a misconception that theories of business and management are something new, or

that tha anciant theories and methods would be useless In modern business."

The n e w cultural school emerged with tha move from tha universal 1stlc

approach of the European a n d North American <ENA> theories to Aslan (Maruyama, 1984), African (Camara, 1975) or Arabic theories. According to Maruyama (1984), the studies on Japan and Africa are challenging the epistemological foundation of management theories and the applicability of western management principles in the West to the oriental setting. Tha key difficulty Is the linear thinking and

Arlstotelean logic In western concepts as opposed to the non-linear thinking and non-Arlstotelean logic represented for example, in the Japanese and the Mandenka concepts. In Maruyama's view (p.108, 1984), ENA theorists misinterpret Aslan and African concepts like the heterogenlstic logic and the polyocular vision, and they have come up with a dimensionally reduced interpretation

"In the sense that a three-dimensional object Is reduced to a two-dimensional shadow".

The ENA epistemology Is built on a one-dimensional continuum (in the sense of geometry) between homogenlstlc hierachy and random, Independent Individualism, and "everything Is supposed to fit

somewhere in this continuum". An example of a misinterpretation Is the Japanese sense of "conformity" which corresponds to the English word

"flexibility", but the American sense of "conformity" implies "rigidity and inability to change". This point Is further elaborated using the African study by Camara (1975): The study found that In the Mandenkan culture,

"each person heterogenlzas himself/herself through these different activities, and learns to see the same situation f rom different points of view.... The Mandenka are afraid of westernization which locks a person Into one Job and makes him/her incapable of seeing a situation from other persons' points of view" (p.102, Maruyama, 1984).

The heterogen 1st ic logic and polyocular vision (explained In Chapter 1) does recommend the rejection of the 'elther/or* approach to the convergence and divergence perspectives on cross-cultural management studies. As explained In Chapter 1, there is empirical evidence to

support both perspectives but none more strongly than the other. This has led me to take the view that both are probably correct. One can expect to f i n d commonalities In organizational structures and processes as well as differences at the individual level. In the same way, Adler <1986) has argued that the debates surrounding

'convergence' (Harblson and Myers, 1959; Likert, 1963; Webber, 1969; Lammers and Hickson, 1979; Child, 1981; Levitt, 1983) and 'divergence* (Oberg, 1963; Fayerweather, 1965; England and Lee, 1974, Laurent, 1983, Rojek, 1986) theories In cross-cultural management literature emerged because of the perspective or level of focus of the researcher.

The heterogen 1st ic logic and the benefits of having opposite views which includes the polyocular vision (Maruyama, 1984) strengthen the position of t his research which accepts the place of the foregoing

divergent perspectives. In the ENA cultures, heterogeneity Is often considered to b e a source of conflict while homogeneity supposedly fosters peace. According to Maruyama (p.101, 1984), In non-ENA cultures,

"heterogeneity Is the source of mutually beneficial, positive-sum, 'wln-wln' co-operation, while homogeneity Is regarded as a source of competition and conflict". His view Is that this Is more scientific and ecologically correct. For

example,

"Animals convert oxygen Into carbon dioxide, and plants do the opposite. In so doing, animals and plants help each other. T h e richness of life on the coral raef or In the tropical rain forest Is due to the heterogeneity of s p e c i e s ... if there were some animals whoa no other organisms ate, there would be an Intolerable accumulation of corpses."

In the same way, a new type of efficiency emerged from the

heterogenlstic logic that naxlalzes mutually beneficial combinations of Individual differences or combines diversity in a mutually beneficial way, the principle of the polyocular vision explained in Chapter one, uses different points of view to harness enriching information. In other words, the dlaletlcal stance adopted helps to gain enrichment in knowledge by building on the strengths of opposing

theories.

The main hypothesis is that there are similarities and differences in responses to the change process in like organizations in the two countries. This is based on empirical studies mentioned above. The research also adopted the concept of having three layers of perspective or focus to facilitate my investigation and analysis: microlevel which looks at the behaviour of people within the organizations on an inter-company basis, mesolevel which views from an inter-economic sector perspective and macrolevel which views from an inter-country perspective. It is from these different perspectives that similarities and differences are expected to be elicited.

1.2 Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Methodology textbooks have outlined two traditional schools of thought in social sciences about where methods should be derived; they are positivism and phenomenology. Positivism stresses that

"firstly, reality is external and objective; secondly, that knowledge is only of significance if it is based on observations of this external reality"

<p. 22, Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Lowe, 1991).

Phenomenology on the other hand is concerned about reality, which is socially constructed rather than objectively determined; the focus is

"therefore to try to understand and explain why people have different experience, rather than search for

external causes and fundanental laws to explain their behaviour" (p. 24, Easterby-Smith et. al., 1991).

While there are two sources to derive methods for this study, there are strengths and weaknesses In using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The combined strength of both methods to unravel universal Ism and particularism In the study was attractive because of the twofold purpose In the thesis. The first Is the broad study of responses towards a change, in particular, what managers find helpful

or difficult In a change. The second purpose Is the ln-depth study of the role of communication, commitment and power In a change episode. What was clear Is that adopting either extremes of methods would not enable the gathering of data of wide coverage as well as richness and depth. The particular yield of data for the study therefore persuaded the researcher's use of a combination of quantitative and qualitative

methods.

Khin (1988) found an emerging consensus among organization theorists towards accommodating differing schools of thought In the field. For

example, Morgan (1983) in his book on various methodological approaches to the study of organizations argued for a more reflective social science rather than a search for a fixed framework. While he appreciated the role of each paradigm whether It be the positivist or the interpretative, he also encouraged the understanding of the merits

of diversity and conversing with alternative view points (Morgan, 1983). Maruyama (1984) advocated the mixing of methods and an approach that mixes paradigms. There are also examples of quantitative and

qualitative methods that have been used to combine different forms of data to good effect (Fielding and Fielding, 1986); for example, a study on the National Front in Britain.

The quantitative approach was applied to achieve the first purpose of

the study because of the advantage of studying responses to a wide range of variables in a variety of circumstances or situations. In view of the pressures of tine and money, a statistical package was used to process the volume of data collected from the two countries In

a quick and relatively inexpensive way. The quantitative methods have their disadvantages of being Inflexible and artificial, and not being as effective In understanding processes or the significance people attach to actions; nonetheless, because the initial purpose is broad and general, the deficiencies of the quantitative methods would be

minimised and augmented by combining methods (Legge, 1984).

Besides analyzing and studying the breadth of data from the two countries, the aim was also to tap into the richness and depth in ay study. Given the constraints of time and resources, three variables were selected to probe In depth by qualitative means. The writers on change have identified 'Communication1 (Johns, 1973: Plant, 1987; Kanter, 1988), •Commitment' (Hall et. al, 1970; Sheldon, 1971; Hreblnlak and Alutto, 1972; Buchanan, 1974; Porter et. al, 1974; Etzlonl, 1975; Salancik, 1977; Bartolomé and Evans, 1979; Romzek,

1989) and 'Power' (Handy, 1988; Kanter, 1988; Daft, 1989; Greiner and Scheln, 1989) as Important variables in the change process. The prime Intention of the study is to gain both the breadth and the depth of data from the two countries within the limitations of time and resources; In other words, 'to have the best of both worlds'. To this end, the methodology is designed to Include both quantitative and qualitative methods.

The qualitative approach was used to Investigate the role of conmunlcatlon, commitment and power In a change process, to understand the respondents' meanings and to adjust to Issues and Ideas as they

e »erge. The approach also seemed a natural and appropriate way to gather perceptual data for understanding the change process In the two countries. Miles (p.590, 1979) outlined the merits of qualitative data as being

"rich, full, earthy, holistic, "real",; their face validity seems unimpeachable; they preserve chronological flow where that Is Important, and suffer minimally from retrospective distortion; in principle, they offer a far more precise way to assess causality In organizational affairs than arcane efforts like statistical methods. Furthermore, their collection requires minimal front-end instrumentation and qualitative data is capable of producing more powerful analyses"■

The obvious disadvantage with qualitative methods is that the data collection took up a great deal of time and resources, and the analysis and interpretation of data Is laborious. Miles <p.590, 1979)

also pointed out the overload caused by volume of notes, the time required for write-up, coding and analysis. A more serious drawback Is that qualitative methods of analysis are not well formulated.

There are potential weaknesses In the quantitative a n d the qualitative methods from the start but the strategy of adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods is to maximise their combined strengths. Both

qualitative method and quantitative method have their place in organizational research (p. 630, Downey and Ireland, 1979) and the foregoing discussion has demonstrated that to some extent. The pertinent questions of appropriate tools for the research must be resolved, as expressed, by the ultimate aims and purpose of this

research.