Page 160 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 139

The second dimension came to be labeled masculinity versus femininity.
It was associated most strongly with the importance attached to the fol-
lowing work goal items:

For the masculine pole
1. Earnings: have an opportunity for high earnings
2. Recognition: get the recognition you deserve when you do a good
job
3. Advancement: have an opportunity for advancement to higher-level
jobs
4. Challenge: have challenging work to do—work from which you can
get a personal sense of accomplishment

For the opposite, feminine pole
5. Manager: have a good working relationship with your direct superior
6. Cooperation: work with people who cooperate well with one another
7. Living area: live in an area desirable to you and your family
8. Employment security: have the security that you will be able to
work for your company as long as you want to

Note that the work goal challenge was also associated with the individual-
ism dimension (Chapter 4). The other seven goals are associated only with
masculinity or femininity.
The decisive reason for labeling the second work goals dimension mas-
culinity versus femininity is that this dimension is the only one on which the men
and the women among the IBM employees scored consistently differ ently (except,
as will be shown, in countries at the extreme feminine pole). Neither power
distance nor individualism nor uncertainty avoidance showed a systematic
difference in answers between men and women. Only the present dimen-

sion produced such a gender difference, with men attaching greater impor-
tance to, in particular, work goals 1 and 3 and women to goals 5 and 6. The
importance of earnings and advancement corresponds to the masculine,
assertive, and competitive social role. The importance of relations with
the manager and with colleagues corresponds to the caring and social-
environment-oriented feminine role.
As in the case of the individualism versus collectivism dimension, the
eight items from the IBM questionnaire do not cover all there is to the dis-