Page 169 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 145

just as many poor as there are wealthy masculine, or feminine, countries.
So, wealth is no clue on which to base one’s values, and this fact unsettles

people. In several research projects, the influence of MAS became evident

only after the influence of wealth had been controlled for.
From the six major replications of the IBM surveys described earlier
in Table 2.1, five found a dimension similar to masculinity-femininity. The

sixth, Shane’s study among employees of six other international companies,
excluded the questions related to MAS because the dimension was consid-
ered offensive. What is not asked cannot be found. In Søndergaard’s review
of nineteen smaller replications, also mentioned in Chapter 2, fourteen
confirmed the MAS differences. This in itself is a statistically signifi cant

result. 5
Schwartz’s value study among elementary school teachers produced a

country-level mastery dimension that correlated significantly with MAS. 6
Mastery combines the values ambitious, capable, choosing own goals, daring,
independent, and successful, all on the positive pole. These values clearly
confirm a masculine ethos. 7

Robert House, when designing the GLOBE study, meant to replicate
the Hofstede study, but he did not go as far as using the taboo terms mascu-
linity and femininity. Instead, GLOBE included four other dimensions with
potential conceptual links to Geert’s masculinity versus femininity dimen-
sion: assertiveness, gender egalitarianism, humane orientation, and performance
orientation. Across forty-eight common countries, the only GLOBE dimen-

sion significantly correlated with MAS was assertiveness “as is,” but we
came closer to our MAS dimension with a combination of assertiveness “as
8
is” and assertiveness “should be.” GLOBE did tap the assertiveness aspect
of our MAS dimension, although in a diluted form.
From the other potentially associated GLOBE dimensions, gender

egalitarianism, both “as is” and “should be,” correlated not with MAS but
with our IDV. In Chapter 4 some aspects of gender equality in society (men
make better leaders; women should be chaste, but men don’t need to be)
were shown to relate to collectivism. Gender equality has a lot to do with
women’s education level, which relates strongly to national wealth and
therefore indirectly to individualism. The relationships of women’s and
men’s roles to the MAS dimension, as this chapter will show, are more on
the emotional level.