Page 193 - Cultures and Organizations

He, She, and (S)he 169

enrichment as once defended, among others, by U.S. psychologist Freder-
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ick Herzberg. An example is making workers on simple production tasks
also responsible for the setting up and preventive maintenance of their
machines, tasks that had previously been reserved for more highly trained
specialists. Job enrichment represents a “masculinization” of unskilled and
semiskilled work that, as shown earlier in this chapter, has a relatively
“feminine” occupation culture.
In feminine cultures, a humanized job should give more opportunities
for mutual help and social contacts. Classic experiments were conducted
in the 1970s by the Swedish car and truck manufacturers Saab and Volvo
featuring assembly by autonomous work groups. These groups represent a
reinforcement of the social side of the job: its “femininization.” In 1974 six
U.S. Detroit automobile workers, four men and two women, were invited to
work for three weeks in a group assembly system in the Saab-Scania plant
in Södertälje, Sweden. The experiment was covered by a U.S. journalist
who reported on the Americans’ impressions. All four men and one of the
women said they continued to prefer the U.S. work system. “Lynette Stew-
art chose Detroit. In the Cadillac plant where she works, she is on her own
and can make her own challenge, while at Saab-Scania she has to consider
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people in front and behind her.” Of course, this was precisely what made
the group assembly system attractive to the Swedes.
Based on their cultural characteristics, masculine and feminine coun-
tries excel in different types of industries. Industrially developed mascu-
line cultures have a competitive advantage in manufacturing, especially in
large volume: doing things efficiently, well, and fast. They are good at the

production of big and heavy equipment and in bulk chemistry. Feminine
cultures have a relative advantage in service industries such as consulting
and transportation, in manufacturing according to customer specifi cation,

and in handling live matter such as in high-yield agriculture and biochem-
istry. There is an international division of labor in which countries are
relatively more successful in activities that fit their population’s cultural

preferences than in activities that go against these preferences. Japan has
a history of producing high-quality consumer electronics; Denmark and
the Netherlands have a history of excellence in services, in agricultural
exports, and in biochemical products such as enzymes and penicillin.
Table 5.5 is a continuation of Tables 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4, summarizing the
key issues from the past section on which masculine and feminine societies
differ.