Page 351 - Cultures and Organizations

316 CULTURES IN ORGANIZATIONS

ment in France, Germany, and Great Britain. According to the criteria set
by the U.S. designers of planning and control systems, British managers
did a better job of strategic planning than their German and French coun-
terparts; the latter two focused on details and short-term feedback. Yet the
national economies of France and Germany at that time did at least as well
as those of the United Kingdom and the United States. Mintzberg, himself
a Canadian, has expressed strong skepticism about the effects of strategic
21
planning. Rituals are effective for those who believe in them.
Following are some of the ways in which national power distance
and uncertainty avoidance affect planning and control processes in
organizations: 22

■ Higher PDI supports political rather than strategic thinking.
■ Higher PDI supports personal planning and control rather than
impersonal systems. The higher in the hierarchy, the less formal the
planning and control.
■ Lower-PDI control systems place more trust in subordinates; in
higher-PDI cultures such trust is lacking.
■ Higher UAI makes it less likely that strategic planning activities are
practiced because these activities may call into question the certain-
ties of today.
■ Higher UAI supports a need for more detail in planning and more
short-term feedback.
■ Higher UAI implies leaving planning to specialists.
■ Higher UAI implies a more limited view of what information is
relevant.

When companies go international, their planning and control systems

continue to be strongly influenced by the national culture specific to the

company. European researchers Anne-Wil Harzing and Arndt Sorge col-
lected information on how multinationals controlled their subsidiaries’ per-

formance. The decisive influence was the home country of the multinational,
not the subsidiary. It explained the variations in the use of both impersonal
control by systems and personal control by expatriates. 23
National cultures are also reflected in the role of accountants in orga-

nizations. Not only managers and management professors but even accoun-
tants are human; moreover, they play a particular role in the culture of a
society. 24