Page 552 - Cultures and Organizations

Glossary 517

DIMENSIONAL MODEL: a set of dimensions used in combination to describe
a phenomenon.

EMPOWERMENT: the process of increasing employees’ influence on their
work situation.

ETHNOCENTRISM: applying the standards of one’s own society to people
outside that society.

EVOLUTION: a process in which generations of a replicator (e.g., gene, indi-
vidual, or group) produce surplus descendants with small variations, and
some of these produce more offspring than others; in other words, less
successful variants are weeded out by natural selection.

EXCLUSIONISM: the cultural tendency to treat people on the basis of their

group affiliation and to reserve favors for groups with which one identi-

fies, while excluding outsiders. Together with its opposite pole, universal-
ism, this is one of Misho Minkov’s WVS-based dimensions of national
cultures.

EXTENDED FAMILY: a family group including relatives in the second
and third degree (or beyond), such as grandparents, uncles, aunts, and
cousins.

FACE: in collectivist societies, a quality attributed to someone who meets
the essential requirements related to his or her social position. To “give
face” means to show due respect for that position.

FACE VALIDITY: a property of a research item in a questionnaire that seems
to measure exactly what the wording of the item suggests, rather than
something hidden and that can be revealed only after an analysis of the
research results.

FACTOR ANALYSIS: a statistical technique designed to assist the researcher
in explaining the variety in a set of observed phenomena by a minimum
number of underlying common factors. The phenomena that are combined
in a factor will be strongly correlated.
FEMININITY: the opposite of masculinity; together, they form one of the
dimensions of national cultures. Femininity stands for a society in which
emotional gender roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be
modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.