Taking another look at the elephant: Are we still (half) blind? Comments on the cross-cultural analysis of achievement motivation by Sagie et al. (1996)
✍ Scribed by RAN LACHMAN
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 107 KB
- Volume
- 18
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0894-3796
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
cross-cultural comparison of the structure and strength of achievement motivation is representative of the growing and increasingly popular line of comparative cross-cultural-and cross-national' research. It is not surprising, given the growing interest in cultural diversity, globalization, and other culture crossing processes, that incorporating culture as an explanatory factor in comparative studies is gradually becoming a research tradition'. Underlying it is the fundamental issue of whether work-related behavior, or modes of organizing, are culture-free' or `culture-bound'. Exploring this issue can provide important insights and can signi®cantly contribute to our understanding of organizational processes. Therefore, endeavors to relate cultural settings to individual, group, or organizational behavior that take place within them, ought to be encouraged and applauded.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the studies that follow this tradition adopt an approach that does not discern whether or not culture is indeed a relevant explanatory factor. The most prevalent approach in this stream of research is to focus on statistical comparisons of a set of variables that were measured in samples drawn from dierent countries. Observed dierences, or lack of dierences, are then attributed to presumed cultural dierences among the samples. Yet, the direct impact of culture, or any speci®c dimension of it, is not considered. As a result, research following this approach can only point at sample dierences in the variables measured. It cannot suggest, certainly not establish, the impact of culture on the observed cross-sample dierences.
In spite of continuing criticisms this approach has been widely adopted. Calling attention to the existence of national dierences is important. But, cross-cultural research ought to do more than that. It should focus on the cultural connection': that is, investigate the direct, speci®ed eects (if any) of culture and the processes through which they are exerted. In conducting cross-cultural, comparative research without focusing on culture and its direct impact on the compared variables, we may be mimicking the six blind men of the famous fable who were looking' at an elephantÐif I may reiterate the allegory Karlene Roberts used for this purpose as early as 1970. I wonder if we are still blindly grasping only parts of the `cultural elephant', developing a misconception of it.