Budget emphasis, participation, task difficulty and performance: the effect of diversity within culture

Abstract

Recent research on the impact of national culture on control systems had overlooked two important aspects. First, while cross-cultural studies have saturated mainly Anglo-American and Asian nations, other important cultural regions, such as the Nordic cultural group, have largely been overlooked. More importantly, the impact of the diversity within national culture, brought about by the diversity of the population, in terms of ethnic background, religion, language and egalitarianism, has also not been considered. With a low power distance and moderate individualism culture, and relatively centralised and formalised industrial relations systems which emphasise democratic work environment, Norwegian managers' budgetary participation is expected to be high. More importantly, as the Norwegian culture is old and the society homogeneous in terms of ethnic background, religion and egalitarianism, the diversity within the Norwegian culture is likely to be much lower than those of the newer, and much more ethnically diverse, societies.such as Australia and Singapore. Consequently, Norwegian managers' participation is expected to range from medium to high, rather than from low to high. Since high participation situations are common in Norway, prior studies' findings pertaining to high participation situations are expected to be supported in Norway. In contrast, since low participation situations are rare in Norway, prior studies' findings pertaining to low participation are unlikely to be supported in Norway. These expectations are supported by the results of this study.