National Cultures, Information Search Behaviors and the Attribution Process of Cross-National Managers: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Cross-cultural management researchers have observed that when presented with similar ethical dilemmas and problems, managers raised in different cultural environments exhibit divergence in their perceptions, interpretations, and eventual solutions. Why does this happen? Our framework attempts to integrate theoretical concepts from the international management and organizational behavior literature to explain variances in managerial information search patterns and attribution processing arising due to national cultural differences. Based on the work of Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, we propose that managers belong to one of two types of national cultures. The first emphasizes Universalism, Specificity, and Dominance over nature (USD) while the second assigns importance to Particularism, Diffuseness, and Subjugation (PDS). When faced with a situation/dilemma, which may have an ethical component, USD and PDS managers differ when it comes to: ○ The weighting, importance and amount of emphasis placed on the three types of information (Consistency, Consensus, and Distinctiveness) used to make attributions. ○ A tendency to focus heavily on those information types, or alternately, to search for external environmental factors. ○ Thus, the above process guides the manager's attribution process to assign causality of an event to either the primary actor(s) involved OR to factors in the external environment. Managers in different cultures may examine a situation, and through the attribution process, arrive at completely different conclusions regarding whether an action is unethical, or whether ethics even have a role. Our framework will enable managers to understand the impact of cultural differences in dealing with ethical situations involving multiple cultures.