Power distance at work: The cases of Turkey, successor states of the former Soviet Union and Western Europe.

Abstract

The present study investigates power distance in a number of countries which have seen dramatic changes in their political systems in the past and developed an orientation towards the West (Turkey, Belarus, and Uzbekistan). The present paper is mainly based on Hofstede’s framework (1980a, 1980b, 1991, 1994 and 1997) where dichotomies such as “high/low power distance” or “high/low uncertainty avoidance” are used to describe national business cultures. The factor power distance is chosen because power is closely related to politeness strategies (e. g., Brown and Levinson 1987(1978), Spencer-Oatey 2000 and Holmes and Stubbe 2003). In total 236 questionnaires were distributed to business students in the countries under investigation. The main question is whether political and social change in a country leads to a change in power distance relationships at work or whether underlying values such as power distance prevail over time. The present study shows that, despite the fact that the countries involved have made enormous efforts to adapt to the Western market economy, local cultural values still play an important role. This is equally true for countries that changed their political orientation relatively recently (within the past two decades: Belarus and Uzbekistan), and for a country that had already changed its political system more than 80 years ago (Turkey). Despite all these political and socio-economic changes local cultural values prevail over time, and cross-cultural research in human behaviour (including politeness) is only possible if these cultural differences are taken into account.