The Cross‐National Study of Management and Organisation

Abstract

There can be no doubt that the particular political, economic and social conditions which pertain in a given society will substantially affect the nature of the managerial task, the way organisations are structured and the extent to which participation and consultation are used in work organisations. Within a single society such as Britain it is often difficult to fully understand the peculiarities of that society and the way they provide opportunities or constraints on managerial and organisational behaviour. Adopting a wider perspective and studying these phenomena in a variety of different national contexts can often make obvious such implications. On this basis a number of researchers in the Department of Business Administration and Accountancy at the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology have carried out research on these phenomena in a variety of different countries. Although many of the individual projects have been located solely in individual countries, in combination they allow a broad comparative perspective to be utilised to aid in our understanding of such factors as the implications of decentralised decision‐making, implications of joint consultation and the efficacy of management development programmes. Research has now been carried out in a substantial number of developed and developing countries and is currently being extended to a range of others differing in terms of culture, economic and political conditions, ideological beliefs etc.