Brendan McSweeney

Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith - a Failure of Analysis

Geert Hofstede’s legendary national culture research is critiqued. Crucial assumptions which underlie his claim to have uncovered the secrets of entire national cultures are described and challenged. The plausibility of systematically causal national cultures is questioned.

Dynamic Diversity: Variety and Variation Within Countries

National models of social action over-privilege continuity and uniformity. They discount change — which they lack the capacity to explain (other than through exogenous shocks) — and neglect diversity within countries. This paper focuses on the national culture model which it argues requires commitment to illogical arguments and to suppositions which are theoretically and empirically untenable. An evaluation of each, it is argued, points to the existence of, and possibilities for, considerable national diversity and change — not pervasive and enduring national uniformity. Reflecting on the model’s rise and fall in anthropology, the paper also provides an outline explanation of its retention within organization studies and speculates about its future within that discipline.

Are we living in a post‐bureaucratic epoch?

Purpose – According to an extensive and growing literature, we are in the twilight of bureaucracy. The labels applied to the supposed new organizational form include: post‐bureaucratic; post‐modern; post‐hierarchical; and the virtual organisation. The purpose of this paper is to consider the various claims for “epochal” change by evaluating the supporting and contrary evidence.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on evidence on the reform of the UK Civil Service over the last few decades to show the intensification of bureaucracy.Findings – The paper takes issue with the “epochalist” visions of sudden transformation which have underpinned much of the comment on post‐bureaucracy, arguing that the concept of post‐bureaucracy is analytically blind to the diversity and complexity of contemporary organizational change.Originality/value – Locating the debate on post‐bureaucracy in the broader political economy of Neo‐Conservatism reveals an authoritarian dimension which has been absent from most commen...

THE UNBEARABLE AMBIGUITY OF ACCOUNTING

Abstract The paper argues that neither current, nor reformed, accounting can make unambiguous representations, but concludes that the pursuit of that unrealizable ideal is nonetheless perfectly real and eminently productive. Two significant texts in which the claim of judgement-free accounting (accrual or cash-flow) is privileged are analysed. Their attempts to explain, as distinct from simply assert, the possibility are shown to require a series of self-cancelling rhetorical moves. A number of implications of the analysis are then considered. In contrast with some prior literature which has concluded that a general abandonment of the myth of unambiguous accounting representations is both desirable and possible the article argues, in a discussion of the notion of a “regulative ideal”, that there is no necessary link between their critiques and the action they advocate.

Fashion founded on a flaw The ecological mono-deterministic fallacy of Hofstede, GLOBE, and followers

Purpose – To comment on Brewer and Venaik’s review of the misapplication of the national culture dimensions of Hofstede and GLOBE at the individual and other sub-national levels. This paper supports and extends their critique. Design/methodology/approach – The implausibility of deterministic claims about the multi-level power of national culture is described and discussed by drawing on a wide range of disciplines (including anthropology, geography, sociology, and historiography). Findings – Descriptions of the characteristics and origins of sub-national level behaviour based on a priori depictions of national culture values are invalid and misleading. Practical implications – There are important implications for practitioners. The paper highlights the unsoundness of descriptions of the sub-national (individuals, consumer segments, organizations, and so forth) which are derived from national-level depictions of culture and the dangers of ignoring the independent causal influence of non-national culture and non-cultural factors. Originality/value – The ecological fallacy in the national culture literature is located within a wider and long-standing critique of that fallacy. The paper is the first to show that the fallacy in the national culture literature is often an extreme causal version. It not merely supposes cross-level equivalence, as in the standard version, but more aggressively, it attributes deterministic power to national culture thus excluding other independent influences and agency.

Looking forward to the past

Abstract The paper considers whether financial reports of the past can be based exclusively on measurements of past events or whether imagining future events is a necessary condition for such measurements. Using an idealised notion of a factual account of each event completed at the moment at which the event occurs, the analysis brackets out arguments about the incomplete or constructivist character of accounting representations. Notwithstanding the assumption of immaculate perception, the paper demonstrates that accounts of the past require unexpungible assumptions about hypothetical future events. Retrospection requires anticipation. Difficulties which commitment to anticipation-free financial reporting generates is illustrated in a discussion of three discourses about accounting. A description of financial reporting time which goes beyond a mere chronological characterisation is outlined.

Structure or agency? Discourse or meta‐narrative? Explaining the emergence of the financial management initiative

Considers why different explanations of the same event can be produced and discusses the characteristics of a good explanation. It identifies and analyses a wide range of different published explanations of a seminal public administration policy‐change. It separates those accounts of that event into families of explanations and describes their common underlying presuppositions. These shared presuppositions are used to construct four models of public policy‐making: sovereign policy‐makers; policy‐makers as relays; policy‐making as the personal; and the discursive construction of policy. Each explanation (and its conceptual model) is challenged by historically grounded counter‐evidence. Based on this analysis the paper suggest ways in which analysis of public management changes might be more fruitfully orientated.

Value for Money Auditing: Some Observations on its Origins and Theory

In both academic discourse and political debate, increasing reference has been and is being made to ‘value for money’ as a benchmark against which the performance of local authorities, and other parts of the public sector, can be judged. The phrase, value for money, implies that there exists a knowable and appropriate, even ideal, relationship between the inputs a local authority consumes and the outputs it provides, between its accomplishments and the monetary expenditure incurred in achieving them.

The pursuit of maximum shareholder value: Vampire or Viagra?

Companies (and countries) which make maximization of shareholder value, that is shareholder wealth, the central aim of corporate governance perform better, it is claimed, than those which additionally acknowledge the rights of other interests—such as employees and the environment. The superior performance, it is said, not only increases shareholder wealth but also creates more corporate growth, improved returns for employees, and welfare and economic benefits for society at large. The ‘rising tide lifts all boats’. The pursuit of maximum shareholder wealth is, Bughin & Copeland (1997) state, “a virtuous cycle”. Maximizing shareholder wealth is therefore justified not only as consequence of ownership but on grounds of economic efficiency and wider social gains. Not surprisingly these claims are contested. How is the “virtuous cycle” supposed to be achieved? Usually it is said through three processes: efficient allocation of scarce economic resources; providing an effective mechanism for monitoring and rewarding top management; and internalizing maximum shareholder value as the basis for decision-making within companies. Each of these claims is considered.

Collective cultural mind programming: escaping from the cage

Purpose – Although vanquished in anthropology, the notion “national culture” as a set of unique, shared, closed, enduring, coherent, determinate subjective values has been repopularized in management by Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE), Hofstede, and Trompenaars (the Trio). The purpose of this paper is to critique the Trio’s representation of culture and its purported consequences. Design/methodology/approach – Identifies the essential similarity of the Trio’s work by describing seven propositions they share. Drawing on research from multiple disciplines it critiques a number of these propositions. Findings – The Trio’s representation of culture functions as a conceptual cage which confines analysis to misleading and impoverished explanations of organizational and other social action. Originality/value – By describing and critiquing some of the metaphorical “bars” of the Trio’s emasculating “cage” it opens further the possibility of richer and relevant cultural research.