Advanced Mathematical Decision Making Answer Key

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Decision making is an act of processing information

related to a problem (or problems) and a situation (e.g.,

external demands and key stakeholders) in order to

arrive at a judgment. The information to be processed

is based on what is salient and objectively presented,

as well as the context in which the information is

extracted. Together, the salient information and contex-

tual factors activate schemas1 that guide how people

think through the decision dilemma. The fact that

researchers even study decision-making processes sug-

gests that decision making can be controlled, that it is

boundedly rational, and that people can learn to be

more efficient and effective decision makers.2 Most

commonly, a boundedly rational economic model influ-

ences the decision-making process. Arriving at a deci-

sion requires the decision maker to weigh the risks and

benefits of various options and derive a decision that

compares potential losses against potential gains.3

For the most part, people in the West tend to think of

decision making as a linear process that takes the deci-

sion maker from a point of problem perception, identifi-

cation, and formulation, through to actions that include

searching for and evaluating alternatives, and finally to

making the best choice from among those alternatives

given the information available.4 This view is quite

appealing to IT professionals, who have been trained

to methodically plan, design, develop, test, and main-

tain complex systems following a well-established

structured pattern. However, decision making is actu-

ally not so clear-cut. Numerous factors, including the

availability of choices, the extent of the decision maker's

accountability, relationships among stakeholders (e.g.,

who is affected by the decision, how important the deci-

sion is to a person's reputation), recognition of familiar

patterns, and how people construct the narrative (i.e.,

explain a situation to themselves), are all consciously or

unconsciously considered.5-7 Moreover, cultural context

shapes the degree to which these additional factors

affect the decisions made, whether or not a person

acknowledges that culture plays a role in decision

making. Together, such factors influence how people

make sense of events.

SENSEMAKING

Sensemaking is a process in which a person strives to

understand and give meaning to experiences.8 A per-

son's past experiences, the extent to which he identifies

with the event, and cultural values all influence the

meaning he imposes on a situation.9 In an organiza-

tional context, an individual makes sense of events on

the basis of organizational goals; the person's position,

tenure, and education; expectations that others have of

the decision maker; past communications with others

in the organizational setting; observations of the conse-

quences of others' decisions; and how other decision

makers make decisions. Decision makers also attend

to that which is not stated, and cultural context often

dictates the meaning of what is not said. By identifying

both what is addressed and what is not, it is possible

to infer a culture, including an organization's culture.

For example, it is easy to detect when an organization

has a low tolerance for ambiguity, because people at

all levels will be asking many questions or discussing

potential alternative choices before coming to a deci-

sion. The challenge lies in identifying the cultural

attribute when no questions are asked, particularly if

discourse is through computer-mediated communica-

tion. Is it a sign of high tolerance for ambiguity? IT pro-

fessionals may have experienced this type of challenge

when interacting with their counterparts in other coun-

tries or foreign nationals within their own company.

It's difficult to know whether these counterparts simply

tolerate ambiguity, the situation is not at all ambiguous

for them, or they simply don't ask questions when oth-

ers are in the vicinity. Perhaps they prefer to ask for

clarification individually so as not to cause either party

to lose face.

WHAT IS CULTURE?

Culture is a catchall term that has different meanings

for different people. For the purposes of this article,

culture refers to the character of a group of people who

share a common history and perception of appropriate

normative behaviors, values, and beliefs. The shared

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The Role of Culture in Decision Making

by Sharon Glazer and Tamas Karpati

LOOKING THROUGH ANOTHER'S LENS

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features of culture are passed down from one genera-

tion to the next via the structures and systems people

in the culture have created. Numerous entities have

cultures, including nations, societies, organizations,

gender/sex groups, families, departments, and so on.

This article specifically considers national cultures and

focuses on these cultures' values and beliefs.

A nation's cultural values represent desired principles

that guide individuals' behaviors, feelings, and think-

ing. They explain why we observe artifacts (e.g., organi-

zational processes) or experience events (e.g., someone's

late arrival to a meeting — disrespectful, no big deal, or

a sign of authority?) as we do. Like values, a culture's

social axioms — that is, high-level abstractions of gener-

alized beliefs people hold about the way people interact

with each other or with things around them10 — pro-

vide a foundation for understanding the underlying

assumptions that guide people's behaviors, feelings,

and interpretations of events. Social axioms represent

what people believe to be causal or correlational truths

(e.g., "Good things come to those who wait") and help

people interact with their environment (e.g., protecting

an historic building through a silent sit-in) and other

people (e.g., not speaking in a meeting until you are

called upon). Both cultural values and social axioms are

likely to shape what people attend to when gathering

information about a situation that requires a decision,

how they interpret the information, and the kinds of

explanations people give to justify their decisions.

Cultural Values

Hofstede's Framework

Dutch social psychologist (and former IBM employee)

Geert Hofstede's11 seminal work on cultural values pre-

sents five cultural values, which he derived from survey

responses of over 100,000 IBM employees across more

than 40 nations.12 They are:

1. Individualism vs. collectivism. An individualistic

culture emphasizes the individual's uniqueness

in relation to the social group. The individual is

rewarded for taking "me time" and having freedom

of choice. In contrast, a collectivist culture empha-

sizes that group needs supersede the needs of any

individual and that each individual is an integral part

of the group. Such cultures reward interdependence

and group actions.

2. Power distance (PD). High-PD cultures reinforce

strict hierarchy-based relationships between subordi-

nates and supervisors, such that supervisors are ulti-

mately and solely responsible for making decisions.

Low-PD cultures prefer to view people as equally

important contributors, and decision makers consider

the information they hold to be as important as that

of any other person.

3. Masculinity vs. femininity. Masculine cultures

emphasize achievement and wealth, resolution of

conflict through force, and distinct roles for men and

women. They often view leaders as the most important

decision makers in a work situation. In contrast, femi-

nine cultures emphasize environmental welfare, egali-

tarianism, and nurturing, developing, and maintaining

social networks. They favor group decision making

through open dialogue and consensus building.

4. Uncertainty avoidance (UA). High-UA cultures

emphasize the use of rules, structures, policies, and

normative practices to govern work processes. Low-UA

cultures are more tolerant of ambiguity and open to

creativity, and people may be less "stressed" at work.

5. Long-term vs. short-term orientation. Long-term-

oriented cultures believe that it is important to plan

and save for the future. Short-term-oriented cultures

reinforce immediate gratification and live for the

moment.

Schwartz's Framework

Another cultural framework that has received growing

attention is the cultural values derived by Hebrew

University social psychologist Shalom Schwartz,13

based on a cross-cultural evaluation of teachers and

college students' value priorities across over 65 cultural

groups. Schwartz's cultural framework identifies seven

cultural values:

1. Intellectual autonomy. Intellectual autonomous

cultures emphasize independent efforts to fulfill

desired goals, creativity in thoughts and actions,

independent decision making, and contractual

(vs. obligatory) relationships.

2. Affective autonomy. Affective autonomous cultures

reinforce a person's control over changing the status

quo and pursuing exciting experiences.

3. Conservatism. Conservative cultures place impor-

tance on maintaining the status quo, preserving

modesty, and fulfilling role expectations, including

Like values, a culture's social axioms provide

a foundation for understanding the underly-

ing assumptions that guide people's behav-

iors, feelings, and interpretations of events.

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maintaining the traditional order among people.

These cultures view people as mutually obligated,

and thus decision makers will strive toward decisions

that benefit the group, as the group (not the individ-

ual) is the salient stakeholder. If a decision maker

does not consider the implications of decisions for

the group, then order is disrupted, which could

cause the decision maker to lose face.

4. Harmony. Harmonious cultures emphasize coopera-

tive relationships and fitting in with the environment.

For this reason, decision makers tend to make deci-

sions that maintain harmony as much as possible.

5. Mastery. Mastery cultures emphasize control over sit-

uations, the environment, and others. These cultures

encourage dominance; decision makers are supposed

to be in control and are thus solely responsible for

being agents of change. Consultation with others will

often be seen as a sign of weakness in these cultures.

6. Egalitarianism. Egalitarian cultures emphasize equal-

ity and opportunities for all people. Decision makers

will consider how their decisions affect the welfare

of others.

7. Hierarchy. Like high-PD cultures, hierarchical cul-

tures emphasize status differences and respect for

people in authority roles. Emphasis is placed on dif-

ferentiation of power, roles, and resources. Decision

makers in hierarchical cultures are ultimately respon-

sible for decisions. When a culture is both mastery-

and hierarchy-oriented, there is little concern over the

impact of decisions on other people. When a culture

is both conservative and hierarchical, decision makers

are encouraged to make decisions for the perceived

benefit of the whole group.

It is important to highlight here that no country rein-

forces only one of these cultural values. Like a person's

personality profile, cultures have cultural profiles. Thus,

even if the US and France rank high on individualism,

they are still quite different with respect to other cul-

tural values, thus creating their own unique cultural

character. Table 1 presents the cultural values identified

by Hofstede and Schwartz, practices that indicate where

each cultural value is prominent, countries in which the

various values dominate, and how the different values

influence how managers are expected to behave.

Social Axioms

Just as mathematical axioms serve as starting points

for reasoning, social axioms "are basic premises that

people endorse and use to guide their behavior in daily

living."14 Knowing that a culture endorses hierarchy

(as opposed to egalitarianism) could explain why a

person's title is important, and this knowledge would

guide proper etiquette in intercultural interactions.

For example, in a hierarchical culture, it would be

important to refer to someone using their formal title

(e.g., Dr. Wallace) rather than by an informal use of

their given name (e.g., Sam), a practice that would likely

be observed in an egalitarian culture. An understanding

of social axioms is helpful in training managers to navi-

gate cross-cultural boundaries with greater ease.

APPLYING CULTURE IN DECISION MAKING

Researchers have revealed several cross-cultural differ-

ences in decision-making styles. For example, French

managers, following Descartes's reasoning model and

emphasis on intellectualism, may think through every

possible alternative and try to anticipate the implica-

tions of decisions to near 100% certainty before coming

to a decision. In contrast, Danish managers, much like

US managers,15 may make decisions based on a sam-

pling of information coming from various sources,

but within a specified timeline.16 The Danish take a

pragmatic, functional approach to decision making

and evaluate alternative solutions according to the

resources available to realize them. In contrast to both

French (intellectual) and Danish (pragmatic) decision

makers, Greek decision makers may take a more induc-

tive approach to making a decision, with particular

emphasis on an Aristotelian-influenced view of moral

virtues (i.e., making the right decision for the right rea-

son and sticking with it).17 German decision makers

may be rational, too, but they also rely on their status in

an organization's hierarchy to guide decision making.18

Hungarians take on an autocratic decision-making style,

as evidenced by several speeches given by current

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who reminded his people

that they must put their trust in him to make decisions

for the good of the country.19 In China, subordinates

likewise follow their superiors' formal authority and

even prefer that final decisions be unambiguously

made at the top.20, 21

While all these differences are helpful in recognizing

various decision-making styles, they do not explain

why the styles differ. Knowing the values and beliefs

underlying the culture's preferred decision-making

approach is necessary for successfully engaging in inter-

cultural business interactions. For example, if you are

an IT manager who wants to outsource work, it will be

important to consider whether your project requires

developers to toggle between multiple aspects of the

project or to concentrate on one task at a time. If the

former, then you should consider outsourcing to a

country that is low on uncertainty avoidance and high

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Cultural Value

(Hofstede/

Schwartz)

Example Indicators Countries with

High Scores on

the Value1-4

Expected Managerial Behavior5-6

Individualism/

Affective

Autonomy

Collectivism/

Conservatism

High Power

Distance/Hierarchy

Low Power Distance/

Egalitarianism7

Masculinity/

Mastery

Femininity/

Egalitarianism

High Uncertainty

Avoidance

Low Uncertainty

Avoidance/

Intellectual

Autonomy

Long-Term

Orientation

Short-Term

Orientation

Harmony

A person is assigned a task

and is solely responsible for

its successful completion.

A group is assigned a task,

and all take responsibility

for its successful completion.

A superior dictates down a chain

of command the tasks that need

to be completed, assigning them

to groups or individuals.

Australia

Netherlands

There is a task-oriented managerial

style, with reliance on personal

experiences. Bilateral decisions are

common, as people with certain

information will be consulted.

Managers take control of situations

and feel good about achieving goals.

Guatemala

Pakistan

Indonesia

Taiwan

There is a task- and person-

oriented managerial style, with

greater reliance on unwritten rules

and colleagues. Consultative and

consensus decision making is

preferred.

Malaysia

Philippines

Mexico

China

Superiors' guidance is sought; formal

rules are not sought.

Supervisors and subordinates are

equal contributors to developing

solutions, and both would voice

opinions. There is limited value to

a chain of command.

Austria

Israel

Denmark

New Zealand

Subordinates' input is sought.

A manager is often a facilitator

of a team interaction. A consultative

management style is preferred.

There is a clear division of roles on

a team, and each individual knows

what is expected with regard to

his or her contribution.

Japan

Hungary

Austria

Venezuela

Reliance on one's own experience and

explicit rules is typical. If one needs

assistance, advice is sought from

superiors and never subordinates.

Division of roles is "fuzzy," as all

people are invited to participate

in all aspects of developing

solutions.

Sweden

Norway

Netherlands

Denmark

Unwritten rules have some influence

on managerial decisions.

Managers will justify their

decisions on the basis of clearly

delineated written policies and

procedures.

Greece

Portugal

Guatemala

Uruguay

Managers will follow formal rules,

procedures, and policies. They will

not refer to their own experience or

intuition, but to documented policies.

Brainstorming sessions or "free

time" for creative thinking is

desired. Organizations invest

in resources to engage in extreme

innovation (e.g., skunkworks

projects).

Jamaica

Denmark

Hong Kong

India

Managers take risks and engage

in creative thinking to identify

innovative solutions.

Traditionally, workers stay

with their organization for life.

Employers and employees

protect each other under all

circumstances.

China

Hong Kong

Taiwan

Japan

Organizations plan for the long term.

Managers will take the blame for

a poor decision in order to save a

younger, less experienced individual.

Companies traded on the stock

market must work toward

immediate fulfillment of

investors' needs.

Sierra Leone

Philippines

Norway

Organizations aim for immediate

solutions without considering

long-term implications. An under-

performing contributor will be

dismissed from his or her job.

Corporate social responsibility

is a dominant feature. Public

transportation and social welfare

are emphasized, but so might be

corruption in the form of protec-

tionism for family and friends.

Slovenia

Italy

Estonia

Finland

Managers will solicit advice from

specialists and communicate decision

choices with subordinates to gain

buy-in. To protect relationship

harmony, managers might hire

family and friends.8

1Hofstede, Geert. Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Sage, 1980.

2"Long-Term Orientation." Clearly Cultural (www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/long-term-orientation).

3Schwartz, Shalom H. "A Theory of Cultural Values and Some Implications for Work." Applied Psychology: An International Review,

Vol. 48, No. 1, January 1999.

4Bond, Michael Harris, et al. "Culture-Level Dimensions of Social Axioms and Their Correlates Across 41 Cultures." Journal of Cross-Cultural

Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 5, September 2004.

5University of Sussex Professor Peter Smith and colleagues addressed culture's influence on the type of guidance managers would seek and

how that relates with managers' performance on work events. The hypotheses were only posed for the individualism-collectivism, power

distance, masculinity-femininity, and uncertainty avoidance values; see: Smith, Peter B., Mark F. Peterson, and Stephanie J. Thomason.

"National Culture as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Managers' Use of Guidance Sources and How Well Work Events Are Handled."

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 42, No. 6, August 2011.

6Smith, Peter B., Mark F. Peterson, and Shalom H. Schwartz. "Cultural Values, Sources of Guidance, and Their Relevance to Managerial Behavior:

A 47-Nation Study." Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 33, No. 2, March 2002.

7Egalitarianism positively correlates with both low power distance and femininity, as discussed in Smith et al. (see 5).

8Smith et al. (see 5).

Table 1 — Cultural Values, How to Spot Them, Where They Occur, and How They Impact Managerial Decision Behaviors

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on intellectual autonomy, because these cultures are

open to change and stimulation. In contrast, if the

latter approach is taken, you should consider outsourc-

ing to a country that values conservatism and mastery,

because these cultures reinforce maintaining balance

and control.

Most cross-cultural research on decision making has

focused on the individualism-collectivism values to

explain cultural differences in decision-making processes.

These studies have shown that collectivistic cultures

encourage cooperation and manage conflict by ensuring

that everyone has a chance to voice his or her opinion.

People in these cultures tend to be respectful and open

to discussing diverse views as a way of enabling the

manager to reach a decision.22 Furthermore, among

negotiators from collectivistic societies, being held mutu-

ally accountable influences greater cooperation among

the negotiators. Among negotiators from individualistic

cultures, however, a competitive approach to negotia-

tions becomes prominent.23 That said, the individualism-

collectivism values alone do not sufficiently explain why

certain decisions are made. It is not enough to say, "A

culture is collectivistic, and therefore [fill in the blank]."

Decisions can best be understood when considering

other cultural values as well. For example, in a simu-

lated team negotiation situation, the desire to maintain

harmony is one explanation for why a Taiwanese team

failed to achieve its negotiation goals compared to a

US team.24 In individualistic cultures, decision making

is ultimately not seen as integrative. A lead negotiator

will enter into a negotiating situation prepared in

advance to promote her organization's interests and

to anticipate possible counterarguments. Arguments

from the opposing team that do not fit the negotiator's

schema for how team negotiations should occur will

be rejected, and the negotiator will strive to fulfill the

goal she originally set out to accomplish. In the US, we

might refer to this phenomenon as "escalating commit-

ment," a situation in which a negotiator will often take

unilateral decisions. In contrast, when in a team negoti-

ating scenario, a Taiwanese decision maker will have

aharder time achieving negotiating goals because he

will consider teammates' perspectives and look to

reach consensus in an effort to maintain harmony.

Not that decision makers from individualistic cultures

have it all figured out, of course. Because individualism

reinforces independent goals, and individuals strive

to differentiate from others, decision makers may be

"closed-minded … and ineffective."25

Let's consider another example. In the US, decision

makers do not typically have large social networks to

fall back on when taking risky decisions, and thus peo-

ple are regularly encouraged to behave conservatively

with financial matters. In fact, when financial institu-

tions took large risks with other people's money, pre-

cipitating the financial crisis of 2008, those who suffered

from the fallout were often left homeless. Because large

social networks are more common in China, people

tend to feel they have a safety net that will help out

if they make a risky decision that turns out to be incor-

rect.26 Chinese managers are more likely to report trust

in others than US managers because, for them, both

friendship or family links and economic support are

tied together, whereas in the US, mixing family or

friends with business is not as common.27 In fact, adages

such as "Money and friends don't mix" reveal beliefs

that influence US managers' thinking about decisions

they have to make (and influence laws to prevent

nepotism). Still, it is important to remember that despite

large social networks, China is a masculine and high-PD

culture. Therefore, the extent to which risky decisions

are made will be a function of a contributor's role in a

hierarchy.

In a collectivistic and high-PD culture, there is a chance

for dialogue to shut down. Yet when people from collec-

tivistic cultures are perceived to be following the deci-

sion maker's judgment, it should not be assumed that it

is blind following, but quite possibly an informed and

consensual following after having already held coopera-

tive dialogue about a situation. Keen observation regard-

ing the relationships between people who work together

will reveal whether the cooperative or the hierarchical

aspects of collectivism are driving decision-making

processes.

Unlike high-PD and collectivistic cultures, cultures

that are low on UA, high on mastery, and high on

intellectual autonomy values may be more open to

innovative and creative ideas and thus make riskier

decisions. Israel is an example of a nation with this

cultural profile, which partly explains why Israel has

the highest rate of new start-up companies per capita

compared to other countries.28 These cultural values

reinforce Israel's focus on growth and novelty. The les-

son here for the IT professional is that when working

with Israelis, expect creative, out-of-the-box thinking

and a fully engaged work ethic.

Understanding how cultural values and beliefs influ-

ence decision making enables IT professionals, who

cross cultural boundaries, to shift their cultural lens

to understand and interact with others more fluidly.

CULTURE IN THE MIND OF A PERSON

People attend to and frame their understanding of situa-

tions around previously experienced scenarios, and these

understandings are shaped by culture.29 Depending upon

the frequency of certain kinds of experiences and how

recently the experiences occurred, individuals will be

able to access and retrieve relevant information to make

sense of events.30 Most events are coated in cultural sig-

nals, and thus different symbols, structures, interactions,

or words can trigger different expectancies. In this way,

cultural norms shape how individuals construct and

impose meaning on a situation.31, 32

Through experiments, researchers have been able to cue

people to access different networks of understanding,

influencing their thinking from a different cultural lens.

Cuing people to think from a different cultural lens is

known as cultural priming. Cultural primes take the

form of situational cues and cultural symbols (e.g.,

semantic or associative primes, such as "I" vs. "we"

or the symbol of the Statue of Liberty, respectively) that

influence people to frame their perception and interpre-

tation of events. Most people are exposed to different

kinds of experiences that cause their identities to shift,

and thus most people are able to switch between cul-

tural frames. For example, in a professional setting

surrounded by a large group of people, a subordinate

would refrain from giving her opinion, but behind

closed doors with three to four people, she would

voice her opinion readily without being asked to speak.

Cognitive research has consistently confirmed that

priming changes how people respond to the same situa-

tion. For example, people from both individualistic and

collectivistic cultures, when presented with symbolic or

associative cultural primes reflecting collectivism (e.g.,

reading stories in which a general chose a family mem-

ber vs. the most qualified person to be sent to the king;

circling pronouns related to "we," "our," or "us" in a

passage; viewing a picture of yin-yang; or viewing a

picture that depicts group processes), tend to become

more "collectivistic-minded," as evidenced by changes

in their responses to the same test measures. (Likewise,

primes reflecting individualism prompted study sub-

jects to become more "individualistic-minded.") Recent

neuropsychological studies are also demonstrating that

cultural priming stimulates different neural pathways

in the brain.33 Together these types of studies provide

evidence that culture influences our decisions and judg-

ments. Moreover, because priming can modify people's

cultural perspectives, it has the potential to aid man-

agers in making better decisions by clearly delineating

various cultural factors that must be considered when

engaging in a decision-making process, particularly the

host culture's dominant values and beliefs. For example,

if cued on group cohesion and unity, a US decision

maker may be prompted to ask for others' thoughts

and deliberate on potential options before deriving a

decision that is informed by other participants. Such

an inclusive process would prompt the respect of his

Japanese counterparts and reinforce a perception that

the US decision maker is thinking about the betterment

of the group.

SEEING BOTH SIDES

In a global setting, culture is an important facet of the

decision-making process. To become a great decision

maker, it behooves an individual to become educated

about practices, values, and beliefs that are dominant

in a culture and to understand others' frames of

mind before making a decision. This recommendation

inevitably suggests adopting an interdependent mind-

set. Ironically, by paying attention to a dominant cul-

tural value or belief, the decision maker may learn

she has to make decisions independently, without

consulting others. Alternatively, the decision maker

might learn that consulting with others is desired.

The point is to take cultural values and beliefs into

consideration and to become more self-aware of the

influence of one's own cultural values in approaching

adecision dilemma. By understanding cultural values

and beliefs, managers are a step closer to identifying,

predicting, and shaping how they make decisions

(whether unilaterally, bilaterally, through consensus,

or consultation), as well as how people in the host

environment in which they are operating will perceive

their decisions.

ENDNOTES

1Weber, Elke U., and Michael W. Morris. "Culture and

Judgment and Decision Making: The Constructivist Turn."

Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 5, No. 4, August 2010.

2Lipshitz, Raanan, Gary Klein, and John S. Carroll. "Introduction

to the Special Issue — Naturalistic Decision Making and

Organizational Decision Making: Exploring the Intersections."

Organization Studies, Vol. 27, No. 7, July 2006.

3Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. " Advances in Prospect

Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty." Journal of

Risk and Uncertainty, Vol. 5, No. 4, October 1992.

4Angie, Amanda D., et al. "The Influence of Discrete Emotions

on Judgement and Decision-Making: A Meta-Analytic Review."

Cognition and Emotion, Vol. 25, No. 8, December 2011.

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5Angie et al. (see 4).

6Lipshitz et al. (see 2).

7Weber and Morris (see 1).

8Korotkov, David L. "The Sense of Coherence: Making Sense

Out of Chaos. In The Human Quest for Meaning: A Handbook

of Psychological Research and Clinical Applications, edited by

Paul T.P. Wong and Prem S. Fry. Erlbaum, 1998.

9Osland, Joyce S., and Allan Bird. "Beyond Sophisticated

Stereotyping: Cultural Sensemaking in Context." Academy

of Management Executive, Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2000.

10Leung, Kwok, et al. "Social Axioms: The Search for Universal

Dimensions of General Beliefs About How the World

Functions." Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology , Vol. 33,

No. 3, May 2002.

11Hofstede, Geert. Culture's Consequences: International Differences

in Work-Related Values. 2nd edition. Sage, 2001.

12As Hofstede's study was conducted in one organization (IBM),

it holds many cultural variations constant, and naturally its

definitions of cultural values reflect concepts prominent in

workplace relationships.

13Schwartz, Shalom H. "A Theory of Cultural Values and Some

Implications for Work." Applied Psychology: An International

Review, Vol. 48, 1999, pp. 23-47.

14Bond, Michael Harris, et al. "Culture-Level Dimensions of

Social Axioms and Their Correlates Across 41 Cultures." Journal

of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 5, September 2004.

15Nørreklit, Hanne, and Lennart Nørreklit. "Danish Versus

US Management Control: The Ideological Dimension." Paper

presented to the 18th Scandinavian Academy of Management

(NFF) Meeting, Aarhus, Denmark, August 2005.

16Schramm-Nielsen, Jette. "Cultural Dimensions of Decision-

Making: Denmark and France Compared." Journal of

Managerial Psychology, Vol. 16, No. 6, August 2001.

17Tzoanou, Marilena. "Values and Ethical Decisions at Work: An

Aristotelian Study of Greek Managers." Doctoral dissertation,

University of Central Lancashire, May 2013.

18Khairullah, Durriya H.Z., and Zahid Y. Khairullah. "Cultural

Values and Decision-Making in China." International Journal of

Business, Humanities and Technology, Vol. 3, No. 2, February 2013.

19"Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Speech at the 25th Bálványos

Summer Free University and Student Camp." Tusnádfürdo

(Baile Tus nad), Romania, 26 July 2014.

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AStudy of US, Hong Kong, and PRC Managers." Journal of

International Business Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 1993.

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of Collectivistic and Individualistic Values on Conflict and

Decision Making: An Experiment in China." Journal of Applied

Social Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 11, November 2010.

23Weber and Morris (see 1).

24Gelfand, Michele J., et al. "Toward a Culture-by-Context

Perspective on Negotiation: Negotiating Teams in the United

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25Tjosvold et al. (see 22).

26Weber and Morris (see 1).

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Israel's Economic Miracle. Twelve, Hachette Book Group, 2009.

29Weber and Morris (see 1).

30Oyserman, Daphna. "Culture as Situated Cognition: Cultural

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31Oyserman (see 30).

32Weber and Morris (see 1).

33Glazer, Sharon, et al. "Priming of Relational Models and

Intercultural Training." In Handbook of Intercultural Relations

Neuroscience, edited by Jason E. Warnick and Dan Landis.

Springer, forthcoming.

Sharon Glazer is a Professor and Chair of the Division of Applied

Behavioral Sciences at the University of Baltimore and Adjunct

Research Professor at the University of Maryland (Dept. of

Psychology and Center for Advanced Study of Language). She is also

the Editor for the International Journal of Stress Management ,

Treasurer for the International Association for Cross-Cultural

Psychology, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Institute

for Cross-Cultural Management at Florida Institute of Technology.

Under the auspices of an Erasmus Mundus third country scholar

award, Dr. Glazer was a visiting professor to the University of

Bologna and Rene Descartes University in Paris, France. She also

taught at the University of Valencia, University of Barcelona,

University of Victoria in Wellington, and was a Fulbright scholar at

the Technical University of Budapest. Dr. Glazer's research revolves

primarily around cross-cultural issues in organizational behavior,

specifically occupational and organizational stress, leadership, global

virtual teams, meaningfulness in life, social support, organizational

commitment, values, and temporal orientation. Currently, she is

leading a study of leadership and stress across cultures. Finally, Dr.

Glazer has engaged in leadership consulting to such organizations as

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ameritech, the US Customs Service, and

various US Department of Defense agencies. She can be reached at

sglazer@ubalt.edu.

Tamas Karpati is currently a Senior Associate of Technology Solutions

at IMPAQ International, focusing on health IT research solutions

from conception through implementation. Prior to that, Mr. Karpati

worked in IT for 15 years, leading private industry projects in health-

care, finance, e-commerce, and various other sectors. His core compe-

tencies are in product and program management, business analysis,

and international expansion. Mr. Karpati has managed several sys-

tems development efforts involving Web and mobile application devel-

opment for clients such as eBay, AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and

Alere. He has a MEd from Xavier University, an MBA from San Jose

State University, and a BS in economics from the Budapest University

of Economic Studies. He can be reached at tamas@karpi.com.

... Although the DCS has been extensively used with established desirable reliability and validity, its utility in family caregiver decision making from a diverse cultural perspective remains underexplored and questionable. According to Stewart (1985), when decision-making theories derived from Western individualist societies are applied cross-culturally, cultural differences are likely to occur ultimately affecting the universality and predictability of these theories. The decision-making style in Western culture is toward self-directed action and individualized goals, which directly contradict the collective decision-making style favored in Asian culture (Stewart, 1985). ...

... According to Stewart (1985), when decision-making theories derived from Western individualist societies are applied cross-culturally, cultural differences are likely to occur ultimately affecting the universality and predictability of these theories. The decision-making style in Western culture is toward self-directed action and individualized goals, which directly contradict the collective decision-making style favored in Asian culture (Stewart, 1985). Additionally, because the DCS was designed to investigate health care decision making from an individual and independent standpoint, its applicability in collective family caregiver decision making needs to be further examined and explored. ...

... However, unlike quantitative questions in the Uncertainty subscale beginning with the first person "I," Chinese family caregivers used the collective descriptors, such as "us," or third person, such as "he," in the interview to describe their decision-making experience. This discrepancy strongly supports the collective nature of decision making related to older adult care among Chinese families in direct opposition to the Westernized role of a surrogate decision maker (Stewart, 1985). The Chinese family caregivers in this study thought that the nursing home placement decision should be made by taking into consideration the input of their entire family and/or extended family, as well as the need and input of their older adult family member with dementia. ...

Yu-Ping Chang
Loralee Sessanna
Joanne Schneider

This study aimed to 1) examine relationships between uncertainty, perceived information, personal values, social support, and filial obligation among Chinese family caregivers faced with nursing home placement of an older adult family member with dementia; and 2) describe the applicability of the Decisional Conflict Scale in nursing home placement decision making among Chinese family caregivers through the integration of quantitative and qualitative data. We used a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data analysis consisted of descriptive and correlational statistics. We utilized a thematic analysis for the qualitative data. Data transformation and data comparison techniques were used to combine qualitative and quantitative data. Thirty Chinese family caregivers living in Taiwan caring for an older adult with dementia participated in this study. We found a significant association among the quantitative findings, which indicated that perceived information, personal values, social support, and filial obligation, and nursing home placement decisional conflict. Mixed-method data analysis additionally revealed that conflicting differences existed between the traditional role of Chinese family collective decision making and the contemporary role of single family member surrogate decision making. Although the Decisional Conflict Scale can be utilized when exploring nursing home placement for an older adult with dementia among Chinese family caregivers, applicability issues existed regarding cultural beliefs and values related to filial piety and family collectivism. Findings strongly support the need for researchers to consider cultural beliefs and values when selecting tools that assess health-related decision making across cultures. Further research is needed to explore the role culture plays in nursing home decision making.

... The cultural context shapes the impact of these additional factors on decisions made, either if an individual acknowledges the role of culture in the decision-making or not. Such effects jointly influence the sense-making events of people (Glazer and Karpati, 2014). Sense-making is a process in which an individual endeavor to comprehend and interpret experiences. ...

... By recognizing what is stated and what is not, one can infer a culture, including an organization's culture. Culture refers to the character of a group of people who share a common history and perception of appropriate normative behaviors, values and beliefs (Glazer and Karpati, 2014). In organizational context and globally, national culture and its values and beliefs are considered. ...

... 24). Both cultural values and social axioms make the consideration of an individual while information gathering regarding a situation that needs a decision (Glazer and Karpati, 2014). Another dimension of decision-making is ethical and is reviewed in the next section. ...

Mujeeb ur Rahman Ibneatheer
Pierre Rostan
Alexandra Rostan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand, which internal processes (mental, emotional, cultural, ethical and spiritual) Afghan business leaders use when making managerial decisions. Design/methodology/approach Primary data were collected through 1-h face-to-face interviews with Afghan business leaders. Interviews were conducted through open-ended questions in a semi-structured format. This method was considered most appropriate to acquire an understanding of senior executives' interpretation and usage of decision-making processes. The method of analyzing data was thematic analysis where the researchers identified common themes, topics, ideas and patterns of meaning that come up repetitively. The objective of the analysis was to determine the most frequent decision-making processes by business leaders and the reasons for using these processes. Findings Although the usage of internal processes in decision-making are not homogeneous among Afghan business leaders, some of the processes are used more frequently than others such as mental, cultural and ethical processes. During the mental process of decision-making, the majority of leaders use intuitional decision-making, the minority using logic. Regarding the cultural dimension, the majority of leaders stated that they have an open, friendly, caring organization for each employee and horizontal culture in their organization. The minority indicated that they have a friendly culture but they also considered the processes and hierarchy in their organization. Considering the ethical process of decision-making, leaders stated that their priorities are more ethical than getting extra profit. They believe that profit will be generated while considering ethical values. As a leader noted: when you consider ethics and fulfill your obligations, the profit automatically generates. Most leaders use the internal process of emotion in their decision-making, but the usage has not been frequent. The emotional process of decision-making is more involved when the human factor is involved. For instance, one of the participants stated "I did not fire an employee that I had to because he was a needy and poor person." About the spiritual process of decision-making, although all leaders agreed that they have used spirituality in decision-making, its usage varies. About one-third of the leaders mostly rely on spirituality or on religious teachings during the decision-making process, one-third somehow rely on spirituality or religion, about 50% of the time and one-third rely on spirituality between 25% to 30% of the time. Originality/value This study is pilot research as no previous research was carried out on this topic, therefore, it provides a basis of literature on the usage of internal processes on decision-making in Afghanistan. The findings may differ in other economic and national contexts.

... As a result, decisionmaking is a process of processing information related to internal problems or situations. The administration faces, or is the result of the stakeholders' desires to make a decision based on reliable and objective information for the presented problem, which includes how to extract, display and process that information, and the way of thinking that is marketed to find solutions, as decision makers can learn and be more efficient and effective decision makers, By evaluating the risks and benefits of available options, a decision is made that compares potential losses and gains (Glazer & Karpati, 2014). (Hunt & Vitell,1986) explains in his theory about the importance of cultural dimensions in the ethics of the administrative decision taken and its reflection on stakeholders, and the impact of the cultural gap between decision-makers and society, in terms of public order and personal social responsibility. ...

... To approve the validity of the third hypothesis, which states (that the business environment is affected by the diversity of the board of directors and the disclosure and social responsibility of the organization), Table No. (8) shows the relationship between the axis of diversity of the board of directors and integrated disclosure and social responsibility, as well as the business environment, where it follows: ...

Ali Khalaf
Haider Ali Jarad Al Masoudi

The integrated Disclosure aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the performance of the organization, and because the quality of the Disclosure is a critical aspect of the integrated reports, so the research aims to show the impact of the diversity of the board of directors on the quality of the integrated reports and the promotion of the social responsibility of the organization, and to make decisions about disclosure and integration in the information provided in order to benefit from it In building integrated visions about the organization, assuming that the diversity of the board of directors has a significant relationship to the extent to which the quality of integrated Disclosure is achieved, that the most important findings of the research stipulate that the diversity of the board of directors contributes to social responsibility and integrated disclosure, and the strengthening of organizational culture and administrative practices, and the research recommends, The need to interact with the environment and the communities in which the organization operates, to enable it to provide environmental, social or ethical information, along with financial, strategic and governance information in an annual report. Key word: Diversity, Integrated Disclosure, Social Responsibility.

... For example, suggested that increased age and task complexity could lead to greater understanding errors and inconsistencies Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 5 November 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 750803 in decision-making; and Glazer and Karpati (2014) pointed out the influence of cultural values on decision-making. Thus, patients with AD might be able to consent to low-risk content in medical decision-making, but not to high-risk content, which may be more complex and requires higher cognitive function (van Duinkerken et al., 2018). ...

The proportion of people with dementia has been increasing yearly, and the decision-making capacity of these people has become a major concern in fields such as the financial industry and in medical settings. In this narrative review, we discuss decision-making in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and we propose the support for decision-making in people with AD, especially financial and medical decision-making. We summarize several hypotheses and theories on the decision-making capacity of people with AD. These include the frontal lobe hypothesis, physiological theory, dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and the Person-Task-Fit (PTF) framework. Both internal and external factors can affect decision-making by people with AD. Internal factors are affected by changes in the brain and neurotransmitters, as well as alterations in cognitive ability and emotion. External factors include task characters, task contents, and situation influence. Since feedback has a significant effect on decision-making capacity, a series of suggestions may be helpful to improve this capacity, such as explicit advice, simple options, pleasant rewards, the Talking Mats approach, memory and organizational aid, support by caregivers, cognitive training and feedback. Thus, in providing decision-making support for people with AD, it is important to identify the internal and external factors that impair this process and to deal with these factors.

... For this reason, this paper explores how culture and institutional values promote PDM in organizations, which represent the macro level. A Sustainability 2021, 13, 8016 3 of 25 wide range of literature supports that organizational practices need to be aligned with cultural features [28,29]. An important contribution to the literature in this regard is that of Sagie and Aycan [30], who provide a theoretical framework detailing how cultural attitudes influence PDM. ...

The dynamic development of the global economy has led to the creation of agile and innovative organizations that need to adapt rapidly to new challenges. For that reason, organizations need to make decisions that help them face uncertain situations and be successful. Research has demonstrated that employee participative decision making (PDM) promotes more innovative, flexible, and sustainable organizations. The present paper examines organizational, cultural, and sustainable factors to discover how these variables affect PDM in the European context. For this purpose, this study focuses on two main objectives: (1) analyzing the impact of a country's cultural and institutional values (macro level), beyond individual and organizational characteristics (micro and meso levels), on the adoption of PDM in the European context and (2) differentiating among the types of decisions for which employee participation is considered (operational or organizational). To attain these goals, three hierarchical fitted regression models were fitted using data based on the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and complemented with information from Hofstede's dimensions, whose scores are obtained from 2010 Hofstede database, and institutional values from the 2015 World Competitive Yearbook (WCY). Results demonstrate that some cultural values are significant for PDM and that sustainability is related to employee participation at the general and operational levels. This allows the conclusion that organizations located in countries with greater sustainability awareness are also those that promote employee participation the most.

... The communities of researchers have perspectives in the development of health policies that are distinct from those of policy makers, which result in these professional cultures working in separate "silos." For example, Glazer and Karpati [5] described several cross-cultural differences in decision-making styles; however, it is unclear whether those different decision-making approaches are focused on scientific evidence. Evidence matters to policy making, which is political due to the trade-offs involved between multiple competing interests [6], but choosing the right evidence may politicize science (eg, misuse and cherry picking). ...

Background Evidence-based health policy (EBHP) development is critical to the judicious use of public funds. EBHPs increase transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency of policies. Encouraging collaboration between researchers or knowledge producers and policy makers is important because both communities have distinct professional cultures, resulting in them working separately without understanding each other. Knowledge sharing is a complex process that requires understanding of cultural aspects that may reduce cultural differences and increase the use of common language. Health information technology (HIT) is a useful tool to increase knowledge translation, which may result in the transparent use of evidence and networking in developing EBHPs. Our vision is to leverage HIT tools for a better health system that includes digitalized, open source, evidence-based, and transparent ways for collaboration and development of robust mechanisms and for sharing of synthesized evidence with knowledge user–friendly forms. Objective The aim of this study is to develop a conceptual framework on Knowledge translation and health Information Technology for Transparency (KhITT) in policy making and EBHPs (ie, the KhITT framework). The framework will be informed by the views of four key stakeholder groups (ie, policy makers, knowledge producers, HIT professionals, and the public) toward EBHP. The informants may also describe practices that demonstrate the EBHP development process and suggest technology platforms to enable this process. Methods We propose an exploratory, descriptive qualitative study to take place in British Columbia, Canada, using in-depth semistructured interviews. To ensure data saturation and trustworthiness, we will use a nonprobability, purposive snowball sample of up to 15 eligible participants in each of the four stakeholder groups. We will analyze the data using content analysis. Results The KhITT framework focuses on various stakeholders' perspectives to better understand their perceived needs and priorities in identifying issues with EBHP, in order to make informed recommendations. Ethics approval has been obtained by the harmonized Behavioural Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia. We anticipate that we will complete data collection and analysis by December 2020. Preliminary results will be published in summer 2021. Conclusions Our ultimate goal of this study is to develop a conceptual framework and describe the technology platforms that would enable the EBHP process. We anticipate that our rigorous content analysis will be able to produce insights and themes that are able to address our objectives, contribute to an in-depth understanding of the EBHP process within British Columbia, highlight all influential factors, explicitly disseminate and communicate the study results, identify issues with EBHP and provide informed recommendations to address them, and enhance efforts toward transparent EBHPs. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/16268

... A vast amount of research has been done on both decision-making and culture: Festinger (1964), Edwards and Tversky (1967), Janis and Mann (1977), Baker (1981), Stewart (1985), Wright (1985), Zey (1992), Mann et al (1995Mann et al ( , 1997, Newman and Nollen (1996). Review of the decision-making literature shows that scant attention has been paid to the national culture. ...

Sarah Grant
Sonja Petrovic-Lazerevic
Mike Berrell

A new phenomenon facing multi-national organizations in the new millennium today is globalisation. Globalisation implies that, in order to remain a prospective position in the world market, an organization has to sustain a competitive advantage. Many factors influence competitive advantage. One is an appropriate procedure for decision-making processes; that is to respond in time to actual situations in the world market. The appropriateness of the decision processes depends on the understanding of the cross-cultural differences of those who participate in the decision process. It seems to be of particular importance that managers understand how national culture supports an employees' decision. This paper is an attempt to clarify similarities and differences between Australian and Singaporean participants in decision processes. In this respect, the research has been done among Australian and Singaporean students of Monash University Faculty of Business and Economics. The conceptual framework is based on Hofstede's national culture dimensions, and Janis and Mann's conflict model. It introduces the correlation of cultural dimensions and dimensions of the conflict model. The results show that while national culture does play a part in the role of decision-making, each dimension of culture affects a different dimension of the conflict model.

Mokarram Khan

The key objective of this research approach is to find best possible interpretation of Bangladeshi Managers perception to negotiate with Chinese and Indians. The objective is to gain comprehension knowhow to exploit some of the factors of negotiation with business people from India and China. It is great to find the peculiar and untapped information regarding both the countries in data analysis chapter, how BATNA, mediator, ease of doing business, legal issues and social context, face value, price strategy, complexity and communication behaves mathematically and in real world. Like, cultural complexity has positive correlation with BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), means it is more effective in complex society as they always look for alternative due to complexity in decision making process and for India effectively would have been 50 % in any given situation and reduces the corruption by more than 6 % in China. On the contrary, manager's perception can be different than actual, managers think that China is more corrupt than Indian by 39% but actually, as per World Bank report, China's score 77.9 and DB ranking 31 and India's score is 71 and DB raking is 63. Finally, international mangers must understand the mathematical and theoretical aspects to find the relation in order to draw the strategies best suit to situation, thus I believe my research will be helpful in the field of cross culture negotiation for Bangladeshi managers, especially to deal with China and India.

Behavioral sciences generally tend to assume human behavior as universal and to ignore systematic differences in how people perceive life (Levinson and Peng, 2004). Since the 1990s, some cultural psychologists have started to show that the way people perceive basic events and the reflections of this perception in the decision-making process are systematically affected by culture (Ji et al, 2001; Nisbett et al., 2001). Three important theories help social psychologists to explain these systematic cultural differences: individualism-collectivism theory (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995) and dependent, independent self theory (Markus and Kitayama, 1991) are powerful concepts in understanding social phenomenons. The third theory, based on the cognitive explanations underlying cultural differences, is the model developed by Nisbett (Nisbett et al., 2001) and sheds light on how culture can affect the way people perceive economic and financial concepts. In light of the mentioned theories, it is possible to predict the fundamental differences in financial forecasts, economic decisions and owned cognitive bias through the world perception of the individuals. In this way, we can interpret how behavioural economics and finance can be shaped by culture with the guidance of cultural psychology. Traditional economic models do not take into consideration ownership of the investment amount and the investment-gambling dilemma. Oppositely new generation behavioral economics, emotions (De Martino et al. 2010; Sokol-Hessner, Camerer, & Phelps, 2013), genetics (Cesarini et al. 2009a, 2009b; Cesarini et al. 2010; Zhong, Chew et al. 2009; Cesarini, Johannesson, Magnusson and Wallace 2011), gender, age, religion and race (Barsky et al. 1997), education (Grable & Joo 1997), culture (Wang, Rieger, & Hens, 2017) and many other variables have been observed to be effective in the financial decision-making process. It is extremely important to understand this process and to analyze people's economic and financial behavior for predicting the individual and general results of financial behavior. As a new concept, cultural finance (Breuer and Quinten, 2009) mainly deals with the differences between eastern and western cultures and tries to create hetero-cultural-economicus by taking support from behavioral economics that transform homo-economicus of traditional theories into hetero-economicus. According to mentioned priorities, the main purpose of our study is to explore behavior sets' and cultural variations' influence on the individual's perspective on gambling and investment decisions.

Within the United States, teams outperform solos in negotiation (Thompson, Peterson, & Brodt, 1996). The current research examined whether this team advantage generalizes to negotiators from a collectivist culture (Taiwan). Because different cultures have different social norms, and because the team context may amplify the norms that are salient in a particular culture (Gelfand & Realo, 1999), we predicted that the effect of teams on negotiation would differ across cultures. Specifically, we predicted that since harmony norms predominate in collectivist cultures like Taiwan, the team context would amplify a concern with harmony, leading Taiwanese teams to negotiate especially suboptimal outcomes. In support, 2 studies showed that Taiwanese teams negotiated less-optimal outcomes than Taiwanese solos. We also used a moderated-mediation analysis to investigate the mechanism (Hayes, 2012), documenting that the interactive effect of culture and context on outcomes was mediated by harmony norms. By showing that the same situational conditions (team negotiations) can have divergent effects on negotiation outcomes across cultures, our results point toward a nuanced, sociocontextual view that moves beyond the culture-as-main-effect approach to studying culture and negotiations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with previous values measures or other national indices and seems to define a novel cultural syndrome. Its national correlates suggest that it taps the cognitive component of a cultural constellation labeled maleficence, a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. Discussion focused on the meaning of these national level factors of beliefs and on their relationships with individual level factors of belief derived from the same data set. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

Daphna Oyserman

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Shalom H Schwartz

A theory of the types of values on which cultures can be compared is presented and validated with data from 49 nations from around the world. Seven types of values are identified, structured along three polar dimensions: Conservatism versus Intellectual and Affective Autonomy; Hierarchy versus Egalitarianism; and Mastery versus Harmony. Based on their cultural value priorities, nations are arrayed in a two-dimensional space, revealing meaningful groupings of culturally related nations. Analyses replicate with both teacher and student samples. Implications of national differences in cultural values for differences in meaning of work are explicated. To stimulate research on cultural values and work, hypotheses are developed regarding the cultural value emphases that are especially compatible or conflicting with work centrality, with different societal norms about work, and with the pursuit of four types of work values or goals.

Much of our cross-cultural training and research occurs within the framework of bipolar cultural dimensions. While this sophisticated stereotyping is helpful to a certain degree, it does not convey the complexity found within cultures. People working across cultures are frequently surprised by cultural paradoxes that do not seem to fit the descriptions they have learned. The authors identify the sources of cultural paradoxes and introduce the idea of value trumping: In a specific context, certain cultural values take precedence over others. Thus, culture is embedded in the context and cannot be understood fully without taking context into consideration. To decipher cultural paradoxes, the authors propose a model of cultural sense making, linking schemas to contexts. They spell out the implications of this model for those who teach culture, for people working across cultures, and for multinational corporations.

Jette Schramm-Nielsen

In spite of decades of focus on decision making and decades of research on cross-cultural management, few authors have devoted attention to the combination of decision making and specific cultural settings. The focus of this paper is the decision-making processes in French and Danish companies. Results from empirical data indicate that there are clear differences in the ways decisions are arrived at in terms of how managers emphasize different phases of the decision-making process. The analysis also shows what happens when different stages become the responsibility of people in different roles within the organisation. In the analysis, the importance of decision rationality is discussed, and the different cultural styles are linked to the classical theories in decision making such as economic man, administrative man, and muddling through. Since these are found inadequate to characterize French and Danish actual behaviour, new models are suggested under the labels of emotional man and action man.

In an experiment with 80 participants in China, protagonists with opposing views in organizations that valued collectivism, compared to individualism, were found to develop cooperative goals, were confident that they could work, sought to understand, and demonstrated that they understood the opposing arguments, accepted these arguments as reasonable, and combined positions to create an integrated decision. The inductions comparing participants who valued harmony as a goal or a technique in which they pretended to agree were only partially effective and did not yield significant differences on conflict dynamics and outcomes. Findings challenge traditional theorizing that collectivistic values lead to conflict avoidance, and support recent arguments that strong, cooperative relationships promote the productive discussion of opposing views in decision making.