جهانی شدن عملیات در کشورهای شرقی و غربی : باز کردن رابطه بین فرهنگ ملی و سازمانی و تاثیر آن بر عملکرد تولیدی

Understanding national and organizational culture becomes increasingly important in the era of transnational manufacturing. As the world becomes flat and boundaries break down, manufacturers need to understand the proper role of culture in order to obtain competitive advantage. Thus, the current study conducts a multilevel investigation of the impact of eight national and organizational culture dimensions (according to GLOBE framework) on manufacturing performance. An ANOVA comparison of 189 manufacturing plants between Eastern (Japan and South Korea) and Western (Germany, United States, Finland, and Sweden) countries indicates that organizational culture inside plants differs in three dimensions (power distance, future orientation, and performance orientation). Hierarchical Linear Modeling analysis further suggests that organizational culture has more of an effect on manufacturing performance than national culture or the fit between them. In addition, Country Developmental Indexes, both Economic and Infrastructural, do not impact manufacturing performance, reinforcing our conclusion about the weak influence of the national level factors on manufacturing performance. In an era of globalization, these results have practical implications for organizations expanding across national boundaries by developing an internal organizational culture consistent with high performance manufacturing.

In the age of transnational manufacturing (Ferdows, 1997), as organizations expand overseas there is a growing need for multi-country and cross-cultural research in operations management (Prasad and Babbar, 2000). Such research can provide both the theoretical underpinnings and practical implications to manage processes such as offshoring and adoption of best practices (Metters and Verma, 2008). Research shows that national culture can play a significant role in international operations (Flynn and Saladin, 2006, Nakata and Sivakumar, 1996 and Pagell et al., 2005), but research also shows that organizational culture can affect operations (Bates et al., 1995). The question then becomes: what is the interplay between national and organizational culture in global manufacturing? Addressing this question requires investigating culture at multiple levels—national and organizational. Several scholars call for empirical research that crosses levels of analysis (Hackman, 2003 and Rousseau, 1985). For example, Klein et al. (1999) discuss the benefits, barriers, gaps, and new developments of multilevel theories and encourage additional multilevel research, particularly in the area of culture. Developing a better understanding of the interplay between organizational and national culture can assist in the implementation of operations management practices. Scholars have debated the effect of national culture on management practices. From the management literature, the convergence hypothesis implies that as nations develop, they embrace work-related behavior common to industrialized countries (Ralston et al., 1997, p. 182). Consequently, organizations in different industrialized countries will become more alike and adopt universal practices about work and corporate culture (Shenkar and Ronen, 1987 and Child and Keiser, 1979). Thus, organizations can alter the behavior of people and undermine the effect of national culture (Von Glinow et al., 2002). Conversely, the divergence hypothesis argues that “national culture, not industrialized practice, drives values, and that, even if the country becomes industrialized, the values systems in the work force remain will largely unchanged” (Ralston et al., 1997, p. 183). Thus, “even if organizations located within different societies do face similar contingencies and adopt similar models, deep-rooted cultural forces will still re-assert themselves in the way people actually behave and relate to each other” (Child and Keiser, 1979, p. 253). Consequently, the divergence viewpoint argues that organizations in different countries will vary. This study investigates the convergence versus divergence debate (Child and Keiser, 1979 and Shenkar and Ronen, 1987) in the manufacturing context. Despite the growing body of cross-cultural studies, the debate on the convergence or divergence of management practices has not subsided (Rungtusanatham et al., 2005). Furthermore, the debate has gained more importance in an era of globalization, when organizations increasingly expand across international boundaries. In order to enlighten the debate through an operations management prism, this study investigates whether organizational culture in plants differs across countries and how it relates to national culture. In addition, the study examines the effect of organizational culture, national culture, and the congruence between them on manufacturing performance. In an era of a “flattening world” (Friedman, 2006), it is important to understand the interplay of national and organizational culture. On the one hand, as firms share innovative practices through benchmarking, mimicking and mergers, they may become more efficient and more homogenous (convergence). On the other hand, the values and norms underlying new practices may conflict with the beliefs embedded in the local culture and thus retard adoption and potential organizational performance (divergence). This is the fundamental issue addressed in this paper: does national or organizational culture dominate, and what is the resulting effect on manufacturing performance? The following section reviews the literature and related theory to establish a set of research hypotheses. Next, we describe the data, sample, and measures. Analysis of variance and Hierarchical Linear Modeling provide the basis for analyzing the data. We then discuss the results, limitations, and future avenues for research. Finally, we point out the contributions to both the academic and practitioner literature.

6.1. Limitations and future research A limitation of this study is that it assumes that national culture in each country is unified since our study uses the GLOBE cultural values (Table 3). We were unable to take into consideration the existence of different subcultures inside the country since such data was not provided in GLOBE (House et al., 2004). On the positive side, it should be mentioned that the assumption of a unified country culture is a very common methodological practice in cross-cultural studies that rely on Hofstede's or GLOBE's data sets. An avenue for further investigation is to expand the study to include additional countries. Other regions of the world such as South America, Africa, Middle East, and parts of Asia represent different clusters of national culture according to the GLOBE framework (House et al., 2004). It may be that in these clusters national culture plays a more dominant role. 6.2. Contribution and implication for practice The current study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it brings the convergence/divergence perspectives (Ralston et al., 1997 and Shenkar and Ronen, 1987) into the operations management literature and examines the debate between them in a manufacturing setting, whereas the vast majority of past studies on this topic where conducted in the international management literature. Also, it answers scholars’ calls for empirical research that crosses levels of analysis (Hackman, 2003 and Rousseau, 1985), by investigating the interplay between national level culture dimensions and commensurate organizational level culture dimensions. Klein et al. (1999) assert that the multilevel organizational literature is dominated by a focus on two levels of analysis (individuals and organizations). We address this gap by broadening the theorists’ focus to encompass an additional level of analysis (national). In addition, the cross-cultural literature tends to be rhetoric, descriptive, and qualitative in nature, whereas this study conducts an empirical quantitative investigation of the variations in organizational culture dimensions across countries and links them to their commensurate national culture dimensions. It also employs recently developed cultural constructs from the GLOBE cultural framework (House et al., 2004) and utilizes the most recent data on national culture provided by GLOBE (Table 3). Past studies relied on Hofstede's data that was collected at the 1980s and does not reflect recent global changes around the world such as the end of the cold war at the 90s that revolutionized many countries, especially in Europe (McSweeney, 2002). This research also contributes to the international operations management literature. Prasad and Babbar (2000) argue that there is a lack of research in the area of international operations management. Our study addresses this need by including six countries across the world (Germany, United States, Japan, Finland, South Korea, and Sweden) from three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Finally, in an era of globalization (Metters and Verma, 2008 and Zhao et al., 2006) when multinational corporations invest overseas by initiating startups and entering into joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, this study provides insight for practitioners. We are moving rapidly into an age of transnational manufacturing, where items produced in one country are being shipped across national borders for additional process, storage, remanufacture, recycle, or disposal (Ferdows, 1997). Our results indicate that plants can establish an organizational culture that is different from the national culture in which they reside. Furthermore, this study provides guidance to managers about which dimensions of organizational culture lead to high performance. More specifically, an organizational culture characterized by low power distance and assertiveness and high institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, future orientation, performance orientation, uncertainty avoidance, and humane orientation leads to enhanced manufacturing performance.