Integrating Culture and Management in Global Organizations
INSIDE
Global Leadership: Giving Oneself for Things Far Greater Than Oneself by Nancy Adler
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IMQ Update - New Perspectives
Published in Insights, Journal of the Academy of International Business, vol.1(no. 2), 2001, pp. 13-15.
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To be human is to give yourself for things far greater than yourself; To lead is to give yourself for things far greater than yourself.
6 When Cultural
When I was 11 years old, my Austrian mother explained to me that when she was my age she had wanted to have at least 6 children. Yet by the time she met my American father, just 8 years later, she no
by Lawrence E. Harrison
Differences Become Management Problems by Richard G. Linowes
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Book Review - Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress
Volume 2, Number 2
Spring 2 0 0 1 E dit i o n A quarterly publication produced by the Intercultural Management Quarterly and the Intercultural Management Institute, School of International Service at American University
longer wanted any children. Losing most of her friends and family during World War II to Hitler’s terror had convinced her that the world was not a fit place to raise children. Luckily, especially from my perspective, my father convinced my mother that within the could grow up in safety and happiness, protected from the inhumanity raging outside. Having grown up within the bubble of their love, and in sunny southern California rather than war torn Europe, I never doubted that our role on earth, as human Continued on page 4
International training: Preparation Is Key by Harris R. Ghersin Designing and implementing a practical international field study course for Executive MBA students certainly has its challenges. After September 11th these challenges became a minefield. This past Spring 2002 I had the opportunity to revisit Scandinavia with 13 Executive MBA students and a colleague, Professor of Marketing, Dennis Sandler. During our respective undergraduate years we had both lived and studied abroad, Dennis in Stockholm Sweden and I in Copenhagen Denmark. This was during the tumultuous 1970’s, better known as the “Vietnam years”. Interestingly, we had both shared similar experiences living and study-
ing abroad with Swedish and Danish host families. Our individual experiences would serve as a foundation for our collaborative teaching relationship and for the challenges which we would soon face together. The biggest challenge we faced after September 11th was recruiting a minimum of 10 International MBA students who might want to travel abroad for field study. Due to the tragic events of September 11, seven Field study courses had to be canceled including one to Russia and one to China. Determined not to be the eighth, 13 students registered for our course. These students represented Continued on page 7
IMQ Update
New Perspectives
Welcome to the Spring 2001 edition of the Intercultural Management Quarterly (IMQ). In this edition, we shift our focus from training to management. We ask what strategic roles international human resource professionals can play in their organizations. Also, what can managers do to distinguish between operational and culture-based problems? We continue to look at the obstacles faced by female international managers. On a macro level, Lawrence E. Harrison investigates what role culture plays in national socio-economic development. We at IMQ agree with Harrison that, “Globalization is a force for cultural change. Workplace encounters with people from other cultures present an opportunity not only to learn what values and attitudes underlie their behavior but also to assess the relevance and utility of those values and attitudes to one’s own life.” IMQ continues to offer cutting-edge research in the field of intercultural management. Our reach is growing, with thousands of readers from dozens of countries visiting our web site at www.imquarterly.com. We hope to become your knowledge source for intercultural management and are proud to bring you the Spring 2001 edition of the IMQ.
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Correction - The Winter 2001 IMQ’s Index of Cultural Assessment Tools should have listed the Overseas Assignment Inventory (OAI) as having been developed by Tucker International, www.tuckerintl.com. We apologize for any confusion.
Sincerely, Hamilton Bean The Intercultural Management Quarterly is a student-run, founded, and managed publication. It was established by the International Communication Student Forum at the School of International Service at American University. It combines new and original research being conducted in the field of intercultural management with the applied perspectives of industry experts. The IMQ integrates the experience of students from various areas of concentration at American University. Due to this interdisciplinary approach, the IMQ is a unique knowledge source for professionals. If you are interested in sponsoring an issue of IMQ or contributing an article, please contact the Managing Editor at editor@imquarterly.com.
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IMQ CONTACT
Executive Director • Dr. Gary R. Weaver Managing Editor • Hamilton Bean Publication Manager • Andrea Santy Senior Editor • Ian Larsen
Intercultural Management Quarterly School of International Service Phone: (202) 885-1846 Fax: (202) 885-1331 E-mail: info@imquarterly.com
Contributing Writers Lawrence E. Harrison Richard G. Linowes Jacqueline Lirtzman Sarah Schafer Tsila Zalcman
Editorial Review Board Shawn Bates, Sarah P. Evans, Jacqueline Lirtzman, Dr. Gary R. Weaver © 2001 Intercultural Management Quarterly
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Cultural Diversity Training in the New World Order: Going Beyond Culture-Lite and Diversity-Plus by Lawrence E. Harrison The cultural issues corporations now face are truly multidimensional: from how best to integrate corporate cultures in response to mergers and acquisitions to how to enhance sensitivity to national differences in an era of exploding globalization to how to deal with the new realities of the postSeptember 11 world order — or disorder. The need has never been greater for training aimed at raising cultural awareness among co-workers and diffusing potential cultural conflict in the broader social context. Yet, while multinational corporations across the country have begun to offer what they are calling cultural diversity training for their workforces, more often than not, this training consists of no more than a short module tacked on to an existing program aimed at preventing discrimination and harassment in the workplace. As some prominent transnational mergers have demonstrated, all is not necessarily smooth sailing when it comes to bringing two companies from different cultural points of reference together. Even mergers between transatlantic companies, when both are from Western cultures, can lead to numerous cultural obstacles to creating a seamless fusion of two halves. Experts agree that some cross-border mergers have been spectacular failures precisely
because the process of bringing the two corporate cultures together was taken lightly at best or ignored completely at worst. Large global corporations now have the technological resources, manpower, and wealth to create their own cultures across the globe, complete with characteristics once reserved for national groupings: a feeling of belonging to a community with shared interests, distinct hierarchical and organizational structures, a sense of mission and purpose, and a distinct language. Out of these companies are arising new corporate identities — clusters of shared interests that take on their own unique cultural characteristics, with tentacles stretching out well beyond corporate headquarters. At the same time, it’s likely that the “corporatization” of NGOs and other issue-oriented organizations, even parts of the United Nations, will continue to create ever more potential for networks with new identities to form across the globe. Overlapping shared and multiple identities are the wave of the future. A “culture” is becoming not just the ethno-linguistic or religious group we belong to but other groups as well, including corporate networks. But while new cultures and identities may indeed be emerging centered on corporations, “traditional” cultural divisions and tensions remain as entrenched as ever, as the events of September 11
dramatically underscore. And while globalization continues apace, many are resorting to old cultural referents — race, religion, ethnicity, and so on — in the face of heightened international tensions. During the 1990s, U.S. companies became locked into a specific diversity paradigm as major companies integrated discrimination and diversity awareness into their overall employee training, including awareness of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, physical challenges, and so on. Typically, a vital element — awareness of cultural diversity — was missing. The challenge now is to expand diversity training beyond its pre-9/11 definitions. Most companies to date have not met this challenge effectively. For one, training and education in cultural diversity is not mandated in any state or federal law. In addition, measuring the bottom-line impact of cultural training is difficult. Cultural diversity programs are also thought to be expensive to administer and are therefore eliminated when cuts are the order of the day. Of course, many large corporations recognize the need for programs to acculturate expatriates when they undertake overseas assignments because the cost of failure of an expatriate assignment can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But providing the general workforce with cultural diversity training has not occurred to any substantial degree. Continued on page 8 Consider, for example, the case of one major international corporation
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Global Leadership Continued from page 1
beings and as leaders, was to expand the bubble to encompass the world: or as the rabbis would exhort us, to return to our original task of Tikun Olam, the restoration of the world. Of course, none of us can claim that the twenty-first century entered on a safe, secure, or loving note—a note imbued with peace, wisdom, compassion, and love. As we ask ourselves which of our twentieth-century legacies we wish to pass on to the children of the twenty-first century, we are humbled into shameful silence. Yes, we have advanced science, technology, and commerce, but at the price of a world torn asunder by a polluted environment, cities infested with social chaos and physical decay, an increasingly skewed income distribution that condemns large portions of the population to poverty (including people living in the world’s most affluent societies), and rampant physical violence continuing to kill people in titularly limited wars and seemingly random acts of violence. No, we did not exit the twentieth century with pride. Unless we collectively learn to treat each other and our planet in a more civilized way, it may soon become blasphemous to even consider ourselves a civilization. And yet why not a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate society in the twenty-first century? Why not a global civilization that we could bequeath with pride to our children and our children’s children? Naively idealistic? Perhaps; but only if we ig4
nore the wisdom and approaches to learning of Adam Kahane and likeminded colleagues around the world— people who have dared to attempt to make adifference. Only if we renege on our role as leaders and simply adapt to the future, rather than collectively attempting to improve it. As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admonishes us, “We have a responsibility in our time, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history….” After a quarter century of conducting research and consulting on global strategy and cross-cultural management, I have increasingly focused the last few years on the small, but rapidly increasingly number of women who are among the world’s most prominent business and political leaders—women who have served as their country’s president or prime minister or as CEO of a major global firm. Perhaps it is not surprising that at this moment in history, countries around the world, most for the first time, are turning to women leaders rather than to the traditional cohort of men. People want a change; they no longer want the narrow, circumscribed leadership of the twentieth century nor its outcomes. They hope and imagine that women will bring a more inclusive and compassionate approach to leadership.
inflicted wounds and find a peace that would reunite all Nicaraguans. Why such elevated hopes from a Sunday night dinner? Because of Chamorro’s four adult children, two were prominent Sandanistas while the other two equally prominently opposed the Sandanistas, not an unusual split in war torn Nicaragua. As Violetta Chamorro’s children told their stories around her dining room table, others in the country began to believe that they too could “reach a deeper, more real consensus—including around such profoundly important issues as unity and peace—through the telling of their personal stories.” Implicitly, the Nicaraguans believed that by listening attentively to each other, with empathy, they could hear the sacred within each person, their core humanity and that of the nation. It is not coincidence that the symbol of hope, peace and unity was a dinning room table and not a board room table. Such holographic listening, as Adam Kahane labels it— in which each story reflects the whole, rather than merely contributing a piece to the puzzle—opens up the possibility of communion and oneness, of transcending history to create a new future: “We have the greatest capacity to make a difference when we dare to open ourselves up, to expose our most honest nightmares and our most heartfelt dreams.”
In Nicaragua, for example, former president Violetta Chamorro’s ability to bring all the members of her family together every week for Sunday dinner achieved near legendary status. Symbolically, her dinners gave the nation hope that it could heal its civil-war-
As a social thinker, Adam Kahane points out that leaders who make a difference are extraordinarily committed, body and soul, to the changes they want to see in the world, to goals much larger than themselves. The lives of many of the world’s first women lead-
ers mirror commitments much larger than themselves. For example, in her personal commitment, Chandrika Kumaratunga, the president of war torn Sri Lanka, became a prism for the paradoxes of extraordinary leadership. When she was only eleven years old, her father, who was the country’s founding father and its first prime minister, was assassinated, many believe due to his policies, which advantaged the Sinhalese and stripped the Tamil of many of their cultural rights. Her mother, who also served as prime minister, furthered the country’s ethnically divisive policies. As an adult, Kumaratunga’s husband, a politically involved citizen and noted actor, was murdered, in what many believe to have been Tamil-initiated violence. With the constant and very real threat of death to her and to her children, why did Kumaratunga choose to stay in Sri Lanka and to run for office? And once she won, how did she find the courage to tell her mother—whom she later appointed to serve as prime minister—and the country that she was going to attempt to find a peaceful solution to Sri Lanka’s seemingly interminable civil war by siting down with the Tamil and listening to their story. Kumaratunga, with both her father and husband murdered, chose to go outside the patterns of history and say, “Enough! There has to be a better way.” Her attempts at moving Sri Lanka toward peace and unity have by no means met with unequivocal success. Yet Kumaratunga persists, even in the face of constant death threats and a bomb explosion that already claimed one of her eyes. Kahane reminds us that leaders who influence history do so because they live the paradox. They have the courage to commit their lives to effecting the changes they want to see.
At the same time, they have the courage to engage with others—even their enemies; the courage to give up the illusion of being in control, to venture beyond detachment, and to surrender to the process. Will Kumaratunga be able to stay committed to changing her country while remaining open to listening to how each faction wants to change? Will she be able to maintain the paradox? To paraphrase Martin Buber,
opened the service in Hebrew with a traditional Jewish prayer did the tension begin to reside. In one of the most moving and profoundly meaningful wedding ceremonies I have ever attended, the priest celebrated Aaron and Karen’s unique individuality, including their two distinctly different spiritual traditions. He made no attempt to minimize or ignore the differences between Judaism and Christianity. After the bride and groom had exchanged vows, the priest reminded us of the hatred that has all too frequently separated Jewish and Catholic communities. He then asked each of us to see Karen and Aaronas symbolic of the love that could unite the two traditions, the love that could replace the all too common hatred. What more powerful symbol of global leadership: love replacing hate, love bridging distinct individuality, love uniting bride and groom on their wedding day, love respecting and bridging differences among all peoples at all times.
Does Kumaratunga believe in destiny and also that destiny needs her; that destiny does not lead her, but rather waits for her. Can she proceed toward her country’s and her own destiny without knowing where it waits for her? Will she be ableto continue going forth with her whole being? Destiny will not turn out the way her resolve intended it; but what she wants will come about only if she resolves to do that which she can. Will she be able neither to interfere nor to merely allow things to happen? Our capacity to see and to change the world co-evolves with our capacity to see While the answer will only be written in and to change ourselves. As the marriage the months and years ahead, we know ceremony changed Aaron and Karen into that Kumaratunga has demonstrated husband and wife, so too did it change all enormous courage to date to begin the of us into people who more deeply unjourney. The challenge of leadership is derstand what it means to unify diversity in the openness to destiny and the com- without extinguishing individuality. As plete commitment to change for the leaders, we can never close our eyes to better; not in simplistic short term evalu- the complexity of the world or to the proations of success and failure. foundly influential interactions that define This past year, my Jewish nephew society. Goethe’s admonishes us that leadAaron married a deeply religious ers know themselves only to the extent Catholic woman Karen. Although told that they know the world; that they bethat their wedding ceremony and life to- come aware of themselves only within the gether would be rooted in the two spiri- world, and aware of the world only within tual traditions, both families questioned themselves. the reality of the young couple’s pronouncement when the invitations arrived announcing that the wedding would be celebrated at Holy Family Catholic Church with a Catholic priest, and no rabbi, presiding. Only as the priest
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When
Cultural Differences Become Management Problems
Headline: American Lifts Corporate Culture’s Lid by Asahi Shimbun Copyright 2002 Asahi Shimbun Publishing Co. During Rochelle Kopp’s first few days of graduate school in Chicago, her face started aching. After saying, Hi, nice to meet you,’ all day, at the end of the day it would hurt,’’ she recalls. The smile-ache lasted for three days.
by Richard G. Linowes
communication. For Japanese, the hardest thing is learning how to be specific and forthcoming. They hear one thing and understand 10. There’s lots of nonverbal communication,’’ says Kopp. Foreigners less familiar with Japanese culture may not pick up on subtle signals, so Kopp encourages her Japanese clients to explain themselves more fully in intercultural business situations.
Working at a Japanese bank for two years left her unprepared for smile- It’s a double whammy. You have to filled American culture. It’s not that I be more explicit and at the same time wasn’t happy (in Japan), but people use a different language,’’ she says. just don’t smile as much,’’ she says. Kopp learned the hard way. When As president and founder of Japan she started working for Yasuda Trust Intercultural Consulting (JIC), Kopp & Banking Co. in Japan in 1988, no has devoted her career to helping one at the company gave her any work businesspeople understand cultural to do. I had no real job description, differences from smile patterns to which is common in Japanese firms. sexual harassment laws. She has My boss had no idea what to do with worked with hundreds of companies me ... he gave me a bunch of magasuch as Sony and Ford, focusing on zines to read, and I had to figure out American-Japanese interactions To how to be useful.’’ So she created a prevent conflicts with local laws and job for herself. I started peppering him customs in overseas offices, many (her boss) with ideas, and saying, Hey, companies turn to Kopp. According what about this?’ I soon had more than to the Japan Overseas Enterprises I could handle,’’ she says. Kopp beAssociation, Japanese businesses are came so busy that Yasuda Trust increasingly opening offices abroad. ended up hiring someone else to take They currently employ more than 3 care of the translation work million local people at overseas subsidiaries, almost one-quarter of whom As a result of her contributions, Yasuda Trust began communicating are in the United States. more with its overseas branches. The biggest challenge on both sides is Taking initiative, Kopp says, is what 6
you have to do in a Japanese environment. ... I just tripped into it.’’ Yet despite her productivity, she was left with a nagging’’ feeling that something was not right. There was no positive feedback. People just walked by my desk,’’ she says. It can be hard for someone who is used to doing well.’’ One of her colleagues even told her, I would like to compliment you but I don’t want it to go to your head and for you to stop working so hard.’’At many Japanese companies, says Kopp, this is an extremely common situation. Giving compliments is almost insulting.’’ In contrast, Americans are often used to frequent praise for good work. Kopp soon learned positive feedback comes in nonverbal ways, like getting invited out to an important dinner, or receiving more challenging assignments. Americans don’t understand that’s praise, they just think you’re dumping more work on them, whereas if you were doing a bad job, you wouldn’t be getting any work.’’ These small misunderstandings can blossom into much larger ones, sometimes even leading to expensive lawsuits. In the 1980s, as Americans and Japanese began working more closely together, Japanese companies began getting sued for sexual harassment, unfair termination and discrimination against non-Japanese. Japanese were encountering chalContinued on page 7
lenges and no one was helping them, so I thought, Here is something I can help with,’’’ recalls Kopp. As an MBA student at the University of Chicago between 1990 and 1992, she interviewed more than 100 Americans working in Japanese firms. She found Japanese firms had smaller human resources departments and typically spent less money on training programs and career development, which led to higher turnover rates of locally hired staff. She turned her research into her first book, The Rice-Paper Ceiling,’’ which she says contains tips she wishes someone had told her when she first moved to Japan, such as the
importance of after-work activities Hyogen’’ (English for Effective Business and emphasizing the company’s suc- Meetings, The Japan Times), which have sold cess over personal achievement. around 5,000 copies each. She also writes regular columns for Staff Advisor magazine, She explains nemawashi, the practice Shukan ST (The Japan Times) and the of speaking one-on-one with col- Nihon Keizai Shimbun. She says she has leagues about decisions and reaching found an enthusiastic audience among the an agreement before an actual meet- Japanese readers here.’’ Her books read ing. Americans used to debating con- somewhat like textbooks, with anecdotes troversial issues at meetings some- and examples of good’’ and bad’’ responses times get frustrated with what looks to different situations. For example, when like secret’’ decision-making, says responding to criticism, she recommends Kopp. against using phrases such as, If it’s posSince that book was published in sible, we will surely work hard to meet your 1994 by Stone Bridge Press, she has expectations,’’ or I’m not sure if you want written mostly in Japanese, publish- to continue working with us, but we would ing Kore de Amerikajin to Shigoto ga like to continue working with you,’’ because Dekiru’’ (Working with Americans, they are too vague and modest. PHP) and Bijinesu Mitingu no Eigo Instead, she suggests saying a more straightforward, We hope to have the opportunity
International Training Continued from page1
12 different nations and regions including: Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan, Canada, England, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East and two Caribbean nations. We were indeed truly an international body of students representing our school and the diversity found throughout the United States. My primary challenge as the lead course instructor now shifted to focusing on the diversity of this student group. The key question was: within 6 course sessions prior to our departure for Europe, could I get these 13 students to achieve an awareness of the the “richness” of their individual diversity, enabling them to better understand the contemporary intercultural challenges facing both Swedish and Danish societies who are now facing increasing pressure to give up national au-
tonomy by joining eleven other nations who have adopted the EURO? To tackle this essential question within a limited time period, three strategic interventions spontaneously emerged and proved to be efficacious. The first strategy involved creating both individual and group awareness. This was attempted through the use of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI form G), which was administered to all students. Cross cultural training involving the MBTI was accomplished in two 3 hour sessions. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator is the most widely used recognized psychological instrument in the world. It has been effectively applied to create cross cultural awareness in a variety of contexts. However, most research in this area is somewhat limited in scope and still emerging through
practitioners in the field. The second strategy involved introduction of the Johari Window. This model which is widely used within psychological and organizational settings provides a framework for disclosure and sharing built on trust and openness. The model was originally created by Joe Luft and Harry Ingham for the purpose of creating individual awareness based on self disclosure. We used the model to build trust within our team and to better understand the origins of our diversity as a group. The third strategy involved the creation of a shared “Values Matrix” which was based on an organizational intervention dating back to the late 1950’s. Through his work Richard Beckhard, a pioneer in the field of organization development helped create this organizational application which can easily be adapted for cross cultural development purposes. His original model allowed our group to examine individual values as manifested through our respective cultural 7 biases. Of particular interest was our discussion involving our shared values with5 respect to “American Culture.” Many of us
BOOK REVIEW by Jacqueline Lirtzman Why have the economies of South Korea and Ghana—countries with similar per capita GDPs in the 1950’s— developed so differently? Why hasn’t Mexico kept up with the development of the United States? How did the United States become the most powerful country in the world? In Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington present an explanation to these questions and many others regarding the status of global development. Their compilation of essays from prominent academics such as Francis Fukuyama, Mariano Grondona, Seymour Martin Lipset, Orlando Patterson and Jeffrey Sachs examine why countries develop at different rates, and whether there is hope that underdeveloped countries can catch up. The authors stress how human progress is affected by factors ranging
Cultur Culturee Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds. from economic to geographical advantages, successful, such as an unusually strong but the primary factor that the book returns family support system. to is culture, or the social institutions that Harrison and Huntington’s book alshape the course of development. Most of ludes to a permanently stratified society the authors claim that people must have cer- thus providing a pessimistic view of the tain cultural characteristics, or the “proper” state of the world. Although their assessvalues and beliefs that favor economic de- ment of culture is worthwhile, critics may velopment, to achieve a type of prosperity counter that there are many examples of that the United States has experienced. In “success” in non-Western societies and what some consider a throwback to the ideas measures of “development” other than of Max Weber and David McClelland, the GDP. authors embrace Calvinist values such as The values discussed in this book hard work and delayed gratification that are important because they define the atseem to define the most advanced success- titudes and practices that influence ecoful countries. nomic, political, or social development. Many of the authors downplay the im- However, in the end we are left to specuportance of non-Western cultural patterns. late to what extent the analysis is sympHarrison offers an exception when he states tomatic of the authors’ own cultural bithat the Far Eastern Confucian values of ases. hard work and education are similar to that of Western societies, yet he de-emphasizes Jacqueline Lirtzman is graduate student the fundamental importance of other char- at American University. acteristics that make Confucian societies
Harrison - Cultural Values Continued from page 3
that has occurred, particularly in First World countries, in recent decades, and they are increasingly organizing and taking initiatives to rectify the sexism that has traditionally kept them in secondclass status. To be sure, Latin American values and attitudes are changing, as the transition to democratic politics and market economics of the past fifteen years suggests. Several forces are modifying the region’s culture, among them the new intellectual current, the globalization of communications and economics, and the surge in evangelical/Pentecostal Protestantism. At least one African has come to similar conclusions about progress on his continent. Cameroonian Daniel Etounga-Manguelle’s analysis of African culture highlights the highly centralized, vertical traditions of authority; a focus on the past and present, not the future; a distaste for work; the suppression of individual initiative, achievement
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and saving; and a belief in sorcery that nurtures irrationality and fatalism. Etounga-Manguelle concludes that Africa must “change or perish.” A cultural “adjustment” is not enough. What is needed is a cultural revolution that transforms traditional authoritarian child-rearing practices; transforms education through emphasis on the individual, independent judgment and creativity; produces free individuals working together for the progress of the community; produces an elite concerned with the well-being of the society; and promotes a healthy economy based on the work ethic, the profit motive and individual initiative. This is not to say that addressing culture will solve all problems. Culture is one of several factors that influence progress. But particularly as we view the longer run, culture’s power becomes more apparent. Nathan Glazer observed that people are made uncomfortable or are offended by cultural explanations of why some countries and some ethnic groups do better
than others. But the alternative — to view oneself or one’s group as a victim — is worse. Bernard Lewis recently observed in a Foreign Affairs article that when people realize that things are going wrong, there are two questions they can ask. One is, ‘What did we do wrong?’ and the other is ‘Who did this to us?’ The latter leads to conspiracy theories and paranoia. The first question leads to another line of thinking: ‘How do we put it right?’ Yet the role of cultural values and attitudes as obstacles to or facilitators of progress has been largely ignored by governments and aid agencies. Integrating value and attitude change into policies and programs will assure that, in the next fifty years, the world does not relive the poverty and injustice in which most poor countries have been mired during the past half century’s “decades of development.” Lawrence E. Harrison is an Associate at Harvard’s Academy for International Area Studies.