Individualism-Collectivism Subdimensions
Hypothesis Tests of the Three Higher-Order Dimensional Continua
In general, the findings for the higher-order dimensions approves the crossvergence hypothesis, even while using the more narrow definition (i.e., "in between") of crossvergence. The Individualism-Collectivism findings fully support the crossvergence (дивергенция (различия)+конвергенция(сходства)) with national culture-dominant hypothesis. For this higher-order dimensional continuum (диапазон, постоянство), the American managers scored higher than the Russians, the Russians scored higher than the Japanese, and the Japanese scored higher than the Chinese.
The findings for the Openness-to-Change-Conservation continuum also indicates a crossvergence effect.
However, since there is no significant difference between Russia and Japan on this continuum, neither national culture nor economic ideology can be reported as dominant. The Self-Enhancement-Self-Transcendence finding, however, supports better the national culture-based difference perspective. With the U.S. and Russian managers scoring significantly higher than the Japanese and Chinese managers, culture clearly appears to be the more reliable explanation for these differences.
Clearly, in this study, we found that one's self-orientation values appear to be more influenced by culture and slower to change than other value groups. While certainly not conclusive, these findings do identify the difference in rate of change as a potential area for future values research.
Additionally, these findings suggest that Russia will be more likely than China to adopt more fully the current Western capitalism ideology of the U.S. - the political environment aside (granted this is an important issue to put aside).
The national culture-dominant crossvergence finding for the Individualism continuum is especially supportive of this perspective. At the same time, we are not suggesting that the Chinese will not develop their own form of capitalism, but that more likely they will develop a form that is uniquely compatible with the Chinese culture. If true, this certainly would have implications for the vision of a single global corporate culture.
However, we shall save our discussion of the multidomestic versus global corporate culture debate until after we have addressed the subdimensional findings.
The Subdimension Contribution to the Interpretation of the Findings
As noted previously, each higher-order dimensional continuum consists of a number of subdimensions that may help us to understand better the dynamics underlying the higher-order dimensions. Therefore, we now turn to the results for the subdimensions that were used to create each continuum.
Individualism-Collectivism Subdimensions.
The subdimensions that make up the Individualism-Collectivism higher-order dimensional continuum show that the U.S. managers typically scored significantly higher on the Individualism subdimensions (Power, Achievement, Hedonism (жизнелюбие), Stimulation, Self- Direction) while the Chinese managers scored higher on the Collectivism subdimensions (Benevolence, Tradition, Conformity). However, the Power and Benevolence (доброжелательность) subdimension findings were interesting in that both the Chinese and U.S. managers' scores were high and not significantly different from one another.
Since Power is an individualistic subdimension, it could be hypothesized that the U.S. managers would score significantly higher than the Chinese managers. Vice versa, since Benevolence is a collectivistic subdimension, it could be hypothesized (выдвинута в качестве гипотезы) that the Chinese managers would score significantly higher than the U.S. managers.
From the results, we see that while the locations of the subdimensions were generally consistent with the higher-order dimensional continuum for the U.S. and Chinese managers, these two subdimensions were exceptions.
Perhaps this is an indication that some values are becoming more similar across these two diverse groups. Moreover, the Power and Benevolence findings might be indicators of a convergence trend. If so, this reinforces (усиливает) the notion that not all values change at the same rate and suggests that crossvergence is a temporary, transitional (переходное) state during which values move over time from divergence to convergence.
However, if crossvergence is a transitional state, it is uncertain whether it is one that should be measured in decades, centuries, or millennia.
Another issue suggested by the results for Benevolence deals with the direction in which change can occur. The convergence literature proposes that the value in countries where the capitalistic economic ideology is introduced, such as developing Asian countries, will move toward the values of the West. However, the question might also be asked: Is it possible that the Western economies will assimilate values from the Eastern cultures with which they interact? In other
words, is the assimilation process a two-way street? For example, in the U.S., the adoption of quality circles and an increased emphasis on project teams suggests that American companies are looking to the East and learning from their Japanese counterparts.
The lower scores on the Collectivisms subdimensions were a prime reason the Russian managers score more individualistic on the Individualism-Collectivism continuum.
The Chinese seek to embrace the "new way" of capitalism, as epitomized (воплощать, кратко представлять, резюмировать) by Individualism values, without forsaking (не отрекаясь от, не отказываясь от) traditional Confucian-based cultural values. Thus, an implicit (потенциальный) need exists for a crossvergent philosophy to reconcile (совместить) the differences of old and new within the paradox. Also, these findings continue to raise the question: Do certain values change more easily or faster than others?
Therefore, what we may be seeing when we look at the Individualism-Collectivism subdimensions is that embedded (включенный) in these crossvergence findings is an almost subliminal (подсознательный) tendency for divergence on values associated with Confucian-based Eastern cultures, especially with the Tradition and Conformity subdimensions. Thus, a trend is relevant for locating the Russian and Japanese managers - the two groups under primary investigation in this study - on the crossvergence continuum.
That trend is the consistent, significantly high scores for Japan on the subdimensions related to group-oriented values, which in Japan's case could be referred to as cultural-based Collectivism. Had the opposite occurred - Russia scoring high on these subdimensions- we might have referred to it as ideology-based Collectivism.