Transformative Organizations Response Books_14 docx

A societal culture a high in uncertainty avoidanceand high in power distance is likely to be associated with the organizationalquality of standardized bureaucracy, with an emphasis on st

Conversely, it is held that the management practices inconsistent with societalculture are likely to impede organizational effectiveness (Newman andNollen, 1996).

Another way of approaching the role of societal culture is to recognize thatdifferent configurations of societal culture may be associated with differentorganizational qualities For instance, Hofstede (2001) observes that the societalculture dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and power distance have an influence

on the quality of organization A societal culture (a) high in uncertainty avoidanceand high in power distance is likely to be associated with the organizationalquality of standardized bureaucracy, with an emphasis on standardized workprocesses; (b) high in uncertainty avoidance and low in power distance is likely

to be associated with the organizational quality of professional bureaucracy,with an emphasis on professional qualification and skills of the workforce;(c) low in uncertainty avoidance and high in power distance is likely to beassociated with the organizational quality of authoritarian bureaucracy, with anemphasis on family paternalism; (d ) low in uncertainty avoidance and low inpower distance is likely to be associated with the organizational quality ofmutually adjusting adhocracy, with an emphasis on market type fluidity.Finally, one may be interested in specific target quality—such as the potential

of the society to nurture transformative organization, or what may be termed as

‘transformative potential’ It would then be possible to identify a configuration

of societal culture that would be conducive to the attainment of the target qualityand to authenticate the relationship between that benchmarked configurationand the measures of target quality Specifically, the steps involved in this processare:

1 Define the target quality (in our case, transformative potential),

2 Develop a benchmarked configuration of societal culture for attainingthe target quality,

3 Authenticate the relationship between the behavioral benchmark andthe measures of target quality

TARGET QUALITY–TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL

We define transformative potential as the potential of an organization to developsustainable transformation because of the positive and dynamic features of itssocietal culture

BENCHMARKED CONFIGURATION OF SOCIETAL CULTURE

We rely on the GLOBE program to develop a benchmarked configuration ofsocietal culture in which organizations with high transformative potential arelikely to emerge GLOBE has collected data on cultural values and practices andleadership attributes from 18,000 managers in 62 societies In GLOBE, ninedimensions are used for a systematic understanding about the culture of eachsociety: (a) Performance Orientation, (b) Assertiveness Orientation, (c) FutureOrientation, (d ) Humane Orientation, (e) Institutional Collectivism, (f ) Family

Collectivism, (g) Gender Egalitarianism, (h) Power Distance, and (i) UncertaintyAvoidance.

Performance Orientation was derived from McClelland’s (1961) work onthe need for achievement Hofstede’s (1980) construct of Masculinity was used

as a basis to develop the two distinct dimensions: Assertiveness Orientation andGender Egalitarianism Assertiveness Orientation is rooted in the interpersonalcommunication literature (Sarros and Woodman, 1993) Gender Egalitarianism

is similar to the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) concept ofGender Empowerment Future Orientation is derived from Kluckhohn andStrodtbeck’s (1961) Past, Present, and Future Orientation dimension, and fromHofstede’s (2001) Long Term Orientation, which focuses on the temporal mode

of the society Humane Orientation has its roots in Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s(1961) work on the ‘Human Nature is Good versus Human Nature is Baddimension’ Institutional Collectivism captures (inversely) the same construct

as Hofstede’s Individualism Family Collectivism measures pride in and loyalty

to the family, and is derived from the Triandis et al.’s (1988) work on in-groups.Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance are based on Hofstede’s (1980) work.GLOBE measured each cultural construct in two ways: cultural practicesfocused on how things are (referred to as ‘As Is’ construct), and cultural valuesfocused on how things should be (referred to as ‘Should Be’ construct) Theitems used to measure both practices and values were identical, but therespondents were asked to evaluate them both in as is as well as should be terms.The construct validation of the GLOBE cultural scales is available in Gupta,Sully and House (2003) The major implications of each of the nine dimensionsare as follows:

1 Performance Orientation: The performance orientation dimension reflectsthe extent to which a society encourages and rewards improved performance,goal-oriented behavior, and innovation Performance oriented cultures encouragepeople to be in control, using their experience, intelligence and skills to navigatethe currents towards their goal When faced with obstacles, they encourage adiligent and conscientious use of analytical perspectives, such as brainstorming,weighing the options, and plotting the course—thus such societies tend to beadaptable and versatile Such societies also encourage diversity of perspectivesand religious ideologies to foster a more versatile response-ability

2 Assertiveness Orientation: The dimension of assertiveness orientation isassociated with a strong consciousness, expression, articulation, and communi-cation of one’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and rights; in public, political andsocial forums, and is related to physical and psychological aggressiveness andconfrontation Assertive societies emphasize social skills and communication,direct personal influence and expression, and overall inter-personal effectiveness.Assertive orientation also contributes to people being more politically astute—they are willing to ask for what they want, deny what is not in their interest,and articulate positive and negative messages to others in an open manner

3 Future Orientation: The dimension of future orientation is reflected inbehaviors such as planning, preparing and investing for the future In long-term

oriented cultures, a strong concern for virtue allows a pragmatic integration ofmorals and practice As such, the material and spiritual are more integrated Thevalue of future orientation, with its emphasis on sacrifice, savings and persistence,

is associated with a spiritual force to search for the meaning of life beyond thehabits of consumption and attraction of materialism Such positive, meaningfulpsychology and visualization have an important influence on the capacity ofthe human body and mind to effect changes over time

4 Humane Orientation: The humane orientation dimension is concerned withgenerosity, compassion, and empathy for others Societies with high humaneorientation strive to use reason, the lessons of history, and personal experience

to form an ethical/moral foundation and meaning in life While respecting anunrepressed freedom to pursue individual interests, these societies encourageresponsibility and consideration for others They are founded on civil virtuessuch as honesty, uprightness, truth, sincerity, integrity, and fairness The dispo-sitions of greed, envy, hatred, and cheating are checked, and there is limitedemphasis on hedonic pleasure, personal comfort, and material success

5 Institutional Collectivism: Institutional collectivism construct reflects ments and rewards for collective behavior and norms, rather than incentivesand rewards for individual freedom and autonomy Such collectivism is exhib-ited in preferences for closer work relations and higher involvement with one’ssocial unit In institutionally collectivist cultures, people are encouraged to seekself-critical and self-improving orientations as a means to pursue the culturalgoals associated with interdependence and trust In this manner, institutionalcollectivism emphasizes shared objectives, interchangeable interests, and respectbased on socially legitimized and institutionalized criteria

induce-6 Family Collectivism: The family collectivism construct is associated withpride in affiliation and a general affective identification with, and a general affectivecommitment towards, the family, group, community, and nation It represents

a high degree of emotional attachment and personal involvement in the largergroup, thus fostering a focus of the people in the overall interests of the group.However, responsibility and identity begins with the immediate group, and thengradually and weakly extending externally As a result, family collectivism mayalso be associated with degenerative tendencies such as corruption and nepotism

7 Gender Egalitarianism: The gender egalitarianism construct reflects theabsence of gender-dependent division of roles, expectations, evaluations, andpower in a society In gender egalitarianism societies, there are fewer genderstereotypes that characterize women as passive, weak and deferential and prima-rily domestically oriented More than economic modernization, it reflects aninherent understanding between men and women, enhancing their ability towork together in social and economic spheres Gender egalitarian societies notonly tolerate diversity, but also emphasize understanding, respect, and nurtur-ing of diversity

8 Power Distance: The power distance construct reflects the extent to whichmembers of a cultural group expect and agree that power should be sharedunequally Power distance is readily valued at a cultural level when used forsocial causes, such as through the practice of both empowerment and produc-tivity Power distance is also associated with monopolistic orientation: endorse-ment of the differentials in the performance capacities of various groups based

on their accumulation of the private and intellectual properties However, unlessconstrained in some manner, power in high power distance may be exercised

in an aggressive manner for self-aggrandizing purposes, to the detriment ofthe society

9 Uncertainty Avoidance: The uncertainty avoidance construct focuses onthe extent to which people seek orderliness, consistency, structure, formalizedprocedures, and laws to deal with naturally occurring uncertain as well asimportant events in their daily lives Uncertainty avoidance is also associatedwith the social reliance on experts, technology, money and material possessions,

as well as social organization, legislation, and governance Material accumulationand technological advancements, for instance, can help in dealing with theuncertain changes in the environment, and allow exploitation of newly emergentopportunities in an entrepreneurial fashion while containing the risks

Based on the above, we propose that the societal culture dimensions ofperformance orientation, assertiveness orientation, future orientation, humaneorientation, institutional collectivism, gender egalitarianism, and uncertaintyavoidance are positively related with the transformative potential of the organi-zations In contrast, the societal culture dimensions of family collectivism andpower distance are inversely related with the transformative potential of theorganizations Therefore, we define transformative potential Index as follows:

Mean (performance orientation, assertiveness orientation,

future orientation, humane orientation, institutional

collectivism, gender egalitarianism, uncertainty avoidance)

æææææææææææææææææææææææææ

Mean (family collectivism, power distance)The average scores for the 10 GLOBE cultural clusters on the TransformativePotential Index are given in Table 26.1, separately for practices and valuesmeasures of the cultural dimension constructs There is no significant differenceamong various cultural clusters on the value-based transformative potential index.However, there exist statistically significant differences among various culturalclusters on the practice-based transformative potential index Specifically,the three Protestant culture clusters—Nordic, Germanic and Anglo—showsignificantly higher scores on practice-based transformative potential index,while the Confucian culture cluster shows average scores On the other hand,Sub-Sahara Africa, Southern Asia, and Latin Europe are moderately weak inpractice-based transformative potential index Finally, Middle East, EasternEurope and Latin America are significantly low in practice-based transformativepotential index

Importantly, the societies value transformative potential index (mean=1.17)more than they practice it (mean=0.79) In all societies, except New Zealandand Denmark, value-based transformative potential index exceeded practice-basedindex Danish society, for instance, is distinctive for its high prominence tohistory, with very wide time frames, in the media Danish media regularlycontains stories about or references to history, not necessarily as a ‘background’for today’s events, but just as anecdotes that appear to serve little more than anentertainment value (Ekecrantz, 2001) In such a situation, there is a sense ofappreciation for the existing transformative practices, and further transformation

in such practices is not necessarily deemed of high value

Table 26.1: Mean Scores for Practice-based and Value-based Transformative

Potential Index, by Cultural Clusters

Practice-based Value-based Transformative Transformative Potential Index Potential Index

*: p<0.05; **: p<0.05; +: significantly high; –: significantly low

AUTHENTICATION OF THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL INDEXTable 26.2 reports correlation of practice-based transformative potential indexwith several measures of transformative effectiveness in social, economic, tech-nological, and political domains in each society The data was drawn from Guptaand Chhokar (2003) database of GLOBE Education and Research Foundation,originally taken from published sources such as World Bank and United Nations.The societies that score high on practice-based transformative potential indextend to devote a greater share of their national income to education and health,live longer lives, and have more developed human resources and more women

in governance positions They also have higher per capita incomes, greater tertiaryemployment, more stock market wealth, less income inequality and a lowunemployment rate There is greater mass usage of technological resources such

as Internet, telephones and personal computers in such societies Finally, suchsocieties offer high civil liberties and a transparent governance system, withlittle or no corruption Thus, we conclude that the proposed transformative

potential index does measure the potential of the organizations in a society torealize sustainable transformation.

Table 26.2: Correlates of Practice-based Transformative Potential Index Measure of Transformative Quality Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient Social Domain

– Human Development Index 0.51** (n=56)

– % Stock Market Capitalization/GDP 0.65** (n=52)

– Gini Index of income inequality –0.46** (n=48)

– Unemployment rate –0.38** (n=48)

Technology Domain

– Telephone main lines per capita 0.67** (n=55)

– Mobile phones per capita 0.58** (n=55)

– Personal computers per capita 0.79** (n=50)

– Internet hosts per capita 0.70** (n=56)

On the other hand, it would be quite challenging for the firms in low practice-basedTransformative Potential Index societies to sustain their transformations Theconcept, technique, and methodology of transformative organization would,therefore, be most relevant and valuable for the firms in such societies to realizetheir valued transformative potential

The GLOBE study suggests that value-based leadership can be quite effective

in forging an ideological foundation for the transformational initiatives (Hartog,House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, and GLOBE, 1999) However, value-basedleadership has not been easy to enact in many societies According to Robert

House (1996), a key impediment is the lack of appropriate institutionalfoundation:

‘All scholars who have attempted to explain value based leadership agreethat it must be based on the articulation of an ideological goal However, sinceideological goals often challenge the status quo, their expression is oftensuppressed Opportunity to articulate such a goal, whether in stressful or non-stressful situations, can thus be considered as one of the situational requirementsfor a person to emerge as a value based leader It is perhaps lack of suchopportunity that accounts for the absence of value based leaders, under condition

of suppression of democracy, of protest movements in totalitarian countries.’Therefore, there is a need to develop a leadership that can focus on thetransformative potential values aspired by the people in most societies, and usethat as a basis for transformative interventions Thereby, the organizations would

be able to offer more meaningfulness, spiritual well being, self-expression, andemotional fulfillment, to their employees by emphasizing the value of transfor-mative potential, and making efforts to actualize this potential in their prac-tices Such an approach would facilitate a focus on how to create and developthe supportive social, economic, technological and political institutions Therewould be less concern with the inherited quality of the institutions, and moreinterest in actualizing the valued and preferred quality of institutions

One possibility is to rely on entrepreneurial leadership for discovering andexecuting opportunities for transformative interventions Entrepreneurial lead-ership is a ‘leadership that creates visionary scenarios, that are used to assembleand mobilize a ‘supporting cast’ of participants who become committed by thevision to the discovery and exploitation of strategic value creation’ (Gupta,Macmillan, and Surie, 2003) Entrepreneurial leaders are most effective in situa-tions where the funds are tight and human resources are drained where win-dows of opportunity must be identified to mobilize resources and gain workers’commitment to incremental value creation To do this requires the combinedcreation of a vision and a cast of supporters capable of enacting that vision: there

is little relevance of a vision where the cast of supporters cannot enact, and of acast of supporters without a suitably compelling vision Entrepreneurial leaderstherefore seek to envision proactive transformation of the firm’s exchange sys-tem to mobilize support from a workforce to enact the new value-creating net-working system However, entrepreneurial leaders are not necessarily heroes—more often they have humble origins and they have a deep appreciation of thevalues and ethos of the community around them, and of the practices that thecommunity would like to see transformed (Gupta, Macmillan and Surie, 2003).Gupta, Macmillan and Surie (2003) identify entrepreneurial leadership to

be distinctively more effective in the Protestant cultures, compared to the rest

of the world Their finding is consistent with the thesis of Weber (1930:224),who held that the Protestant ethic is associated with leadership in entrepreneur-ship, because it emphasized ‘the sinfulness of the belief in authority, which isonly permissible in the form of an impersonal authority’ Table 26.3 gives themean scores of 10 cultural regions, using data derived from the GLOBE Study

and reported in Gupta, Macmillan and Surie (2003) The data indicates thatentrepreneurial leadership is also highly effective in the Southern Asia cluster,and there is no significant difference between the efficacy of entrepreneurialleadership in the Southern Asia cluster and Protestant cultures clusters Interest-ingly, another cultural region with strong efficacy of entrepreneurial leadershipbased on GLOBE data is Latin America The chapters contained in this booksuggest that in Latin America, a high significance is attached to the role of lead-ers in helping the workforce to see positive and creative meaning in organiza-tional initiatives.

Table 26.3: Mean Scores on the Effectiveness of Entrepreneurial

Leadership in Different Cultural Regions

on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 = Very Strongly Counter-effective, 7 = Very Strongly Effective

Cultural Region Mean Cultural Region Mean

Effectiveness Effectiveness

Nordic Europe 6.13 Sub-Sahara Africa 5.98 Latin America 6.13 Eastern Europe 5.91 Southern Asia 6.10 Confucian Asia 5.85 Germanic Europe 6.09 Middle East 5.67 Source: Derived from Gupta, Macmillan and Surie (2003).

Surprisingly, in Southern Asia, the effectiveness of entrepreneurial ship stands out despite the cluster’s notably high scores on power distance andfamily collectivism (Gupta, Surie, Javidan, and Chhokar, 2002) Since SouthernAsia shares several of the institutional constraints with other emerging marketsthat suffer from low practice-based transformative potential, the techniques,methodologies and approaches used by the firms in Southern Asia to executeentrepreneurial leadership should be insightful The Southern Asian model

leader-of entrepreneurial leadership can help managers around the world gain betterappreciation of how to discover window of opportunities within a constrainedinstitutional setting, and how to mobilize the cast and envision scenarios forsustainable transformative interventions

SOUTHERN ASIAN MODEL OF ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIPThough it is difficult to identify one model of entrepreneurial leadership specific

to all the firms in Southern Asia, some fundamental and common elements can

be identified that pervade several leading firms in many cultures and sub-cultures

of Southern Asian cluster At its very root, the Southern Asian model ofentrepreneurial leadership is founded on the Doctrine of Karma People believethat their present personality and socio-economic status have largely generatedfrom their actions and lifestyles in previous births (Gopalan and Rivera, 1997).Individuals are reborn into wealthier and happier families if they perform theirmoral duties well in their previous birth (known as the Doctrine of Dharma)

Similarly, people believe that if they perform their moral duties well in thisbirth, they will accomplish a better life in their subsequent births However,the effect of the present actions is seen as not independent of the influences ofbehaviors from the prior births and before this birth Therefore, people believethat to improve the future situation, a great deal of planning, learning, experience,and support is needed To envision a transformational scenario, they often seek

to rely on their elders, superiors, and teachers They also take a cautiouslyoptimistic outlook towards their present situation believing that they wouldsomeday, somehow get the needed support and opportunity to redeem theirpast lapses in moral responsibilities Contributing to the community by helpingfriends and relatives in need are deemed important to help maintain this sense ofoptimism, order, and serenity in the society

In addition, the Southern Asian consciousness sees time as comprising ofseveral phases The present phase is believed to be the ‘Kali Age’ (the impersonalmachine age) where evil and immorality predominate, as opposed to a strongerprevalence of purity and goodness in the earlier phases (Saha, 1992) Theentrepreneurial leaders are therefore expected to strive to rekindle and promotepurity and goodness in the society The leaders are not respected for the materialwealth they have acquired or accumulated, but for their entrepreneurial behavior,

or what is termed as ‘gyana’ (knowledge) orientation that is focused on servingthe community with a unified consciousness, and thereby gaining a communion

of the self (Atman) with the Almighty (the Brahman) This differs from thesocieties with a doing orientation, where emphasis is given on personalachievement, accomplishment, and accumulation of material wealth alone, forinstance in terms of a calling from God as in the Protestant cultures (Weber,1930) Similarly, the masses in Southern Asian society are respected not fortheir personal gains, but for their ability to provide for the material well-being

of their families Even students are respected for their sharing of knowledge andhelping one another, rather than for their learning alone Thus, each member ofthe society is expected to operate as an entrepreneurial cast

Further, dana (giving or offering) is recognized as an important dharma, ormoral imperative, for all entrepreneurial leaders in the Southern Asian society.The Gift of food (anna dana) is the most common form of dana, that involvesthe sharing of food with others—both who have given the food to the person(such as teachers, ancestors and deities) as well as those who are dependent onthe person (such as family members and visitors) On special occasions, food isalso donated on a large scale to the impoverished people, and some food may bedonated on a regular basis to a smaller group of people in need depending onwhat the person can afford (Sugirtharajah, 2001) Several other forms of gifts arewell recognized, including donation of labor or physical service (shram dana).Because giving is an act of moral duty, dana does not carry an expectation of areturn favor from the recipient (Sinha, 1978)

These features have important implications for a transformative organization.For instance, suppose an organization negotiates a contract with a customer fordelivery of certain products As part of that deal, the customer informs it of newequipment, which enables expansion of the production scale and the lowering

of costs Grateful for this transformative insight, the organization may offer itsproducts to that customer near or even below its costs, partly as its donation orconsideration for the customer’s leadership (in terms of sharing the knowledgeabout the new equipment) Such a transfer of consideration may occur evenwithout any implicit or explicit expectation for such gift on the part of thecustomer Using an exchange costing approach, taking into account not just theadded costs of various services, but also cost savings and growth from the customeradvice, the entrepreneurial leaders can gain substantial business without fallingvictim to the forces of extortion and corruption.

INFOSYS MODEL OF ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP IN SOUTHERN ASIAInfosys, founded under the leadership of N.R Narayana Murthy in 1981, hasbeen consistently rated as Asia’s most admired company, the best employer,and the best in corporate governance and business ethics, and is the world’ssecond most valuable IT services company, after Accenture Over the past 10years (1993–2003), its turnover has grown about 200 times, from Rs 150 million($5 million) to nearly Rs 30 billion ($600 million), and has continued to growrapidly even after the meltdown of the new economy over the past few years.The principles of Karma (action), Dharma (morality), Gyana (knowledge), andDana (gift) are at the core of the Infosys model of entrepreneurial leadershipthat has facilitated its rise to the top Below we illustrate our proposition, drawingupon the factual information and interview data presented by Alam Srinivas inhis two Outlook India reports (2003a; 2003b)

Karma: Infosys puts a strong emphasis on old-fashioned performance tion to guide and focus-actions It has been focused on becoming the master ofthe opportunity offered by the meltdown of the new economy, rather thanfalling a victim of the crisis situation According to its CEO, Nandan Nilekani,

evalua-‘During the boom times, our focus was on scalability, how to ramp up tions in view of an ever-growing business Suddenly, we had to change ourmental model We had to deal with competition, streamline cost structures andlook at efficiencies.’ Earlier, Infosys pioneered in India the concept of makingwork a fun and leisure place—constructing gymnasiums, swimming pool, sauna,jacuzzi, jogging track, and tennis and basket ball courts in the office complex,and offering flexible work hours to its employees But with the meltdown, itquickly refocused on an alternative mental model The employees were requested

opera-to use leisure facilities only during the after-hours, and opera-to work during the lar hours

regu-Dharma: Infosys takes pride in its motto of being ‘a company by the people,for the people and of the people’ It has steadfastly rejected bribes and layoffs,and was the pioneer in India to introduce stock options for all its employees,thereby distributing the wealth generated through their efforts among them.Since the meltdown of the new economy, several thousand of its engineers wererendered surplus, but it reskilled and reutilized them Its CEO Nandan Nilekanirecently observed, ‘We have invested in extremely talented people They wereour assets and we had to keep these folks.’ Infoscion, as the Infosys employees

are termed, is a synthesis of ‘Info+scion’, the word scion means, according tothe Webster’s Dictionary, either ‘a shoot or a bud of the plant’ or ‘a descendant

or an offspring (esp of a royal family)’ Infoscion, thus, implies a product of theroyal information family

Gyana: Infosys does not offer knowledge services to just its clients, but alsopractises it internally The thrust of its business model is on monitoring, measure-ment, and methodology Infosys is a metrics-based organization, where analysesand a numbers-based approach runs the show Software systems are designedfor the employees to log in how they spend their time during the day, and thetime logs are used to measure the performance of each employee against best-of-breed Constant improvements in the operational processes are thus achieved,pushing the best-of-breed benchmarks continuously outside the frontier, andmid-project correction needs are made evident The time logs also generate adatabase to assess the cost and the timeframe within which various activities can

be performed, and to use that information to value the client projects Theyalso allow the managers to decide the best team composition for each project,and the role of each member The gaps in the competencies of each member areidentified, based on the best-of-breed database and client requirements, and fulltraining offered to the team to realize high quality and efficiency, on a consistentand uniform basis, ensuring a repeat business from nine out of 10 clients Thougheach employee is sub-specialized, s/he is also encouraged to have ‘strong domainknowledge’ so that the employees can be flexibly assigned to various assignments,without necessitating a layoff in absence of the projects requiring their special-ized expertise

Dana: The Infosys founders, despite being worth several hundred million dollars

$ each, live a middle class life, and are fully accessible to each employee includingthose doing menial tasks They donate substantial funds to the community causes.These values are key to attracting the best and brightest talent in India, and—ithas less than a 10 per cent attrition rate

Though the Infosys model of entrepreneurial leadership has worked welleven after the new economy meltdown, a need to develop new transformativeapproaches remains in place In 2003, global IT spending is expected to be in therange of $225 billion, of which about half would be on maintenance projects.Maintenance projects are low-margin and low-value contracts, conventionallyperformed by the smaller vendors since they are typically worth about $100,000–200,000 per maintenance job With the meltdown, Infosys has formed relation-ships with several Fortune 500 companies in the US, helping them to consolidatetheir maintenance jobs, which average about 100 annually, and forging long-term contracts for $100 million orders spread over five to seven years The

‘monitoring, measurement, and methodology’ (M3) model of Infosys has helped

it become more cost-effective compared with the smaller vendors, and enabledlower billing rates on these routine and predictable maintenance jobs

The conventional Infosys approach of assigning its engineers to one edge sector, one job competency domain, and one client, worked well when theemployees worked on exciting project ideas However, as the projects of several

knowl-Fortune 500 type clients have become more maintenance-dominated, theemployee frustration and exit becomes more likely if no client, job, and sectorrotation is systematically organized for the employees True, if the employeescontinue working with the same client, greater stability and predictability isoffered to the clients, and there is less chance of things falling through in cracks.Similarly, if the employees persist with the same sector, the efficiency, uniformity,quality and consistency is sustained If the job involves primarily routine andcontinuing maintenance, then the cost of retraining and re-assigning employees

is also kept in manageable limits However, when the employees work on thesame job day after day, and year after year, inertia creeps into the organization.New ideas stop breeding, and the maintenance becomes a dry job, which receiveslittle strategic attention from the next generation of top managers at the clients

On the other hand, if Infosys supports the entrepreneurial potential of itsemployees by offering them enriching opportunities, then the employees willcontinue to be its brand ambassadors and offer augmented value to the clientseven on routine maintenance jobs The clients would thereby become moreproductive in their operations, more cost-effective for the mass consumer market,turnaround their own fortunes, and pass on the benefits of their turnaround toInfosys through fresh and challenging projects At that time, Infosys need notgive up the maintenance jobs, but instead can outsource those jobs to varioussmall and mid-sized firms in India and other emerging markets The ‘monitoring,measurement, and methodology’ can be used to transfer learning about best-of-breed benchmarks to these outside vendors Infosys can thus become a trueguru—an entrepreneurial leader who offers advisory and consulting services toclients on the high-end and vendors on the low-end, and thereby brings everybody

to the same horizontal, albeit differentiated, plane for sustainable growth

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

While the Infosys Model is an exemplary illustration of a Southern Asian model

of entrepreneurial leadership, it is not the only model to benchmark and learnfrom Indeed, Southern Asian cluster is distinguished by its diversity, and bythe unity in this diversity (Gupta, Surie, Javidan, and Chhokar, 2002) The majorinsight from the findings of this book is that this diversity and unity in diversity

is pervasive across the globe—the organizations in each culture are focused ondistinctive approaches for sustainable, meaningful, and profitable transformationfor their various stakeholders

The CEO and top management study of the GLOBE program offers a newdirection for researching and understanding diversities in the entrepreneurialleadership model in different cultures of the world The GLOBE India Investi-gator Network is similarly engaged in carrying out interviews and surveys ofCEOs and top managers in all the states of India, recognizing that each state ofIndia is a mini-nation in its own right, with its distinctive formative forces,historical developments, and contemporary economics, politics, arts, culture,and language Empowering entrepreneurial leadership to discover the value ofthese unique approaches would be the real key to perpetuate transformative

organization throughout India Similarly, it is imperative for the organizationsworldwide to leverage and develop their own cultural endowments, and toperpetuate and exchange techniques and technologies for sustainable trans-formations at the local, national, regional, and international levels throughfuture generations.

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An Overview of the GLOBE

Research ProgramRobert J House

The Global Leadership And Organizational Behavior Effectiveness ResearchProgram (GLOBE) is a four phase, long-term, multi-method, multi-phase, cross-cultural research program concerned with the differential effects of leadershipand organizational practices and values in 62 cultures This research program isbeing conducted by about 170 members of the non-profit organization entitledthe Global Scholars Network Two books are forthcoming based on data thathave been collected as part of Phases I and II of GLOBE, and data collection isnow underway for Phase III of GLOBE The four phases of GLOBE are brieflydescribed below

GLOBE Phase I is concerned with scale development and validation of theGLOBE measurement instruments

GLOBE Phase II concerns tests of hypotheses relevant to relationshipsbetween measures of societal culture, organizational culture, and culturally-endorsed implicit theories of leadership (CLTs) Data collection and the majoranalyses for Phase II have been completed (See House et al., 1998 and DenHartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, Dorfman, et al., 1999 for publishedreports of the methodology and some initial findings resulting from Phase II)

In GLOBE Phase II, questionnaire data were collected from 17,000 middlemanagers in three industries (telecommunications, food services, and financialservices) in 62 cultures The middle managers were employed in over 1,000organizations Responses to these questionnaires provided us with: (a) quantitativemeasurements of the 18 core GLOBE societal cultural dimensions for each culturestudied, (b) 18 core organizational cultural dimensions, (c) 21 first-order factorialscales to measure specific leader attributes and behaviors of CLTs, and six second-order factorial dimensions of global leadership patterns (or styles) These measure-ment instruments will be described below

The Dwight D Eisenhower Leadership Development Program of the USDepartment of Education supported Phase I and parts of Phase II of GLOBE.The Social Psychology Division of the US National Science Foundation sup-ported further data collection and analysis relevant to Phase II Data collectionand the major analyses relevant to Phase II have been completed Some of themajor findings from these analyses are reported below Phase III is the research

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explained in this chapter Phase IV will be laboratory experiments and fieldlongitudinal tests of the major relationships identified in Phases II and III.

In the remainder of this chapter, we present the theoretical definitions ofleadership and culture, the theory that guides the GLOBE research, a briefsummary of research conducted to date, and a description of additional writingand research to be conducted

Theoretical Definitions

Leadership: In this research leadership is defined as the ability of an individual toinfluence, motivate, and enable others to contribute to the effectiveness and success ofthe organizations of which they are members This definition is based on extensivedeliberation and discussion among 84 social scientists and management scholarsrepresenting 56 countries at the international meeting of GLOBE Country Co-Investigators (CCIs) held in August 1994 in Calgary, Canada

Culture: There is no consensually agreed upon definition of culture by socialscientists For the present research program, we define culture in two ways.From these two definitions we derive operational measures of culture used inthe GLOBE research

THE ENTITY DEFINITION OF CULTURE

According to this definition culture is defined as that set of entities that inducecommon (or shared) attributes among members of collectives, differentiate onecollective from another, and are passed on from one generation to another Thecommon attributes influenced by entities are the assumptions, values, beliefs,meanings, social identities, and motives of the members of the culture Amongthe entities that induce these common cultural attributes are the major formalinstitutions such as the legal, educational, political, and social systems; the sharedlanguage and religion; and the constructions of history that are passed from onegeneration to another

THE ATTRIBUTE DEFINITION OF CULTURE

Culture is defined as a set of common (or shared) attributes (assumptions, values,beliefs, meanings, social identities, and motives) among members within collec-tives that permit meaningful interaction among members of the collective,differentiate one collective from another, and are passed on from one generation

to another This definition is usually operationalized in terms of values expressed

by respondents on questionnaires

THE GLOBE OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF CULTURE

For purposes of the Phase II GLOBE research program, societal and tional culture were operationally measured by assessing questionnaire responses

organiza-from 17,000 middle managers in the three industries described above, with respect

to the values they endorse and reports of practices of entities in their societies.The value questionnaire responses concern respondents’ reports of theirvalues with respect to nine cultural attributes The entity questionnaire responsesconcern the respondents’ reports of practices of families, schools, work organiza-tions, economic and legal systems, political institutions at both the societal aswell as the organizational level, language and religion and the constructions ofhistory passed on from one generation to another The values and practiceswere measured with respect to nine core cultural attributes The core GLOBEsocietal and organizational attributes are: (a) Uncertainty Avoidance; (b) PowerDistance; (c) Societal Emphasis on Collectivism; (d) Family and OrganizationalCollectivism; (e) Gender Egalitarianism; (f) Assertiveness (the latter twodimensions were formerly referred to jointly by Hofstede {1980} as Masculinity);(g) Future Orientation; (h) Performance Orientation; and (i) HumaneOrientation Definitions of these cultural attributes can be found in House

et al., (1998) As will be discussed later, the data collected in Phase II will beused, together with data to be collected in Phase III, to test longitudinal hypothesesderived from the theory described below Table 27.1 shows an example ofisomorphic value and practice scales at societal and organizational levels Table27.2(a) gives the second order factor dimensions of CLTs, and the first-orderfactor dimensions they are based on Table 27.2(b) gives sample questionnaireitems for measuring first-order factors

Table 27.1: Example of Isomorphic Items for the Culture Scales

Organization As Is The pay and bonus system in this organization is designed to maximize:

Table 27.2: (a) Second Order CLT Factors and the Scales/Items

they are based on Charismatic/Value Based Team Oriented

– Charismatic 1: Visionary – Team 1: Collaborative Team

– self–centered–Status conscious – Autocratic (reverse scored)

– Conflict inducer–Face saver– – Non-participative (reverse scored)

– Modest–Humane orientation – Individualistic–Independent

–Autonomous–Unique Note: These are Global CLT Dimensions They comprise the 21 leadership subscales The only exceptions are Autonomous which consists of questionnaire items, not subscales and Delegator which is also an item rather than a scale.

Table 27.2: (b) Sample CLT Questionnaire Items and Response Alternatives Sample Leadership Items:

Sensitive: Aware of slight changes in moods of others.

Motivator: Mobilizes, activates followers.

Evasive: Refrains from making negative comments to maintain good

relationships and saves face.

Diplomatic: Skilled at interpersonal relations, tactful.

Self-interested: Pursues own best interests.

Response Alternatives:

This attribute/characteristic impedes or facilitates unusually effective leadership

1 Substantially impedes 2 Moderately impedes

3 Slightly impedes 4 Neither impedes nor facilitates

5 Slightly facilitates 6 Moderately facilitates

7 Substantially facilitates

THE GLOBE THEORY

The theory that guides the GLOBE research program is an integration of implicitleadership theory (Lord and Maher, 1991), value/belief theory of culture(Hofstede, 1980), and structural contingency theory of organizational form andeffectiveness (Donaldson, 1993; Hickson, Hinings, McMillan, and Schwitter,