Cultural Consequences for Organization Change in a Southeast Asian State: Brunei

Abstract

In spite of the eureka-like cries of so many present-day writers on management and organization, the idea that organizationally speaking things get done differently in different cultures is not a new one. Ancient civilizations, like those of Greece and Rome, had more than a passing acquaintance with such differences; indeed, they appear to have spent much of their time trying to iron them out. The Pax Romana was as much about the imposition of standard forms of organization as it was about anything else the promise of peace and prosperity delivered via a uniform system of administration. Likewise in the modern world, the peripatetic organizational researcher will frequently come across the distinctive administrative footprints of more recent colonial powers. From the sands of the Sahara to the jungles of Borneo, clearly discernible amidst the crumbling ruins of older civilizations are the vestiges of British, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish colonial administrations. But with the passing of empires and the emergence of a large number of independent nation states, more subtle terms of trade have had to be developed. It has become necessary for multinational organizations and governments to take account of the wide variety of cultures and environments they encounter in their travels abroad. One of the most currently applauded attempts in recent times to identify cultural clusters of organizationally pertinent values has been that of Geert Hofstede, the Dutch researcher. In this well-known study, inferences about the value systems of 40 nations were drawn from a questionnaire survey of employees in a single multinational organization.1 (A subsequent study by Hofstede supplied data on an additional 10 countries.2) Differences in nations' values systems were explained most parsimoniously by four dimensions power, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity/femininity. The results of these studies give a clue as to the kinds of things to expect in "close encounters" with organizations in the nations surveyed. But while such studies provide an admirable skeletal framework for researchers, managers might want more "flesh on the bones" to make the findings intelligible. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is twofold: First, to propose further organizational examples of values that appear to be common to a subset of Southeast Asian nations by focusing on public organizations in the small, oil-rich nation state of Brunei. And second, to examine the potential impact of culture on the introduction of organizational change by comparing cultural impediments to change found elsewhere with dominant values in the region. A possible, though highly speculative, implication of this discussion is that certain cultures in Southeast Asia may be intrinsically more resistant to change than others. At the same time both the evidence offered and the discussion will furnish some kind of qualitative test of Hofstede's findings. Much of the discussion, however, will be suggestive and conjectural in nature rather than firmly grounded in empirical data.