The Influence of Culture on Organizational Design and Planning and Control in Australia and the United States Compared with Singapore and Hong Kong

This study draws on the national cultural dimensions of power distance, individualism, and Confucian dynamism to predict and explain differences in philosophies for, and approaches to organizational design and management planning and control systems in Australia and the US, representing Anglo-American nations, and Singapore and Hong Kong, representing the ‘five dragons' of East Asia. Data were gathered by survey questionnaires mailed to senior accounting and finance executives in 800 organizations. The results were largely as predicted and, in general, provide support for the importance of national culture in influencing organizational design and management planning and control systems. In particular, the cultural values of Anglo-American society relative to East Asian society are associated with a greater emphasis on decentralization and responsibility centres in organizational design, and a greater emphasis on quantitative and analytical techniques in planning and control. By contrast, the cultural values of East Asian society are associated with a greater emphasis on long-term planning and on group centred decision-making. The results are important to managers in global organizations who need to understand the cultural bases of observed differences in organizational and management planning and control practices in Anglo-American and East Asian nations.