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Management in the USA
Scand. J. Mgmt, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 463~-73, 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain 0956-5221/96 $15.00 + 0.00
Pergamon
BOOK REVIEWS Management in the USA, by Peter Lawrence. Sage, London, 1996. ISBN 0-8039-7833-2, paper back, 135 pp.
"What kind of research is this anyway?" is the first question to confront a reviewer of Peter Lawrence's new book. Only a fool would undertake to describe management in the U.S.A. Is it even admissible to try to give a general view of management in the U.S.A.? Peter Lawrence brings up this point himself in one of the final chapters saying, One can tell one's fellow [British] countrymen about management in France or Germany, Israel or Canada, and they will listen spellbound. But try to offer them a few generalizations about management in Britain and you will be told: "That's a stereotype," "You have oversimplified," "It's different in Scotland" or better still: "My boss does not have any of the qualities you have described as typical for this country." (p. 116). Lawrence then argues for the value of a generalizing outsider perspective as a framework for understanding. I guess there is a grain of sense in that. It is against a background of stereotypes and categories that we come to see the distinctions of the individual. But it is disturbing, this ambition to give a portrait of the management style of a whole country. I remember my reaction on reading an earlier book by Lawrence and Spybey (1986) about management in Sweden. It was "How could they get it so wrong?", followed by a self-reflective, "What do I know about Swedish management?", and the realization that we all have our stereotypes, not least about what is a proper way of conducting research. Some of these stereotypes are well entrenched and called "mainstream". Peter Lawrence has visited organizations around the U.S.A. and spoken to "managers, with a certain preference for Human Resource Managers it seems, and he has talked to academics. He also uses statistics to make his points, sometimes quite elegantly, as when he introduces the idea of the need to be well informed (in detail) in U.S. management by way of zip codes. America is clustered that way, and marketing managers need to know their market by zip code, which is not such a bad idea since Americans themselves cluster in neighbourhoods of similar tastes. Besides being well informed (through systems), the U.S. manager is supposed to be in control, and it is not wrong to demonstrate openly that one is striving for advancement. In other cultures such a display would be interpreted as indicating unreliability. Individualism is a key to understanding the American way, according to Lawrence, and he manages to handle its conflict with the love for systems, programs and manuals by claiming that there must be different kinds of individualism. This conclusion follows from an analysis of whether Hofstede's (1991) study can support his claims. Yes, the Anglo-Saxon countries rank high on individualism, with the U.S.A. at the top. But then again, individualist France ranks 10, equal to collectivist Sweden, and that gives rise to the comment about different kinds of individualism. (It is still worse actually! Had Lawrence read Hoppe (1993) he would have found that collectivist Sweden shared rank 2 with the U.S.A. in a more recent study.) Lawrence does not 463
464
BOOK REVIEWS
dwell upon the question of whether individualism is compatible with a well organized garbage collection system or a decent health insurance coverage for all citizens. There isn't room for detours when covering the U.S.A. in 135 pages. Lawrence's conclusion is that the U.S.A. has set the standards for professional management, and it is only reasonable that it should live up to them. The American way of management works for the Americans. One would expect an author on this kind of topic to apply some critical thought and point out some down-side aspects. Lawrence does so, but not with the same enthusiasm that he devotes to praise. There is mention of short-termism, but only en passent under the heading "the homespun manager" and it is linked with a "minority strand", although the author stated earlier in the same section, "This last criticism, of short-termism, was in fact quite widespread: probably the majority of the managers I interviewed would articulate some version of this view - - with a little prompting." (p. 122). Lawrence comes back to the short-termism issue in the final chapter, "An American Paradox", where the problem of reconciling excellent American management with relative economic decline is briefly discussed. Short-termism is a contributing factor to the lack of staying power when Japanese or European companies invade markets - - two "bad quarters trigger drastic action". Lawrence explains the longer-termism of Germany and Japan with reference to the communitarian capitalism there. American managers are not likely to lobby for development in that direction. Nor will they lobby for improvements in the primary education system. Finally Lawrence claims that the management of diversity is not one of the strengths of American management. American companies internationalized early, but they took their style, systems and assumptions with them. This has usually been accepted, but will it work in the future? How should a book like this be evaluated? It will probably gain a wide readership, because it is an easy-flowing story with a well balanced amount of detail and quotations. One could question whether this should be seen as a contribution to comparative management, and it probably is in the sense that Lawrence made similar studies in other countries (Lawrence, 1980; Lawrence and Spybey, 1986; Lawrence, 1991). This is a British professor of comparative management looking at these different countries. The person (Lawrence' s biases) shines through in the stories told, but it is possible to discount some of that. Lawrence uses himself as the instrument of selection in these studies. I wonder if it would be possible to piece together a description of British management by using the Lawrence reports about the other countries as mirrors? Sten Jrnsson GRI University of Gothenburg Sweden REFERENCES Hofstede, G., Cultures and Organizations (London: Mcgraw Hill, 1991). Hoppe, M., The effects of national culture on the theory and practice of managing R&D professionals abroad, R&D Management (1993), Vol. 23, 313-325. Lawrence, P., Managers and Management in West Germany (London: Croom Helm, 1980). Lawrence, P., Management in the Netherlands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Lawrence, P. and Spybey, T., Management and Society in Sweden (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986).
Pergamon
BOOK REVIEWS Management in the USA, by Peter Lawrence. Sage, London, 1996. ISBN 0-8039-7833-2, paper back, 135 pp.
"What kind of research is this anyway?" is the first question to confront a reviewer of Peter Lawrence's new book. Only a fool would undertake to describe management in the U.S.A. Is it even admissible to try to give a general view of management in the U.S.A.? Peter Lawrence brings up this point himself in one of the final chapters saying, One can tell one's fellow [British] countrymen about management in France or Germany, Israel or Canada, and they will listen spellbound. But try to offer them a few generalizations about management in Britain and you will be told: "That's a stereotype," "You have oversimplified," "It's different in Scotland" or better still: "My boss does not have any of the qualities you have described as typical for this country." (p. 116). Lawrence then argues for the value of a generalizing outsider perspective as a framework for understanding. I guess there is a grain of sense in that. It is against a background of stereotypes and categories that we come to see the distinctions of the individual. But it is disturbing, this ambition to give a portrait of the management style of a whole country. I remember my reaction on reading an earlier book by Lawrence and Spybey (1986) about management in Sweden. It was "How could they get it so wrong?", followed by a self-reflective, "What do I know about Swedish management?", and the realization that we all have our stereotypes, not least about what is a proper way of conducting research. Some of these stereotypes are well entrenched and called "mainstream". Peter Lawrence has visited organizations around the U.S.A. and spoken to "managers, with a certain preference for Human Resource Managers it seems, and he has talked to academics. He also uses statistics to make his points, sometimes quite elegantly, as when he introduces the idea of the need to be well informed (in detail) in U.S. management by way of zip codes. America is clustered that way, and marketing managers need to know their market by zip code, which is not such a bad idea since Americans themselves cluster in neighbourhoods of similar tastes. Besides being well informed (through systems), the U.S. manager is supposed to be in control, and it is not wrong to demonstrate openly that one is striving for advancement. In other cultures such a display would be interpreted as indicating unreliability. Individualism is a key to understanding the American way, according to Lawrence, and he manages to handle its conflict with the love for systems, programs and manuals by claiming that there must be different kinds of individualism. This conclusion follows from an analysis of whether Hofstede's (1991) study can support his claims. Yes, the Anglo-Saxon countries rank high on individualism, with the U.S.A. at the top. But then again, individualist France ranks 10, equal to collectivist Sweden, and that gives rise to the comment about different kinds of individualism. (It is still worse actually! Had Lawrence read Hoppe (1993) he would have found that collectivist Sweden shared rank 2 with the U.S.A. in a more recent study.) Lawrence does not 463
464
BOOK REVIEWS
dwell upon the question of whether individualism is compatible with a well organized garbage collection system or a decent health insurance coverage for all citizens. There isn't room for detours when covering the U.S.A. in 135 pages. Lawrence's conclusion is that the U.S.A. has set the standards for professional management, and it is only reasonable that it should live up to them. The American way of management works for the Americans. One would expect an author on this kind of topic to apply some critical thought and point out some down-side aspects. Lawrence does so, but not with the same enthusiasm that he devotes to praise. There is mention of short-termism, but only en passent under the heading "the homespun manager" and it is linked with a "minority strand", although the author stated earlier in the same section, "This last criticism, of short-termism, was in fact quite widespread: probably the majority of the managers I interviewed would articulate some version of this view - - with a little prompting." (p. 122). Lawrence comes back to the short-termism issue in the final chapter, "An American Paradox", where the problem of reconciling excellent American management with relative economic decline is briefly discussed. Short-termism is a contributing factor to the lack of staying power when Japanese or European companies invade markets - - two "bad quarters trigger drastic action". Lawrence explains the longer-termism of Germany and Japan with reference to the communitarian capitalism there. American managers are not likely to lobby for development in that direction. Nor will they lobby for improvements in the primary education system. Finally Lawrence claims that the management of diversity is not one of the strengths of American management. American companies internationalized early, but they took their style, systems and assumptions with them. This has usually been accepted, but will it work in the future? How should a book like this be evaluated? It will probably gain a wide readership, because it is an easy-flowing story with a well balanced amount of detail and quotations. One could question whether this should be seen as a contribution to comparative management, and it probably is in the sense that Lawrence made similar studies in other countries (Lawrence, 1980; Lawrence and Spybey, 1986; Lawrence, 1991). This is a British professor of comparative management looking at these different countries. The person (Lawrence' s biases) shines through in the stories told, but it is possible to discount some of that. Lawrence uses himself as the instrument of selection in these studies. I wonder if it would be possible to piece together a description of British management by using the Lawrence reports about the other countries as mirrors? Sten Jrnsson GRI University of Gothenburg Sweden REFERENCES Hofstede, G., Cultures and Organizations (London: Mcgraw Hill, 1991). Hoppe, M., The effects of national culture on the theory and practice of managing R&D professionals abroad, R&D Management (1993), Vol. 23, 313-325. Lawrence, P., Managers and Management in West Germany (London: Croom Helm, 1980). Lawrence, P., Management in the Netherlands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Lawrence, P. and Spybey, T., Management and Society in Sweden (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986).