“The way that can be told of is not an unvarying way”: Cultural impacts on Operations Management in Asia

Metters, Richard; Zhao, Xiande; Bendoly, Elliot; Jiang, Bin; Young, Scott T.

doi:10.1016/j.jom.2009.10.004

Cited by 55 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Further, we deepen the experimental analysis of forecast sharing in repeated interactions to obtain insights regarding how the dynamics of trust and trustworthiness in long-term relationships may differ between China and the U.S. This paper also adds to the recent literature that considers country effects in operations and supply chain management (see Tsui et al 2004, Metters et al 2010 for reviews).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 87%

Trust, Trustworthiness, and Information Sharing in Supply Chains Bridging China and the United States

2014

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Whether and how trust and trustworthiness differ between a collectivist society, e.g., China, and an individualistic one, e.g., the U.S., generate much ongoing scientific debate and bear significant practical values for managing cross-country transactions. We experimentally investigate how supply chain members' countries of origin -China versus the U.S. -affect trust, trustworthiness, and strategic information sharing behavior in a cross-country supply chain. We consider a two-tier supply chain in which the upstream supplier solicits demand forecast information from the retailer to plan production; but the retailer has an incentive to manipulate her forecast to ensure abundant supply. The levels of trust and trustworthiness in the supply chain and supplier's capability to determine the optimal production quantity affect the efficacy of forecast sharing and the resulting profits. We develop an experimental design to disentangle these three aspects and to allow for real-time interactions between geographically distant and culturally heterogeneous participants. We observe that, when there is no prospect for long-term interactions, our Chinese participants consistently exhibit lower spontaneous trust and trustworthiness than their U.S. counterparts do. We quantify the differences in trust and trustworthiness between the two countries, and the resulting impact on supply chain efficiency. We also show that Chinese individuals exhibit higher spontaneous trust towards U.S. partners than Chinese ones, primarily because they perceive that individuals from the U.S. are more trusting and trustworthy in general.This positive perception towards U.S. people is indeed consistent with the U.S. participants' behavior in forecast sharing. In addition, we quantify that a Chinese supply chain enjoys a larger efficiency gain from repeated interactions than a U.S. one does, as the prospect of building a long-term relationship successfully sustains trust and trustworthiness by Chinese partners. We advocate that companies can reinforce the positive perception of Westerners held by the Chinese population and commit to long-term relationships to encourage trust by Chinese partners. Finally, we also demonstrate that both populations exhibit similar pull-to-center bias when solving a decision problem under uncertainty (i.e., the newsvendor problem).*

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 87%

Trust, Trustworthiness, and Information Sharing in Supply Chains Bridging China and the United States

2014

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“…The role of national culture has been extensively researched in the context of manufacturing capability and performance (Chow et al, 1991, Abe and Fitzgerald, 1995, Voss and Blackmon, 1998, Flynn and Saladin, 2006, Ritzer, 2006, Montabon et al, 2007, Ramamoorthy et al, 2007, Naor, 2008, Stringfellow et al, 2008, Kull and Wacker, 2010, Metters et al, 2010, Power et al, 2010, Weingarten et al, 2011. The relationship between investment in sustainable manufacturing and performance has also been studied widely.…”

Section: National Culture and Investment In Espmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competitive Goals and Plant Investment in Environment and Safety Practices: Moderating Effect of National Culture

et al. 2015

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This study uses data from a total of 1453 plants in 24 countries and tests for the moderating influence of seven of the national cultural characteristics developed through the GLOBE studies on investment at the plant level in Environment and Safety Practice (ESP). Specifically, we use the plant-level relationship between the evaluation of environmental and safety performance by senior management (EES) and investment in ESP to test for this moderation effect. The results show that four of the seven national cultural characteristics tested (Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), In-Group Collectivism (CG), Future Orientation (FO) and Performance Orientation (PO)) alter investment in this area away from an expected "rational" response. The contribution of this study is that although earlier studies have shown some effect on investment priorities for a single national cultural characteristic, or for a single or limited group of countries, this study provides strong evidence based on seven separate cultural factors using a sample drawn from 24 countries. The results indicate that when this diversion from the "rational" response is positive it is likely to be due to sensitivity to the focus of senior management (UA and PO) rather than a stronger commitment per se to ESP. When the divergence is negative it is when familial groups and local coalitions are powerful (CG) or where the focus is on future outcomes rather than current actions (FO). This latter finding is of particular interest as it is counter-intuitive and indicates that although a high FO culture may be consistent with high investment in ESP, FO itself reduces likelihood of investment at the plant level when senior management focus on this objective increases. Further to this there is no moderating effect recorded for Institutional Collectivism (IC) or Humane Orientation (HO) both of which (similar to FO) are intuitively consistent with values supporting investment in ESP. The inherent merits of ESP, therefore, do not seem to be a significant factor as there is no supporting evidence indicating that cultural characteristics that are consistent with an understanding potential benefits have a positive moderating effect. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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“…There is no shortage of evidence illustrating the problems associated with a lack of attention to the influence of cultural differences on various management practices. National culture continues to act as an important divergent force, playing a strong and defining role in shaping individual values, preferences, and behaviours (Metters et al, 2010). Hence, management practices need to be tailored to different cultural conditions (Vecchi and Brennan, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Performance Implications of Financial and Non‐Financial Rewards: An Asian Nordic Comparison

Chiang

Birtch

2011

J Management Studies

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This study empirically investigated culture's consequences on employee perceptions of the performance implications of financial and non-financial rewards. Using a sample (n = 568) drawn from the banking industry in Finland and Hong Kong, we found that although the effects and predictive capability of culture (i.e. masculinity-femininity, individualismcollectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance) offered some important insights, a range of other contextual factors (i.e. organizational, institutional, economic) wielded influence over and shaped reward-performance values, preferences, and behaviours. The emergence of these new paradigms necessitates that the US centric economic and behavioural theories (e.g. exchange) that underpin reward-performance be revisited and extended if they are to be applicable in the international context. Understanding the influence of a range of contextual forces is therefore critical to multinational organizations attempting to implement effective reward strategies aimed at achieving a diverse set of performance priorities. In addition to these novel theoretical and practical contributions, this study also paves the way for future research in this promising area of management studies.

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“The way that can be told of is not an unvarying way”: Cultural impacts on Operations Management in Asia

Cited by 55 publications

References 41 publications

Trust, Trustworthiness, and Information Sharing in Supply Chains Bridging China and the United States

Trust, Trustworthiness, and Information Sharing in Supply Chains Bridging China and the United States

Competitive Goals and Plant Investment in Environment and Safety Practices: Moderating Effect of National Culture

The Performance Implications of Financial and Non‐Financial Rewards: An Asian Nordic Comparison

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