organisations are not expected to look after their employees for life; organisations have only a moderate influence on members’ well-being; employees are expected to defend their own interests rather than allow management to represent them; and policies and practices allow for individual initiative rather than emphasising loyalty to employers. Strong masculinity means that: organisational interests are a legitimate reason for interfering with people’s private lives; fewer females are in the more qualified jobs; females in the more qualified jobs are very assertive; higher job stress; and more industrial conflict.
Hofstede’s results indicated that Australians adopt a self-interested attitude about work, are easy-going in their attitudes towards work rules, but give little support to reforms that would require more involvement by employees in decision-making. In short, Australians are generally willing to allow managers to exercise authority in return for economic security.
In their 1974 book, The Australian Manager, Byrt and Masters describe the ideal manager as a person who formulates and implements strategy, makes decisions, organises people and carries out professional, technical or operative work. They insist that management is not a profession, in the way in which the law and medicine are professions and argue that Australian managers do not form a political class. They describe Australian (middle) managers as:
Dependent on government; insular; lacking in boldness and initiative; dependent on overseas sources for capital, ideas and techniques; reasonably but not highly educated; masculine in fact and outlook; city-dwellers, in particular of either Sydney or Melbourne; conservative; fearful of radicalism in economics and politics; egalitarian both socially and at the work place; practical and pragmatic; opportunists rather than planners; non-intellectual and some are anti-intellectual; interested in leisure, social activity and family; critical of politicians and the holders of formal authority; versatile; materialist; non-aggressive; manipulative in managerial style; and low in Machiavellian characteristics.5
In the second (1982) edition of their book, these descriptions do not appear and no explanation is offered. Clearly, their descriptions of local managers in the first edition were not flattering and did not correspond to the ‘ideal’ manager found in American management books.
In 1996 I asked more than 1000 managers to rate themselves as a group according to Byrt’s and Masters’ descriptions. They agreed with them on all counts: the impressionistic ratings of managers by two academics from the University of Melbourne in the early 1970s were almost identical to managers’ ratings more than twenty years later.
In the mid-1970s, an American named G.W. England compared Australian managers with their counterparts in the U.S., India, South Korea and Japan. In The Manager and His Values, England argues that personal value systems of managers do not change rapidly, even during periods of significant social change. The Australian managers in his study were humanistic and placed a low value on conflict, profit, growth, competition, risk, success, achievement and leadership. Overall, the Australians revealed a strong degree of humanistic idealism and, therefore, a relatively low degree of pragmatism in their decision-making. England asks whether it is possible to combine (Australian) humanism, with its emphasis on tolerance, security and getting on with each other, with (American) values based on high achievement, competence, profit maximisation and organisational efficiency. We might conclude that it is difficult. American managers valued organisational efficiency whereas Australians valued employee welfare and humane bureaucracy. England argues that Australians’ attitudes towards tolerance, compassion, trust, loyalty, honour, employee and social welfare suggest that they are more embracing of organisational egalitarianism than American managers who vehemently reject the idea.
George Renwick wrote a report for Esso Eastern Inc. on differences between Australians and Americans.6 He begins by pointing to the similarities: the two countries are frontier societies founded by immigrants from the British Isles whose origins are Anglo-Celtic and whose social values are individualistic and democratic. Both peoples are sociable, informal, forthright, practical, inventive, and non, or even anti-intellectual. Relationships between them should, therefore, be mutually satisfying. But they are not. Confusion and conflict often arise. After trying to work together, Americans often feel that Australians are cynical and undisciplined. Australians, for their part, feel that Americans are superficial and pretentious. Where Americans have friends, Australians have mates. Australians respect and share loyalty to friends and expect deeper commitments than do Americans who place a high value on merely being friendly. Australians believe strongly that one supports one’s mate no matter what. Americans are more conscious of sticking to their job and getting through their work. Americans need to be liked but laconic Australians do not tell them that they are liked. Wanting to be respected, Americans do things that they think will impress others and expect a favourable response. But it is very difficult to impress Australians, who are impatient with attempts to gain their favour. In conversation, Australians are cynical, especially when they correct American enthusiasm. Australians, especially men, believe that words should be used sparingly, or not at all. If they have to speak, they speak without expression to indicate that the subject is hardly worth talking about, except to ‘get a rise’ out of others. And so Australians use hundreds of colourful terms to convey a tone of amiable contempt. Critical of excessive ambition, boastfulness and pretentiousness, they resent any attempt to ‘pull rank’. Accordingly, Americans see them as crude and critical. When asked about a person’s performance or the quality of a product, Australians say, ‘she’ll be right’. When given orders from an American, their response is passive resistance. Americans believe that Australians consider work to be a nuisance and do as little of it as slowly as they can. Australians believe that work is a national joke and people who work hard are likely to attract suspicion. Americans believe that they can do anything if they work hard enough; Australians believe they can do anything but, unless it is an emergency, it isn’t worth the effort.
In 1980 I published the results of a study comparing Australian managers’ views on industrial relations over a period of twenty-three years.7 In the mid-1950s, Kenneth Walker investigated managers’ and trade unionists’ attitudes to the sources of industrial conflict in Australia. Both groups tended to emphasise legal and economic factors. The later research showed that although economic issues remained important, the emphasis had shifted to psychological factors. Managers were inclined to attribute industrial conflict to greed, lack of cooperation and poor team spirit among their employees; union officials blamed the autocratic, selfish and uncooperative behaviour of managers. These findings points to the increasing ‘psychologising’ of workplace behaviour and the tendency to include personality as explanations of work performance. In this way conflict at work is attributed to particular personalities, or personality disorders, rather than to the relationships in which behaviour is embedded. The tendency to psychologise industrial conflict was strongest among senior managers and reflected a prevailing view that anyone with ability who is willing to work hard can get into senior management and that the difference between the highest and lowest incomes in Australia is neither excessive nor unfair. This view implies that those at the top fought a hard battle to get there and are qualified to tell those below what to do, and the system is fair because everyone has an equal chance to engage in the battle. Historically, Australian managers have used this argument to justify resistance to any dilution of their rights or prerogatives. Implicit in this ideology is approval of and support for the existing pattern of power relationships. In Walker’s study the main factors making for industrial conflict were legal, economic and, in principle, changeable. However, as industrial problems are attributed to the personalities of managers, it becomes more difficult to take constructive steps toward solution. This produces two possible reactions. On the one hand, it gives weight to the radical argument that only extensive social change can reduce the level of conflict between managers and others. On the other hand, it encourages those with a more conservative bent to accept the status quo and emphasise the personalities involved in management relationships.
In The Seven Cultures of Capitalism, Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars studied managerial values from more than fifty countries. They found that Americans are the most strongly committed to Protestant Ethic
