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6 - Organizing frameworks: a comparative assessment

Richard M. Steers ,
Carlos J. Sanchez-Runde  and
Luciara Nardon
Richard M. Steers
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
Carlos J. Sanchez-Runde
Affiliation:
IESE Business School, Barcelona
Luciara Nardon
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa
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Summary

Intuitively, people have always assumed that bureaucratic structures and patterns of action differ in the countries of the Western world and even more markedly between East and West. Practitioners know it and never fail to take it into account.

Michael Crozier Sociologist, France

Generalizing about organizations is a tricky and not entirely respectable business.

Patricia Morison Journalist, Financial Times, UK

Both French sociologist Michael Crozer and British journalist Patricia Morison make compelling and similar points about efforts to understand organizations around the world. Patterns of organizing clearly differ across borders and cultures, but we run a very real risk of misinterpreting what we see if we push too hard towards sweeping generalizations. Even so, it is sometimes helpful to use broad strokes to paint pictures of what managers can expect to find when they begin to travel.

Consider the East Hope Group of Shanghai, China. Four brothers of the Liu family founded the firm in1982. It was one of the first privately held enterprises (or gong-si – see below) allowed to flourish under China's new government policies supporting the development to large-scale privately held companies. To get the business started, the Liu brothers sold their wristwatches and bicycles to raise the necessary US$120 to open a very small agricultural business. Today, the East Hope Group is the largest animal-feed producer – as well as one of the largest private enterprises – in China, with 10,000 employees working in 120 various business enterprises around the country.

Type
Chapter
Information
Management across Cultures
Challenges and Strategies
 , pp. 155 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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