Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:A:Accounting, Organizations and Society:Vol24.Issue7.Oct1999:
Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
www.elsevier.com/locate/aos
Cultural in¯uences on informal information sharing in
Chinese and Anglo-American organizations:
an exploratory study
Chee W. Chow a, Graeme L. Harrison b,*, Jill L. McKinnon b, Anne Wu c
a
San Diego State University, USA
Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
c
National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
b
Abstract
This study examines cultural factors which may facilitate or impede the sharing of informal information in the context of face-to-face meetings in Chinese compared to Anglo-American organizations. Both qualitative and quantitative
data were collected through personally conducted interviews with middle level managers in a sample of Taiwanese and
Australian manufacturing ®rms. The results suggest the importance of individual dierences, individual assertiveness,
and corporate culture in in¯uencing informal information sharing in Australia; and the trade-o between collective
interests, respect for hierarchical status and concern with face in Taiwan. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
1. Introduction
This study explores national cultural factors
which may facilitate or impede the sharing of
information in the interpersonal communications
context of face-to-face meetings in Chinese compared to Anglo-American organizations.
A study of information sharing is important
because, as Macintosh (1994, pp. 58±61) notes,
information sharing is crucial for increasing the
capacity of organizations to process information
in planning and controlling their operations.
Other writers have also emphasized that open
* Corresponding author. Tel: +61-2-9850-8515; fax: +61-29850-8497.
E-mail address: gharriso@efs.mq.edu.au (G.L. Harrison)
sharing of information among organizational
members is fundamental to such processes as
benchmarking (Smith, 1994, p. 32), managing the
value chain (Nanni, Dixon & Vollman, 1992, p. 3),
networking (Fairtlough, 1994, p. 89), total quality
management (Chenhall, 1992, p. 4), and organizational learning (Levinthal & March, 1993, p. 96).
Information sharing in organizations occurs
through formal and informal mechanisms. Formal
mechanisms include traditional management
accounting systems which collect data in routine
form from dierent parts of an organization, and
``manipulate, aggregate and distribute'' that
information, typically in report format (Emmanuel, Otley & Merchant 1990, p. 97; Bruns &
McKinnon, 1993, p. 104). Informal mechanisms
include interpersonal communications in the con-
0361-3682/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0361-3682(99)00022-7
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C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
text of meetings and conversations, direct observation and informal reports (Bruns & McKinnon,
pp. 94 and 104; Macintosh, 1994, p. 39).
This study focuses upon informal information
exchange in face-to-face meetings. This context is
chosen because, as Bruns and McKinnon (1993, p.
94) found, informal information sourced through
interpersonal communications such as face-to-face
meetings ``dominate other sources of information
for day-to-day needs and remain important for
longer term needs''. Similarly, Abernethy and Lillis
(1995, pp. 244 and 252) identify meetings among
decision-makers of dierent departments and functions as one of the integrative liaison devices which
need to supplant formal and structured information
reporting and exchange as ®rms increasingly pursue
¯exible manufacturing strategies.
The study focuses speci®cally on information
which may be seen as carrying some tension, con¯ict or diculty for a participant in a face-to-face
meeting. In such a meeting, a participant may be
an information provider or seeker, and the information may have dierent attributes and connotations for the participant. Some information
provided to the meeting may be supportive of the
otherwise general view of the meeting while other
information might constitute a contrary or challenging view. Similarly, some information may
enhance the provider's standing in the view of
others (for example, information about the participant's past successes), while other information
might potentially detract (information about past
failures). In the information seeking role, the
information sought might be perceived by the
participant as unknown to the meeting generally,
or unknown to the participant only. In this latter
context, seeking information might be perceived to
reveal his or her lack of knowledge.
We concentrate in this study on information of
the second type in each of these three examples;
i.e. on information which may challenge or confront, may expose a past mistake, or may expose
lack of knowledge. We do this because it is information of this type which, on the one hand, is
likely to produce the greater con¯ict and tension
in the mind of the participant and, hence, be the
more dicult to share, but which, on the other,
has been seen in the literature as important to
share for organizational bene®t.1 Levinthal and
March (1993), for example, observe in relation to
organizational learning that such learning is often
biased by the tendency to emphasize success and
de-emphasise failure. Similarly, Peters (1994, pp.
54±55) argues that organizations need to foster
the promotion of challenging ideas, the creation
of a questioning environment, and to de-stigmatize failure so as not to deter innovation and creativity.
The study explores the factors which facilitate
or impede sharing of information of the type
detailed in the previous paragraph in two national
cultural settings; Anglo-American culture which is
typically regarded as characterising countries such
as the US, UK, Australia and Canada, and Chinese-based culture, typically regarded as characterising countries such as China, Hong Kong,
Singapore and Taiwan. The cross-cultural focus is
motivated by the ®ndings of a growing body of
research which suggests that people in dierent
nations often dier in how they react to given jobrelated conditions (see, for example, Chow, Kato
& Merchant, 1996; Chow, Kato & Shields, 1994;
Chow, Shields & Chan, 1991; Birnberg & Snodgrass, 1988; Harrison, 1992, 1993; Harrison,
McKinnon, Panchapakesan & Leung, 1994; Merchant, Chow & Wu, 1995; O'Connor, 1995). The
Anglo-American and Chinese-based cultures are
chosen for study because of their general economic and political signi®cance globally, and
1
It is acknowledged that these are just three examples of a
number of possible incidents of information sharing in interpersonal interactions and communications. However, pilot tests
in the design stages of the study involving interviews with
selected managers in both Australia and Taiwan showed these
examples to be common occurrences, and ones which did have
the potential to produce diculties in the information sharing
process. The pilot interviews also showed that managers in
both countries saw the issue of open exchange of information
in face-to-face meetings as being important to their organizations. (Feeding forward for a moment, so too did the interviewees from both Taiwan and Australia in the main sample.)
This is important because, as pointed out by the reviewers, it is
not necessarily the case that theories, issues and concerns relevant to western nations are also relevant in Chinese nations.
In this case, however, it appears that information sharing in
face-to-face meetings is relevant to both Western and Chinese
organizations.
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
because they encompass a number of substantive
dierences observed to exist in Western and Eastern cultures.
It is acknowledged at the outset that the study
focuses only on cultural inputs to information
sharing propensities and factors in the face-to-face
meeting context. It does not examine other variables identi®ed in the literature as relevant to the
need for, or ecacy of, informal integrative liaison
devices generally. Such other variables include, for
example, the degree of interdependent coordination requirements of the organization (Macintosh,
1994, p. 61) arising from exigencies of structural
dierentiation or the implementation of programs
such as Total Quality Management (Chenhall, 1992).
Nor does the paper assume that all organizations
are subject to the same contexts or require the same
characteristics of organizational learning, experimentation and innovation described by Levinthal
and March (1993) and Peters (1994). While these
multiple variables and contexts are relevant in
developing an overall model of when and where
such liaison devices will be eective, this study
seeks solely to contribute some understanding of
one potential input to the model when the model is
extended to a cross-national setting. That input is,
how national cultural characteristics might aect
the intrinsic propensity of individuals in organizations to share information in the speci®c context
under study. Because of this restricted focus, the
study does not seek to measure the eectiveness of
information sharing, which, as noted above, will
be dependent on multiple independent variables
outwith the scope of this study.2
Finally, the study must be seen as exploratory in
that, while the literature identi®es face-to-face
meetings as an important information sharing
context, no empirical research into how people in
dierent cultures operate in that context has yet
been conducted. Such research is important, however, for several reasons and audiences. First, it
adds to the growing body of research literature
2
The scope of the study is partial also in that it does not
take account of the multiple circumstances where, as the
reviewers accurately pointed out, information might be compartmentalized to reduce information overload, or for legal
reasons, as in the defence industry.
563
directed at understanding how people in organizations in dierent cultures may respond dierently
to work-related practices and conditions, and,
hence, is intrinsically important for cross-cultural
research development generally. Second, the research has pragmatic importance to managers and
management accountants in organizations operating either in a sole Anglo-American or Chinese
cultural context, or across such cultural contexts.
In both contexts, the research may enable managers to understand when (and how) national cultural characteristics might facilitate or, more
importantly, impede information sharing in their
organizations, and prompt the development of
mechanisms to overcome such impediments.
While the cross-national comparison in this study
might be most important for managers and management accountants in organizations operating in
both cultures, the results for each culture should
also be important at the single country level.
2. Theory and hypothesis
A consequence of the exploratory nature of
research in this area is the absence of prior literature or established theory to develop de®nitive and
directional hypotheses which might then support
empirical testing using standard statistical methods. There is considerable literature available
which describes the cultural characteristics of
Chinese-based societies and which contrasts those
characteristics with Anglo-American societies.
However, that literature does not directly address
the phenomenon at issue in this study, and, when
we searched that literature for cultural insight into
the phenomenon, we were confronted with several
relevant, but sometimes con¯icting implications.
Hence, our approach is to put forward those
implications from the literature, and then seek
both quantitative and qualitative data to shed
empirical light on them. The qualitative data,
obtained from personal interviews conducted with
managers in the ®eld, allow in-depth exploration
of the implications from the literature.
Students of national culture frequently point
to three attributes as being particularly dierent
between Anglo-American and Chinese-based
564
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
cultures: the emphasis on the interests of the self
versus those of the group, sometimes referred to as
individualism/collectivism (Hofstede, 1980, p. 51;
Triandis, 1995); the importance placed on the
concept of ``face'' (Bond & Hwang, 1986; Redding
& Wong, 1986); and the respect for authority and
hierarchy, often referred to as power distance
(Hofstede, 1980, p. 70).3
2.1. Individualism/collectivism
``Individualism pertains to societies in
which. . .everyone is expected to look after himself
or herself and his or her immediate family. . .its
opposite, collectivism pertains to societies in
which people from birth onwards are integrated
into strong cohesive ingroups'' (Hofstede, 1980,
p. 51). One attribute of collectivism is a ``we''
consciousness and orientation to the collectivity
(Triandis, 1995, p. 43). Consequences of this are a
perceived moral involvement with the company,
and individual behaviour premised on a sense of
loyalty and duty to the organization (Hofstede,
1984, p. 166). This contrasts with an ``I'' orientation and an emphasis on the self in an individualist
society, leading to a calculative involvement with
the company, and to behaviour allowing for individual initiative, expression and assertion (Hofstede, 1984, p. 166). Triandis (1995) supports this
by noting:
One can identify collectivism when group
goals have priority and individualism when
personal goals have priority... (Cognitions)
that focus on norms, obligations and duties
guide much of social behavior in collectivist
cultures...(while cognitions) that focus on
attitudes, personal needs, rights, and contracts guide social behavior in individualistic
cultures (Triandis, 1995, pp. 43, 44).
Students of Chinese culture have often cited
collectivism as one of its main characteristics, noting especially its emphasis on subjugating personal
3
As will be seen in the subsequent theory development in
this section, these three attributes of culture are also of particular relevance to the phenomena at issue in this study.
interest to that of the collective (Hofstede, 1991;
Leung & Bond, 1984), while individualism and the
self-interest motive are frequently cited as typifying Anglo-American culture (Hofstede, 1991; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai & Lucca, 1988).4
At ®rst pass, therefore, it could be expected that,
when faced with a situation where a person has
information to share which is bene®cial to the
collectivity but potentially disadvantageous in
some way to the individual, a person in a collectivist society would be more likely to share that
information than one in an individualist society.
2.2. The concept of ``face''
Complicating this expectation, however, are
other characteristics of collectivist cultures which
also appear to have implications for the information sharing issue. One, arising from the collectivist culture's group orientation, is the concern
with maintaining ``face''. At a general level, Ho
(1976, pp. 871 and 876) explains that ``(a) person's
`face' is assessed in terms of what others think of
him. . .Face may be lost when conduct or performance falls below the minimum level considered
acceptable''. At this level, face is a human universal and, indeed, appeared in the Western
sociological literature as long ago as Goman
(1955), who de®ned it in self-presentational terms
as ``the positive social value a person eectively
claims for himself'' (p. 213).
However, there are two features which distinguish the importance of face in Chinese collectivist
and Western individualist cultures. The ®rst is that
in Western cultures: ``Everyone has a free choice
in the use of language and action'' (Bond &
Hwang, 1986, p. 245); i.e. people are free to
determine whether, and how, they engage in selfpresentation. By contrast, no such choice exists for
a person in Chinese collectivist cultures. Here, face
is an automatic consequence of their belonging to,
4
Studies quantifying the degree of individualism/collectivism across countries, using Hofstede's (1980) original measurement instrument or variants thereof, have consistently
supported these dierences between Chinese and Anglo-American cultures. See, for example, Cragin (1986), Harrison (1992,
1993), Harrison et al. (1994), Hofstede (1980, 1991) and
O'Connor (1995).
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
and their status in, the collective. Face is maintained or lost through compliance with or violation of the behaviour expected of the person in
that particular status (Bond & Hwang, 1986,
p. 249). The second distinguishing feature is the
general belief in the permanence and, hence, criticality, of loss of face. Stover (1974, pp. 244±245,
cited in Bond and Hwang, p. 245) notes that: ``It is
generally believed (in Chinese society) that the
image of self presented to others has a lasting
impact, so one has to be very careful about one's
behaviour''. Similarly, Redding and Wong (1986,
p. 286) argue that one of the features which distinguish the importance of face in Chinese cultures
is the sheer degree of concern with it.
The degree of concern with face in Chinese
society is re¯ected in both the amount of literature
devoted to it (see, for example, the references to
this literature in Bond & Hwang, 1986), and the
depth of its permeation into social relationships
and interpersonal behaviour. Bond and Hwang
(pp. 245±249) discuss six types of face behaviour
in Chinese society, including saving one's own
face, and saving the face of others. They (Bond &
Hwang, 1986, p. 248) also cite the importance of
maintaining group structural harmony in collective Chinese societies, and reinforce the importance of face as determined by the behaviour of
individuals relative to their status, particularly
hierarchical status, within the group.
In a...society where the importance of structural harmony within a group is emphasized,
every person has to concern himself or herself
with `right conduct in maintaining one's place
in a hierarchical order' (Stover, 1974, p. 274).
He or she must pay attention to preserving
others' face in social encounters, especially
the face of superiors. Since exposing a person's mistake may provoke public reaction
and create disharmony, Chinese usually show
heightened reluctance to criticize others.
The nature and importance of face in Chinese
collectivist cultures would appear to constitute a
constraint on information sharing in each of the
three examples we posit. The examples of revealing a past failure and asking questions (which
565
might be seen as revealing one's ignorance) both
invoke the concern with protecting one's own face.
The example of openly expressing a contrary or
challenging view and implying a criticism of others
invokes the concern with protecting the face of
others, and indirectly one's own face.
In sum, the moral involvement with the company associated with collectivist cultures emerges
from the literature as a factor facilitating sharing
of information of the type, and in the contexts, of
the three examples in the study. By contrast, the
calculative involvement with the company and the
emphasis on self, associated with individualist
cultures arises as a factor impeding information
sharing in those same contexts. However, the
importance of face in collectivist cultures complicates hypotheses development, in that it emerges
from the literature as a factor impeding information
sharing in collectivist cultures. As such, the study
proceeds to examine the relative importance of these
factors as they are perceived to exist in the minds of
organizational participants in both cultures.
2.3. Power distance
The quote from Bond and Hwang (1986) near
the end of the previous section highlights the
importance of subordinate/superior relationships
in Chinese-based societies. The importance of the
hierarchy, and of the socially expected behaviours
of people in dierent statuses in the hierarchy,
constitutes the third attribute frequently seen as
particularly dierent between Anglo-American
and Chinese-based cultures. This attribute is commonly known as power distance.
Power distance has been de®ned as the degree to
which people accept interpersonal inequality in
power and the organizational institutionalization
of such inequality (Hofstede, 1991, p. 28). In high
power distance societies, there is acceptance of a
``broad and unquestioned authority'' of the
superior (Bond, 1991, p. 78), and a regard for the
superior as the most knowledgeable and ``the
most intelligent member of the group'' (Tse, Lee,
Vertinsky & Wehrung, 1988, p. 83). Subordinates
(i) believe that the opinions of their superiors
are more important than their own; (ii) accord
superiors a wide range of prerogatives, authority
566
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
and leadership, while also expecting them to take
the responsibility of authority and leadership
(Bond; Bond & Hwang, 1986); and (iii) regard
the involvement of subordinates in decision making as a sign of poor leadership by the superior
(Child, 1981; Hofstede, 1991, pp. 33±34). By contrast, subordinates in low power distance cultures
consider themselves to have equal rights to their
superiors, and expect to be consulted on, and have
input to, decisions aecting them (Child, 1981;
Hofstede, 1980). Observers of Chinese-based cultures have placed them among the highest in power
distance (Chinese Cultural Connection, 1987; Hofstede, 1980, 1991), while members of the AngloAmerican cluster are generally seen as being low on
this dimension (Hofstede, 1991, p. 26).5
The importance of power distance in Chinese
culture, and its implications for the expected
behaviours of subordinates and superiors, point
to a potential dierence in information sharing
behaviour in face-to-face meetings depending on
whether a person's superior is present at the
meeting or not. This dierence would be expected
to be manifest in each of the three examples we
consider in this paper. In all three examples, the
perception of Chinese subordinates that their opinions, information and questions are less important, knowledgeable and intelligent than those of
their superiors would tend to reduce the propensity that they would oer those opinions and
information, or ask questions, when their superior
is present compared to when absent. By contrast,
the perception of an intrinsic equality between
superior and subordinate in low power distance
cultures, together with the subordinate's expectation to have input into decisions and discussions,
suggests that the information sharing propensities
of participants in face-to-face meetings will be
less (or not) aected by the presence or absence
of a superior.
In sum, the cultural literature reviewed in this
section does not allow directional hypotheses to be
5
Studies quantifying the degree of power distance across
countries, using Hofstede's (1980) original measurement
instrument or variants thereof, have consistently supported
these dierences. See Hofstede (1991), Chow et al. (1991),
Harrison (1992, 1993), Harrison et al. (1994), Sondergaard
(1994) and Cragin (1986).
formulated for dierences in information sharing
behaviour between people in Anglo-American and
Chinese organizations in the context of face-to-face
meetings. The literature does suggest, however,
that the behaviour is likely to be dierent
depending upon the presence or absence of superiors in the Chinese setting, but not in the Australian setting. Hence, we state the following
interactive hypothesis as an exploratory hypothesis, which we examine using both quantitative
and qualitative data.
There is no interaction between the presence
or absence of a superior and a subordinate's
culture (Anglo-American or Chinese) aecting the subordinate's propensity to share
information through asking a clarifying
question (H1a), expressing a contrary or
challenging opinion (H1b), and revealing a
past mistake (H1c) in the open forum of a
face-to-face meeting.
3. Method
Data were collected through both a structured
questionnaire with closed-ended questions and
follow-up, open-ended questions in personal
interviews with middle level managers in their
organizational settings in Australia and Taiwan
(chosen to represent an Anglo-American and Chinese culture respectively). The interview instrument comprised three scenarios, each describing
one of the three information sharing examples of
asking questions, expressing a contrary or challenging opinion, and revealing a past mistake in
the context of a face-to-face meeting. The details
of the scenarios are given in the Results section of
the paper. To ensure the scenarios simulated the
circumstances intended, the instrument was pilot
tested with managers in both countries with similar organizational positions and level to those in
the main sample. The instrument was ®rst developed in English, translated into Chinese by a bilingual person not associated with the study, and
then back-translated by one of the bi-lingual
research team members. The instrument was then
evaluated by a second bi-lingual member of the
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
research team. The English version was used in
Australia and the Chinese version in Taiwan.
Each scenario was accompanied by two questions asking the respondent to indicate, on a ninepoint scale, the likely behaviour of a ``typical person'' in his/her organization in the scenario context. One question assumed that the person's
superior was present in the context, and the other
assumed that the superior was absent. These
questions were designed to obtain quantitative
data for the exploratory hypothesis. After the
respondent had provided his/her numerical
answers, the interview proceeded to probe the
reasons for the answers with the purpose of eliciting the factors that the respondents saw as in¯uencing the likely behaviour of people in their
organization in the context of each scenario.
Two aspects of the data collection are of note.
First, asking for the likely behaviour of another
person, rather than the behaviour of the person
him/herself was designed to reduce the potential
for social desirability bias.6 Second, the use of
scenarios and follow-up discussions is a variant of
the ``in-basket'' format developed by Frederiksen,
Saunders and Wand (1957), and used in a number
of studies of managers' decisions (e.g. MacCrimmon & Wehrung, 1984; Tse et al., 1988). For
an exploratory study such as ours, a major
advantage of this approach is that it allowed us to
move beyond the numerical responses to explore
the reasons why the respondents had given the
answers they did. Tse et al. (p. 92) argue that the
``in-basket'' format has advantages over ``conventional tools for studying executives' decisions,
6
It is acknowledged that this approach does not overcome
the potential for socially desirable responses entirely. However,
it provides some guard against such bias. Additionally, while
some respondents had diculty visualising the ``typical person'', others were able to do so easily. Respondents frequently
said that they recognized the situation in the scenarios well,
that they had had exactly these types of incidents occur in their
organization, and then described what had happened in the
organizational reality of the scenario. Even in the cases of
respondents who questioned the ``typical person'', these
respondents usually answered by giving us explanations of, and
factors underlying, how dierent people might react in the scenario. As it was these explanations and factors that we were
essentially interested in, we do not think social desirability bias
was a problem in the study.
567
such as belief statements'' because it provides
more relevant decision variables to respondents.7
3.1. Respondent sample
Data were collected from 52 (50) middle level
managers from 13 (14) Taiwanese (Australian)
companies. To control for in¯uences other than
culture on information sharing behaviour (e.g.
technology and competition), the companies were
matched on size (assets) and were drawn from the
same ®ve industries: cement, glass and steel; chemicals, plastic and rubber; construction; food and
beverages; and paper. The Taiwanese member of
the research team identi®ed a sample of companies
in Taiwan. The Australian team members then
matched this sample using data from corporate
directories and business periodicals. Companies
were initially contacted by letter personally
addressed to the Chief Executive Ocer. Followup telephone calls were then made. We targeted
wholly-owned companies within each nation to
avoid contamination by a non-Chinese or nonAnglo-American culture.8
7
A diculty in cross-national research in countries with
dierent languages is ensuring the cross-cultural equivalence of
the terms, concepts and decision meanings used in the research
instrument. Tse et al. (1988, p. 92) note that the use of ``inbasket'' scenario formats is particularly appropriate for crosscultural studies in that ``because executives representing dierent backgrounds and organizations are responding
to. . .common decisions, their behaviour can be compared''.
Additionally, the process of translation and back-translation of
the instrument involving independent bi-lingualists also lends
con®dence to the equivalence of terms and concepts, as did the
pilot testing of the instrument which was conducted in both
Australia and Taiwan. In both countries, and using the respective language versions of the instrument, the pilot test managers
supported the authenticity of the scenarios and their terminology in capturing the essence of the decision contexts and
meanings, as well as supporting the comparability and typicality of the scenarios in both countries.
8
Some of the targeted Australian companies chose not to
participate and, given the low number of wholly-owned Australian companies in the size and industry classi®cations drawn
from, some replacement companies in the ultimate sample were
partially foreign owned. However, all companies in the sample
had long-established operations in Australia, had major or
substantive Australian ownership, and, where there were overseas ownership interests, these were vested in other AngloAmerican countries, speci®cally the UK or the USA.
568
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
The respondent managers were matched on
function with half the sample in each country and
company drawn from sales/marketing and half
from production/operations. The purpose of
matching was, again, to control for any in¯uences
other than culture on information sharing behaviour (e.g. nature of task and occupational subculture). The managers in each company (we
initially sought four in each company) were selected by the Chief Executive Ocer or his/her
nominee, based on speci®ed criteria. These criteria
were that the respondents be at middle manager
level (such that they both reported to a superior
and were reported to by subordinates), and that
two be in sales/marketing and two in production/
operations. Two quali®cations on the data arose
from restrictions imposed by some Australian
companies. First, not all Australian companies
allowed access to four managers, necessitating a
14th company being drawn on. Second, four ®rms
restricted the number of managers we could interview, allowing the other managers to complete the
(closed-ended) questionnaire only. Thus, the Australian data comprise both completed questionnaire (quantitative) and personal interview
(qualitative) data for 42 respondents, and completed questionnaire data only for a further eight
respondents.9
3.2. Content analysis
We drew on content analysis to guide us in
analyzing the qualitative data.10 Two members
of the research team analysed the interview
transcripts, both jointly and independently, and
at dierent points in time. First, all transcripts
were read jointly and discussed, with the objective of identifying and classifying into categories
9
Mean comparisons of responses to the scenario questions
between the eight who completed the questionnaire in noninterview format and the 42 who completed it in interview settings showed no dierences. The analysis of the quantitative
data is, therefore, based on the full Australian sample of 50
managers.
10
Weber (1990, p. 9) describes content analysis as ``a
research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid
inferences from text'', and can be used for many purposes,
including coding open-ended questions.
the factors given by respondents as in¯uencing the
likely behavioural outcomes in the scenarios.
Some months later, one team member reread all
transcripts with the same objective, but, on this
occasion, (i) determined and documented a set of
decision rules for category identi®cation and classi®cation, and (ii) applied those rules to obtain a
count of the relative frequency with which categories were raised across the respondent samples.
The decision rules consisted of a list of the text
units of words and phrases regarded by the team
member as being indicative or connotative of
factors in¯uencing the behavioural outcomes in a
given scenario. The second team member then
independently read the transcripts with the purposes of; (i) evaluating the categories and decision
rules, and (ii) applying those rules to the transcripts to conduct a second and independent frequency count.
The two readings and classi®cations separated
by time allowed some comfort of reliability
through stability (Krippendor, 1980, p. 130) in
that the categories identi®ed by the same coder on
the second reading were the same as the ®rst,
except for a ®ner gradation of categories in some
instances. The two subsequent codings and counts
by each researcher independently allowed some
comfort of shared meaning of the categories and
decision rules (Gray, Kouhy & Lavers, 1995, p.
80), and of reliability through reproducibility
(Krippendor, p. 131) in that again there was a
high level of agreement between the two coders.11
We acknowledge that our use of content analysis is tailored to suit our study, and falls short in
some ways of the reliability and validity criteria
ideally associated with content analysis. In particular, the categories we developed were generated
from the interviews themselves, rather than from an
external referent. Hence, we cannot assure exhaustiveness of the categories or factors in¯uencing the
11
Our objective was to determine the relative frequency with
which a factor category was raised among the respondents in
each sample. We used words, phrases and sentences as the unit
of analysis (or text unit), rather than paragraphs or pages, and
we did not count repetitions within an interview (Weber, 1990,
p. 70). The use of small text units carries the advantages of
greater ease and reliability of coding (Gray et al., 1995, p. 84).
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
likely behavioural outcomes in the contexts at
issue (Guthrie & Mathews, 1985, p. 260). Rather,
we can only report and compare the relative frequency of occurrence of those categories perceived
by our respondents as important in¯uences on
information sharing behaviour in those contexts.
However, given that the categories and their identi®cation were relatively straightforward, we do
not believe that this process detracts substantially
from the credibility of the categories and their
de®nitions. To provide transparency, the categories and examples of text units included in each
category are given in Tables 3, 4 and 5 for each
scenario so that readers can also assess their reasonableness.
4. Results
The three scenarios used were as follows. Scenario 1, asking a clarifying question, involved a
meeting of peer managers to decide between two
investment proposals. The focal manager has
completed his own ®nancial analysis beforehand
and favours one alternative.12 In the meeting,
another manager argues in favour of the other
alternative, basing this argument on the results of
a ®nancial analytical technique referred to by the
acronym IVA (for intrinsic value analysis). The
focal manager has no knowledge of this technique,
but it appears to be familiar to all the other managers at the meeting and is apparently leading a
number of those managers to favour the other
alternative.
Scenario 2, expressing a contrary or challenging
opinion, described a situation in which a divisional
manager has called a meeting of his marketing,
design and production department managers, and
their assistant managers, to discuss the poor performance of the division. With the meeting not
going well and the marketing and design managers
each blaming the other, the assistant marketing
12
All subjects in the scenarios were males to avoid any
potential gender eect. The focal managers in the scenarios
were given typical Chinese names in the Chinese version of the
interview instrument used in Taiwan, and typical Anglo-American names in the English version used in Australia.
569
manager speaks up. He provides information he
has obtained from customers and suggests that
there are de®ciencies in both the marketing and
design departments. Scenario 3, revealing a past
mistake, involved a department manager who had
been promoted to that position a year earlier. The
manager had, as one of his ®rst decisions, pushed
for the introduction of a new technology to
replace an existing technology in the department.
A year later, the new technology is looking like
an expensive mistake through cost mis-estimation, but a mistake which the manager has been
able to conceal in the absence of post-audits of
speci®c projects. The scenario states that the
manager and his superior have been asked to
attend a meeting at another plant to advise on a
similar technology replacement decision. The scenario creates a situation where, unless the department manager openly discloses his previous misestimation, the other plant is likely to repeat that
mistake.
4.1. Quantitative results
As noted earlier, for each scenario respondents
were initially asked to indicate how likely it was
that the focal manager (if he were a typical person
in the respondent's organization) would ask a
clarifying question (Scenario 1), speak up and
express a contrary or challenging opinion (Scenario 2), or reveal a past mistake (Scenario 3).
Respondents were asked this question twice, once
assuming the superior were present in the context,
and the other assuming his absence.13 A ninepoint response scale was used for each question
anchored by 1=``would de®nitely not (ask; speak
up; reveal mistake)'' and 9=``would de®nitely
(ask; speak up; reveal mistake)''. The descriptive
statistics are given in Table 1.
13
The order of superior presence/absence was varied. In
Scenario 1, the ®rst question assumed the superior was absent,
while the second asked if there would be a dierence in behaviour if the superior were present. In Scenarios 2 and 3, the ®rst
question assumed the superior was present, with the second
asking if there would be a dierence in behaviour if the superior were absent. The variation was used simply to ensure that
the respondent managers were thinking carefully about each
scenario and question.
570
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
Table 1
Descriptive statistics for scenario responsesa
Scenario
1. Asking clarifying questions:
with superior absent
with superior present
2. Speaking up and expressing a contrary
or challenging opinion:
with divisional manager absent
with divisional manager present
3. Revealing a past mistake:
with superior absent
with superior present
a
Country
Observed
range
Mean
(SD)
Taiwan
Australia
Taiwan
Australia
6±9
2±9
3±9
1±9
7.72 (0.72)
6.84 (1.74)
6.25 (1.43)
6.07 (2.29)
Taiwan
Australia
Taiwan
Australia
3±9
2±9
3±9
2±9
6.48 (1.78)
7.51 (1.54)
6.54 (1.50)
6.81 (1.76)
Taiwan
Australia
Taiwan
Australia
3±9
2±9
2±8
1±9
6.94 (1.24)
7.08 (1.66)
5.87 (1.59)
6.12 (1.94)
Response scale: 1=low, 9=high.
Table 2
Results of estimating interaction model for scenario responses
Variable
Coecent
Value
SE
t
p
6.840
0.872
ÿ0.770
ÿ0.692
0.231
0.324
0.327
0.458
29.595
2.693
ÿ2.356
ÿ1.511
0.000
0.007
0.019
0.132
Panel b: speaking up and expressing a contrary or challenging opinion (Scenario 2)b
Intercept
b0
7.510
0.233
Nation
b1
ÿ1.029
0.327
Superior
b2
ÿ0.700
0.330
Interaction
b3
0.758
0.462
32.196
ÿ3.150
ÿ2.122
1.640
0.000
0.002
0.035
0.103
Panel C: reveal a past mistake (Scenario 3)c
Intercept
b0
Nation
b1
Superior
b2
Interaction
b3
30.875
ÿ0.429
ÿ2.960
ÿ0.257
0.000
0.669
0.003
0.797
Panel A: asking clarifying questions (Scenario 1)a
Intercept
b0
Nation
b1
Superior
b2
Interaction
b3
a
b
c
7.080
ÿ0.138
ÿ0.960
ÿ0.117
R2=0.14; adjusted R2=0.12; F=10.54; Signif. 0.0000.
R2=0.06; adjusted R2=0.04; F=4.15; Signif. 0.0070.
R2=0.09; adjusted R2=0.08; F=6.99; Signif. 0.0002.
0.229
0.321
0.324
0.454
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
The hypothesis was tested using the following
multiple linear regression model:
Y b0 b1 X1 b2 X2 b3 X1 X2 e
where:
Y= likelihood of asking question (Scenario 1),
speaking up and expressing a contrary and
challenging opinion (Scenario 2), revealing a
past mistake (Scenario 3);
X1 = nation, coded 0 for Australia and 1 for
Taiwan, proxying for culture; and
X2 = superior absence (coded 0) or presence
(coded 1).
The results are shown in Table 2, with Panels A,
B and C presenting the results for Scenarios 1, 2
and 3 respectively. Table 2 shows the main eects
for nation in Scenarios 1 and 2. The Taiwanese
managers were perceived as more likely than the
Australian managers to ask clarifying questions
(Panel A, t =2.69, p =0.007); however, the Australian managers were perceived as more likely to
speak up and express a contrary or challenging
opinion (Panel B, t=3.15, p=0.002). No dierence was reported in the tendency to reveal past
failures. In all three scenarios and for both the
Australian and Taiwanese samples, Table 1 shows
that mean scores are above the mid-point indicating
an overall propensity to share information. Table
2 also shows a main eect for presence/absence of
a superior in all three scenarios, with the direction
in each case being a reduced tendency to share
information with the superior present compared to
absent. A weak interaction eect was found only
in Scenario 2 (at p=0.10). This eect was contrary
to expectation with the Australian respondents
perceiving that the presence of a superior would
have a greater eect on reducing the likelihood
that a manager would express a contrary or challenging opinion than the Taiwanese.
4.2. Qualitative results
The quantitative results reveal little about
information sharing behaviour in the face-to-face
meetings context. This was not unexpected given
571
the lack of prior theory, and the fact that the literature reviewed for the paper provided several
relevant but potentially con¯icting cultural implications for such behaviour. Hence, the qualitative
data from the open-ended interview questions
were looked to for insight. These data are reported
in Tables 3, 4 and 5 for Scenarios 1, 2 and 3
respectively. The tables show: (i) the categories of
factors identi®ed by the interview respondents as
reasons for or against information sharing in each
scenario;14 (ii) examples of the spoken text units
contained in the interview transcripts which were
taken to indicate each category; and (iii) the
absolute and percentage frequency of citation of
each category across the Taiwanese and Australian interview responses. Panel A in each table
summarises the factors in¯uencing the likelihood
of information sharing in each scenario, while
Panel B focuses speci®cally on the impact of a
superior's presence (Scenario 1) or absence (Scenarios 2 and 3). By contrast with the quantitative
results, the qualitative data were revealing, with
Tables 3, 4 and 5 showing several systematic and
consistent dierences underlying the general propensity to share information. These dierences
are, in turn, consistent with the cultural characteristics of Taiwanese and Australian societies.
4.3. Scenario 1: Asking clarifying questions
Table 1 showed that both national samples
considered it likely that the typical person would
ask (for the IVA technique to be explained to
them) when only his peers were present at the
meeting. However, Table 3 (Panel A) shows that the
factors or reasons underlying this propensity to ask
were seen and expressed dierently by the Taiwanese and Australian respondents. First, by far the
most frequently stated reason seen as underlying
14
Occasionally, a factor was raised by a respondent on a
one-o basis. Such factors are not shown in the tables for eciency reasons. This is not to say these factors are not important in speci®c contexts. As a reviewer pointed out, factors such
as the nature of the superior's characteristics or the dyadic
relationship between superior and subordinate may all be
important in speci®c circumstances. This paper concentrates,
however, on factors that were identi®ed with some frequency
by interviewees.
572
Table 3
Asking clarifying questions (Scenario 1)
Category
Examples of text units
Australia
Number
%
Number
%
47
90
1
2
0
0
26
62
3
6
9
21
0
0
6
14
39
75
0
0
5
10
4
10
1
3
2
6
7
0
17
0
Panel A: factors in¯uencing likelihood of asking questions
Reasons for asking
The good of the company
Individual assertiveness
Company culture
Contingent factors
Individual dierences
Problem can't be realized/solved without further explanation/understanding of
problem/content/analysis; company decision would be aected; eect of company
decision would be great/critical/important; have to understand problem/analysis
to avoid wrong/bad decision/judgement; whole company/entity/section would be
aected/harmed; can't communicate eectively if no understanding
People are vocal/forthright/open/not backward/con®dent; not worried about sticking
their neck out; no compunction in admitting ignorance/asking ``dumb'' questions; no
embarrassment; would ask in no uncertain terms; no/few impediments
Company/corporate culture encourages/supports/allows questioning/asking
questions; people expected to participate; culture of openness/maturity
Personality; some outgoing/some introverted; shy/con®dent; that's the way they are
Panel B: impact of superior presence on likelihood of asking questions
Less likely to ask
Loss of face
Adverse opinion/perception by superior
Career risk
Superior responsibility
Afraid of losing face; problem of/with face; problem of face more important if
superior present; more conservative to protect face
Afraid that superior would doubt knowledge/consider him little talented and little
learned; have bad impression; showing insucient knowledge
Career risk; (potential) adverse eect on career/future
Expect superior to ask question/make decision
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
Taiwan
Table 4
Speaking up and expressing a contrary or challenging opinion (Scenario 2)
Taiwan
Category
Examples of text units
Australia
Number
%
Number
%
34
65
0
0
0
0
14
33
5
10
16
38
7
13
0
0
7
7
13
13
0
3
0
7
1
2
16
38
No/less concern/about problem about face; face not as serious; individual and boss
No/less/reduction in pressure; not harmful to interests/career; free to ¯oat
ideas/speculate/kite ¯y; lower feeling of intimidation/uncertainty; greater con®dence;
consider themselves decision-makers/problem solvers
Emphasize cause of/solution to problem
4
19
8
37
0
6
0
14
4
8
0
0
Speaking up is useless/ineective/loses eectiveness/can't do any good in absence of
superior/decision-maker/person responsible/person with real power; problem can't be
solved; meeting is unimportant/can have no conclusion; emphasis on problem and blame,
not on solution; people won't listen
Save others' face; avoid oense
No/not much/marginal dierence/impact; no change; not aected; not an issue
18
35
0
0
2
10
4
19
0
23
0
55
Panel A: factors in¯uencing likelihood of speaking up
Individual assertiveness
Company culture
Reasons against speaking up
Maintenance of harmony
Face
Heirarchy and status
Contingent factors
Individual dierences
Bene®t/bene®cial/useful to/good of/in interest of/concern for/ the company/whole
company/whole entity. Emphasize cause/understand truth of problem; solving
problems is everyone's responsibility; let everyone see/pay attention to problem;
righteous speaking is good for company
People (here) are pretty vocal/forthright/keen to speak up/to ``put their oar in''/get
things discussed/out in the open; not at all backward; don't hold back; point will be
made regardless of consequences
Company culture is open/encourages open speaking/telling the truth/raise problems;
create supporting environment/climate; more concerned with problem solving than
apportioning blame; try ``not to shoot the messenger''; expect people to speak up
Maintain/preserve/emphasize harmony/human relations/friendship; have to cooperate
with colleagues afterward; avoid people blaming each other and cause future trouble
Face; problem about face; self-protection; save others face
Respect superior's opinion/viewpoint; speaking has no eectiveness because of junior
status; lower level would be taken lightly/considered unimportant; afraid of giving
dierent ideas from superior; lack of status
Depends on person; people dier on personality/con®dence/characteristics; extroverts
vs
www.elsevier.com/locate/aos
Cultural in¯uences on informal information sharing in
Chinese and Anglo-American organizations:
an exploratory study
Chee W. Chow a, Graeme L. Harrison b,*, Jill L. McKinnon b, Anne Wu c
a
San Diego State University, USA
Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
c
National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
b
Abstract
This study examines cultural factors which may facilitate or impede the sharing of informal information in the context of face-to-face meetings in Chinese compared to Anglo-American organizations. Both qualitative and quantitative
data were collected through personally conducted interviews with middle level managers in a sample of Taiwanese and
Australian manufacturing ®rms. The results suggest the importance of individual dierences, individual assertiveness,
and corporate culture in in¯uencing informal information sharing in Australia; and the trade-o between collective
interests, respect for hierarchical status and concern with face in Taiwan. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
1. Introduction
This study explores national cultural factors
which may facilitate or impede the sharing of
information in the interpersonal communications
context of face-to-face meetings in Chinese compared to Anglo-American organizations.
A study of information sharing is important
because, as Macintosh (1994, pp. 58±61) notes,
information sharing is crucial for increasing the
capacity of organizations to process information
in planning and controlling their operations.
Other writers have also emphasized that open
* Corresponding author. Tel: +61-2-9850-8515; fax: +61-29850-8497.
E-mail address: gharriso@efs.mq.edu.au (G.L. Harrison)
sharing of information among organizational
members is fundamental to such processes as
benchmarking (Smith, 1994, p. 32), managing the
value chain (Nanni, Dixon & Vollman, 1992, p. 3),
networking (Fairtlough, 1994, p. 89), total quality
management (Chenhall, 1992, p. 4), and organizational learning (Levinthal & March, 1993, p. 96).
Information sharing in organizations occurs
through formal and informal mechanisms. Formal
mechanisms include traditional management
accounting systems which collect data in routine
form from dierent parts of an organization, and
``manipulate, aggregate and distribute'' that
information, typically in report format (Emmanuel, Otley & Merchant 1990, p. 97; Bruns &
McKinnon, 1993, p. 104). Informal mechanisms
include interpersonal communications in the con-
0361-3682/99/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0361-3682(99)00022-7
562
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
text of meetings and conversations, direct observation and informal reports (Bruns & McKinnon,
pp. 94 and 104; Macintosh, 1994, p. 39).
This study focuses upon informal information
exchange in face-to-face meetings. This context is
chosen because, as Bruns and McKinnon (1993, p.
94) found, informal information sourced through
interpersonal communications such as face-to-face
meetings ``dominate other sources of information
for day-to-day needs and remain important for
longer term needs''. Similarly, Abernethy and Lillis
(1995, pp. 244 and 252) identify meetings among
decision-makers of dierent departments and functions as one of the integrative liaison devices which
need to supplant formal and structured information
reporting and exchange as ®rms increasingly pursue
¯exible manufacturing strategies.
The study focuses speci®cally on information
which may be seen as carrying some tension, con¯ict or diculty for a participant in a face-to-face
meeting. In such a meeting, a participant may be
an information provider or seeker, and the information may have dierent attributes and connotations for the participant. Some information
provided to the meeting may be supportive of the
otherwise general view of the meeting while other
information might constitute a contrary or challenging view. Similarly, some information may
enhance the provider's standing in the view of
others (for example, information about the participant's past successes), while other information
might potentially detract (information about past
failures). In the information seeking role, the
information sought might be perceived by the
participant as unknown to the meeting generally,
or unknown to the participant only. In this latter
context, seeking information might be perceived to
reveal his or her lack of knowledge.
We concentrate in this study on information of
the second type in each of these three examples;
i.e. on information which may challenge or confront, may expose a past mistake, or may expose
lack of knowledge. We do this because it is information of this type which, on the one hand, is
likely to produce the greater con¯ict and tension
in the mind of the participant and, hence, be the
more dicult to share, but which, on the other,
has been seen in the literature as important to
share for organizational bene®t.1 Levinthal and
March (1993), for example, observe in relation to
organizational learning that such learning is often
biased by the tendency to emphasize success and
de-emphasise failure. Similarly, Peters (1994, pp.
54±55) argues that organizations need to foster
the promotion of challenging ideas, the creation
of a questioning environment, and to de-stigmatize failure so as not to deter innovation and creativity.
The study explores the factors which facilitate
or impede sharing of information of the type
detailed in the previous paragraph in two national
cultural settings; Anglo-American culture which is
typically regarded as characterising countries such
as the US, UK, Australia and Canada, and Chinese-based culture, typically regarded as characterising countries such as China, Hong Kong,
Singapore and Taiwan. The cross-cultural focus is
motivated by the ®ndings of a growing body of
research which suggests that people in dierent
nations often dier in how they react to given jobrelated conditions (see, for example, Chow, Kato
& Merchant, 1996; Chow, Kato & Shields, 1994;
Chow, Shields & Chan, 1991; Birnberg & Snodgrass, 1988; Harrison, 1992, 1993; Harrison,
McKinnon, Panchapakesan & Leung, 1994; Merchant, Chow & Wu, 1995; O'Connor, 1995). The
Anglo-American and Chinese-based cultures are
chosen for study because of their general economic and political signi®cance globally, and
1
It is acknowledged that these are just three examples of a
number of possible incidents of information sharing in interpersonal interactions and communications. However, pilot tests
in the design stages of the study involving interviews with
selected managers in both Australia and Taiwan showed these
examples to be common occurrences, and ones which did have
the potential to produce diculties in the information sharing
process. The pilot interviews also showed that managers in
both countries saw the issue of open exchange of information
in face-to-face meetings as being important to their organizations. (Feeding forward for a moment, so too did the interviewees from both Taiwan and Australia in the main sample.)
This is important because, as pointed out by the reviewers, it is
not necessarily the case that theories, issues and concerns relevant to western nations are also relevant in Chinese nations.
In this case, however, it appears that information sharing in
face-to-face meetings is relevant to both Western and Chinese
organizations.
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
because they encompass a number of substantive
dierences observed to exist in Western and Eastern cultures.
It is acknowledged at the outset that the study
focuses only on cultural inputs to information
sharing propensities and factors in the face-to-face
meeting context. It does not examine other variables identi®ed in the literature as relevant to the
need for, or ecacy of, informal integrative liaison
devices generally. Such other variables include, for
example, the degree of interdependent coordination requirements of the organization (Macintosh,
1994, p. 61) arising from exigencies of structural
dierentiation or the implementation of programs
such as Total Quality Management (Chenhall, 1992).
Nor does the paper assume that all organizations
are subject to the same contexts or require the same
characteristics of organizational learning, experimentation and innovation described by Levinthal
and March (1993) and Peters (1994). While these
multiple variables and contexts are relevant in
developing an overall model of when and where
such liaison devices will be eective, this study
seeks solely to contribute some understanding of
one potential input to the model when the model is
extended to a cross-national setting. That input is,
how national cultural characteristics might aect
the intrinsic propensity of individuals in organizations to share information in the speci®c context
under study. Because of this restricted focus, the
study does not seek to measure the eectiveness of
information sharing, which, as noted above, will
be dependent on multiple independent variables
outwith the scope of this study.2
Finally, the study must be seen as exploratory in
that, while the literature identi®es face-to-face
meetings as an important information sharing
context, no empirical research into how people in
dierent cultures operate in that context has yet
been conducted. Such research is important, however, for several reasons and audiences. First, it
adds to the growing body of research literature
2
The scope of the study is partial also in that it does not
take account of the multiple circumstances where, as the
reviewers accurately pointed out, information might be compartmentalized to reduce information overload, or for legal
reasons, as in the defence industry.
563
directed at understanding how people in organizations in dierent cultures may respond dierently
to work-related practices and conditions, and,
hence, is intrinsically important for cross-cultural
research development generally. Second, the research has pragmatic importance to managers and
management accountants in organizations operating either in a sole Anglo-American or Chinese
cultural context, or across such cultural contexts.
In both contexts, the research may enable managers to understand when (and how) national cultural characteristics might facilitate or, more
importantly, impede information sharing in their
organizations, and prompt the development of
mechanisms to overcome such impediments.
While the cross-national comparison in this study
might be most important for managers and management accountants in organizations operating in
both cultures, the results for each culture should
also be important at the single country level.
2. Theory and hypothesis
A consequence of the exploratory nature of
research in this area is the absence of prior literature or established theory to develop de®nitive and
directional hypotheses which might then support
empirical testing using standard statistical methods. There is considerable literature available
which describes the cultural characteristics of
Chinese-based societies and which contrasts those
characteristics with Anglo-American societies.
However, that literature does not directly address
the phenomenon at issue in this study, and, when
we searched that literature for cultural insight into
the phenomenon, we were confronted with several
relevant, but sometimes con¯icting implications.
Hence, our approach is to put forward those
implications from the literature, and then seek
both quantitative and qualitative data to shed
empirical light on them. The qualitative data,
obtained from personal interviews conducted with
managers in the ®eld, allow in-depth exploration
of the implications from the literature.
Students of national culture frequently point
to three attributes as being particularly dierent
between Anglo-American and Chinese-based
564
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
cultures: the emphasis on the interests of the self
versus those of the group, sometimes referred to as
individualism/collectivism (Hofstede, 1980, p. 51;
Triandis, 1995); the importance placed on the
concept of ``face'' (Bond & Hwang, 1986; Redding
& Wong, 1986); and the respect for authority and
hierarchy, often referred to as power distance
(Hofstede, 1980, p. 70).3
2.1. Individualism/collectivism
``Individualism pertains to societies in
which. . .everyone is expected to look after himself
or herself and his or her immediate family. . .its
opposite, collectivism pertains to societies in
which people from birth onwards are integrated
into strong cohesive ingroups'' (Hofstede, 1980,
p. 51). One attribute of collectivism is a ``we''
consciousness and orientation to the collectivity
(Triandis, 1995, p. 43). Consequences of this are a
perceived moral involvement with the company,
and individual behaviour premised on a sense of
loyalty and duty to the organization (Hofstede,
1984, p. 166). This contrasts with an ``I'' orientation and an emphasis on the self in an individualist
society, leading to a calculative involvement with
the company, and to behaviour allowing for individual initiative, expression and assertion (Hofstede, 1984, p. 166). Triandis (1995) supports this
by noting:
One can identify collectivism when group
goals have priority and individualism when
personal goals have priority... (Cognitions)
that focus on norms, obligations and duties
guide much of social behavior in collectivist
cultures...(while cognitions) that focus on
attitudes, personal needs, rights, and contracts guide social behavior in individualistic
cultures (Triandis, 1995, pp. 43, 44).
Students of Chinese culture have often cited
collectivism as one of its main characteristics, noting especially its emphasis on subjugating personal
3
As will be seen in the subsequent theory development in
this section, these three attributes of culture are also of particular relevance to the phenomena at issue in this study.
interest to that of the collective (Hofstede, 1991;
Leung & Bond, 1984), while individualism and the
self-interest motive are frequently cited as typifying Anglo-American culture (Hofstede, 1991; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai & Lucca, 1988).4
At ®rst pass, therefore, it could be expected that,
when faced with a situation where a person has
information to share which is bene®cial to the
collectivity but potentially disadvantageous in
some way to the individual, a person in a collectivist society would be more likely to share that
information than one in an individualist society.
2.2. The concept of ``face''
Complicating this expectation, however, are
other characteristics of collectivist cultures which
also appear to have implications for the information sharing issue. One, arising from the collectivist culture's group orientation, is the concern
with maintaining ``face''. At a general level, Ho
(1976, pp. 871 and 876) explains that ``(a) person's
`face' is assessed in terms of what others think of
him. . .Face may be lost when conduct or performance falls below the minimum level considered
acceptable''. At this level, face is a human universal and, indeed, appeared in the Western
sociological literature as long ago as Goman
(1955), who de®ned it in self-presentational terms
as ``the positive social value a person eectively
claims for himself'' (p. 213).
However, there are two features which distinguish the importance of face in Chinese collectivist
and Western individualist cultures. The ®rst is that
in Western cultures: ``Everyone has a free choice
in the use of language and action'' (Bond &
Hwang, 1986, p. 245); i.e. people are free to
determine whether, and how, they engage in selfpresentation. By contrast, no such choice exists for
a person in Chinese collectivist cultures. Here, face
is an automatic consequence of their belonging to,
4
Studies quantifying the degree of individualism/collectivism across countries, using Hofstede's (1980) original measurement instrument or variants thereof, have consistently
supported these dierences between Chinese and Anglo-American cultures. See, for example, Cragin (1986), Harrison (1992,
1993), Harrison et al. (1994), Hofstede (1980, 1991) and
O'Connor (1995).
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
and their status in, the collective. Face is maintained or lost through compliance with or violation of the behaviour expected of the person in
that particular status (Bond & Hwang, 1986,
p. 249). The second distinguishing feature is the
general belief in the permanence and, hence, criticality, of loss of face. Stover (1974, pp. 244±245,
cited in Bond and Hwang, p. 245) notes that: ``It is
generally believed (in Chinese society) that the
image of self presented to others has a lasting
impact, so one has to be very careful about one's
behaviour''. Similarly, Redding and Wong (1986,
p. 286) argue that one of the features which distinguish the importance of face in Chinese cultures
is the sheer degree of concern with it.
The degree of concern with face in Chinese
society is re¯ected in both the amount of literature
devoted to it (see, for example, the references to
this literature in Bond & Hwang, 1986), and the
depth of its permeation into social relationships
and interpersonal behaviour. Bond and Hwang
(pp. 245±249) discuss six types of face behaviour
in Chinese society, including saving one's own
face, and saving the face of others. They (Bond &
Hwang, 1986, p. 248) also cite the importance of
maintaining group structural harmony in collective Chinese societies, and reinforce the importance of face as determined by the behaviour of
individuals relative to their status, particularly
hierarchical status, within the group.
In a...society where the importance of structural harmony within a group is emphasized,
every person has to concern himself or herself
with `right conduct in maintaining one's place
in a hierarchical order' (Stover, 1974, p. 274).
He or she must pay attention to preserving
others' face in social encounters, especially
the face of superiors. Since exposing a person's mistake may provoke public reaction
and create disharmony, Chinese usually show
heightened reluctance to criticize others.
The nature and importance of face in Chinese
collectivist cultures would appear to constitute a
constraint on information sharing in each of the
three examples we posit. The examples of revealing a past failure and asking questions (which
565
might be seen as revealing one's ignorance) both
invoke the concern with protecting one's own face.
The example of openly expressing a contrary or
challenging view and implying a criticism of others
invokes the concern with protecting the face of
others, and indirectly one's own face.
In sum, the moral involvement with the company associated with collectivist cultures emerges
from the literature as a factor facilitating sharing
of information of the type, and in the contexts, of
the three examples in the study. By contrast, the
calculative involvement with the company and the
emphasis on self, associated with individualist
cultures arises as a factor impeding information
sharing in those same contexts. However, the
importance of face in collectivist cultures complicates hypotheses development, in that it emerges
from the literature as a factor impeding information
sharing in collectivist cultures. As such, the study
proceeds to examine the relative importance of these
factors as they are perceived to exist in the minds of
organizational participants in both cultures.
2.3. Power distance
The quote from Bond and Hwang (1986) near
the end of the previous section highlights the
importance of subordinate/superior relationships
in Chinese-based societies. The importance of the
hierarchy, and of the socially expected behaviours
of people in dierent statuses in the hierarchy,
constitutes the third attribute frequently seen as
particularly dierent between Anglo-American
and Chinese-based cultures. This attribute is commonly known as power distance.
Power distance has been de®ned as the degree to
which people accept interpersonal inequality in
power and the organizational institutionalization
of such inequality (Hofstede, 1991, p. 28). In high
power distance societies, there is acceptance of a
``broad and unquestioned authority'' of the
superior (Bond, 1991, p. 78), and a regard for the
superior as the most knowledgeable and ``the
most intelligent member of the group'' (Tse, Lee,
Vertinsky & Wehrung, 1988, p. 83). Subordinates
(i) believe that the opinions of their superiors
are more important than their own; (ii) accord
superiors a wide range of prerogatives, authority
566
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
and leadership, while also expecting them to take
the responsibility of authority and leadership
(Bond; Bond & Hwang, 1986); and (iii) regard
the involvement of subordinates in decision making as a sign of poor leadership by the superior
(Child, 1981; Hofstede, 1991, pp. 33±34). By contrast, subordinates in low power distance cultures
consider themselves to have equal rights to their
superiors, and expect to be consulted on, and have
input to, decisions aecting them (Child, 1981;
Hofstede, 1980). Observers of Chinese-based cultures have placed them among the highest in power
distance (Chinese Cultural Connection, 1987; Hofstede, 1980, 1991), while members of the AngloAmerican cluster are generally seen as being low on
this dimension (Hofstede, 1991, p. 26).5
The importance of power distance in Chinese
culture, and its implications for the expected
behaviours of subordinates and superiors, point
to a potential dierence in information sharing
behaviour in face-to-face meetings depending on
whether a person's superior is present at the
meeting or not. This dierence would be expected
to be manifest in each of the three examples we
consider in this paper. In all three examples, the
perception of Chinese subordinates that their opinions, information and questions are less important, knowledgeable and intelligent than those of
their superiors would tend to reduce the propensity that they would oer those opinions and
information, or ask questions, when their superior
is present compared to when absent. By contrast,
the perception of an intrinsic equality between
superior and subordinate in low power distance
cultures, together with the subordinate's expectation to have input into decisions and discussions,
suggests that the information sharing propensities
of participants in face-to-face meetings will be
less (or not) aected by the presence or absence
of a superior.
In sum, the cultural literature reviewed in this
section does not allow directional hypotheses to be
5
Studies quantifying the degree of power distance across
countries, using Hofstede's (1980) original measurement
instrument or variants thereof, have consistently supported
these dierences. See Hofstede (1991), Chow et al. (1991),
Harrison (1992, 1993), Harrison et al. (1994), Sondergaard
(1994) and Cragin (1986).
formulated for dierences in information sharing
behaviour between people in Anglo-American and
Chinese organizations in the context of face-to-face
meetings. The literature does suggest, however,
that the behaviour is likely to be dierent
depending upon the presence or absence of superiors in the Chinese setting, but not in the Australian setting. Hence, we state the following
interactive hypothesis as an exploratory hypothesis, which we examine using both quantitative
and qualitative data.
There is no interaction between the presence
or absence of a superior and a subordinate's
culture (Anglo-American or Chinese) aecting the subordinate's propensity to share
information through asking a clarifying
question (H1a), expressing a contrary or
challenging opinion (H1b), and revealing a
past mistake (H1c) in the open forum of a
face-to-face meeting.
3. Method
Data were collected through both a structured
questionnaire with closed-ended questions and
follow-up, open-ended questions in personal
interviews with middle level managers in their
organizational settings in Australia and Taiwan
(chosen to represent an Anglo-American and Chinese culture respectively). The interview instrument comprised three scenarios, each describing
one of the three information sharing examples of
asking questions, expressing a contrary or challenging opinion, and revealing a past mistake in
the context of a face-to-face meeting. The details
of the scenarios are given in the Results section of
the paper. To ensure the scenarios simulated the
circumstances intended, the instrument was pilot
tested with managers in both countries with similar organizational positions and level to those in
the main sample. The instrument was ®rst developed in English, translated into Chinese by a bilingual person not associated with the study, and
then back-translated by one of the bi-lingual
research team members. The instrument was then
evaluated by a second bi-lingual member of the
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
research team. The English version was used in
Australia and the Chinese version in Taiwan.
Each scenario was accompanied by two questions asking the respondent to indicate, on a ninepoint scale, the likely behaviour of a ``typical person'' in his/her organization in the scenario context. One question assumed that the person's
superior was present in the context, and the other
assumed that the superior was absent. These
questions were designed to obtain quantitative
data for the exploratory hypothesis. After the
respondent had provided his/her numerical
answers, the interview proceeded to probe the
reasons for the answers with the purpose of eliciting the factors that the respondents saw as in¯uencing the likely behaviour of people in their
organization in the context of each scenario.
Two aspects of the data collection are of note.
First, asking for the likely behaviour of another
person, rather than the behaviour of the person
him/herself was designed to reduce the potential
for social desirability bias.6 Second, the use of
scenarios and follow-up discussions is a variant of
the ``in-basket'' format developed by Frederiksen,
Saunders and Wand (1957), and used in a number
of studies of managers' decisions (e.g. MacCrimmon & Wehrung, 1984; Tse et al., 1988). For
an exploratory study such as ours, a major
advantage of this approach is that it allowed us to
move beyond the numerical responses to explore
the reasons why the respondents had given the
answers they did. Tse et al. (p. 92) argue that the
``in-basket'' format has advantages over ``conventional tools for studying executives' decisions,
6
It is acknowledged that this approach does not overcome
the potential for socially desirable responses entirely. However,
it provides some guard against such bias. Additionally, while
some respondents had diculty visualising the ``typical person'', others were able to do so easily. Respondents frequently
said that they recognized the situation in the scenarios well,
that they had had exactly these types of incidents occur in their
organization, and then described what had happened in the
organizational reality of the scenario. Even in the cases of
respondents who questioned the ``typical person'', these
respondents usually answered by giving us explanations of, and
factors underlying, how dierent people might react in the scenario. As it was these explanations and factors that we were
essentially interested in, we do not think social desirability bias
was a problem in the study.
567
such as belief statements'' because it provides
more relevant decision variables to respondents.7
3.1. Respondent sample
Data were collected from 52 (50) middle level
managers from 13 (14) Taiwanese (Australian)
companies. To control for in¯uences other than
culture on information sharing behaviour (e.g.
technology and competition), the companies were
matched on size (assets) and were drawn from the
same ®ve industries: cement, glass and steel; chemicals, plastic and rubber; construction; food and
beverages; and paper. The Taiwanese member of
the research team identi®ed a sample of companies
in Taiwan. The Australian team members then
matched this sample using data from corporate
directories and business periodicals. Companies
were initially contacted by letter personally
addressed to the Chief Executive Ocer. Followup telephone calls were then made. We targeted
wholly-owned companies within each nation to
avoid contamination by a non-Chinese or nonAnglo-American culture.8
7
A diculty in cross-national research in countries with
dierent languages is ensuring the cross-cultural equivalence of
the terms, concepts and decision meanings used in the research
instrument. Tse et al. (1988, p. 92) note that the use of ``inbasket'' scenario formats is particularly appropriate for crosscultural studies in that ``because executives representing dierent backgrounds and organizations are responding
to. . .common decisions, their behaviour can be compared''.
Additionally, the process of translation and back-translation of
the instrument involving independent bi-lingualists also lends
con®dence to the equivalence of terms and concepts, as did the
pilot testing of the instrument which was conducted in both
Australia and Taiwan. In both countries, and using the respective language versions of the instrument, the pilot test managers
supported the authenticity of the scenarios and their terminology in capturing the essence of the decision contexts and
meanings, as well as supporting the comparability and typicality of the scenarios in both countries.
8
Some of the targeted Australian companies chose not to
participate and, given the low number of wholly-owned Australian companies in the size and industry classi®cations drawn
from, some replacement companies in the ultimate sample were
partially foreign owned. However, all companies in the sample
had long-established operations in Australia, had major or
substantive Australian ownership, and, where there were overseas ownership interests, these were vested in other AngloAmerican countries, speci®cally the UK or the USA.
568
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
The respondent managers were matched on
function with half the sample in each country and
company drawn from sales/marketing and half
from production/operations. The purpose of
matching was, again, to control for any in¯uences
other than culture on information sharing behaviour (e.g. nature of task and occupational subculture). The managers in each company (we
initially sought four in each company) were selected by the Chief Executive Ocer or his/her
nominee, based on speci®ed criteria. These criteria
were that the respondents be at middle manager
level (such that they both reported to a superior
and were reported to by subordinates), and that
two be in sales/marketing and two in production/
operations. Two quali®cations on the data arose
from restrictions imposed by some Australian
companies. First, not all Australian companies
allowed access to four managers, necessitating a
14th company being drawn on. Second, four ®rms
restricted the number of managers we could interview, allowing the other managers to complete the
(closed-ended) questionnaire only. Thus, the Australian data comprise both completed questionnaire (quantitative) and personal interview
(qualitative) data for 42 respondents, and completed questionnaire data only for a further eight
respondents.9
3.2. Content analysis
We drew on content analysis to guide us in
analyzing the qualitative data.10 Two members
of the research team analysed the interview
transcripts, both jointly and independently, and
at dierent points in time. First, all transcripts
were read jointly and discussed, with the objective of identifying and classifying into categories
9
Mean comparisons of responses to the scenario questions
between the eight who completed the questionnaire in noninterview format and the 42 who completed it in interview settings showed no dierences. The analysis of the quantitative
data is, therefore, based on the full Australian sample of 50
managers.
10
Weber (1990, p. 9) describes content analysis as ``a
research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid
inferences from text'', and can be used for many purposes,
including coding open-ended questions.
the factors given by respondents as in¯uencing the
likely behavioural outcomes in the scenarios.
Some months later, one team member reread all
transcripts with the same objective, but, on this
occasion, (i) determined and documented a set of
decision rules for category identi®cation and classi®cation, and (ii) applied those rules to obtain a
count of the relative frequency with which categories were raised across the respondent samples.
The decision rules consisted of a list of the text
units of words and phrases regarded by the team
member as being indicative or connotative of
factors in¯uencing the behavioural outcomes in a
given scenario. The second team member then
independently read the transcripts with the purposes of; (i) evaluating the categories and decision
rules, and (ii) applying those rules to the transcripts to conduct a second and independent frequency count.
The two readings and classi®cations separated
by time allowed some comfort of reliability
through stability (Krippendor, 1980, p. 130) in
that the categories identi®ed by the same coder on
the second reading were the same as the ®rst,
except for a ®ner gradation of categories in some
instances. The two subsequent codings and counts
by each researcher independently allowed some
comfort of shared meaning of the categories and
decision rules (Gray, Kouhy & Lavers, 1995, p.
80), and of reliability through reproducibility
(Krippendor, p. 131) in that again there was a
high level of agreement between the two coders.11
We acknowledge that our use of content analysis is tailored to suit our study, and falls short in
some ways of the reliability and validity criteria
ideally associated with content analysis. In particular, the categories we developed were generated
from the interviews themselves, rather than from an
external referent. Hence, we cannot assure exhaustiveness of the categories or factors in¯uencing the
11
Our objective was to determine the relative frequency with
which a factor category was raised among the respondents in
each sample. We used words, phrases and sentences as the unit
of analysis (or text unit), rather than paragraphs or pages, and
we did not count repetitions within an interview (Weber, 1990,
p. 70). The use of small text units carries the advantages of
greater ease and reliability of coding (Gray et al., 1995, p. 84).
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
likely behavioural outcomes in the contexts at
issue (Guthrie & Mathews, 1985, p. 260). Rather,
we can only report and compare the relative frequency of occurrence of those categories perceived
by our respondents as important in¯uences on
information sharing behaviour in those contexts.
However, given that the categories and their identi®cation were relatively straightforward, we do
not believe that this process detracts substantially
from the credibility of the categories and their
de®nitions. To provide transparency, the categories and examples of text units included in each
category are given in Tables 3, 4 and 5 for each
scenario so that readers can also assess their reasonableness.
4. Results
The three scenarios used were as follows. Scenario 1, asking a clarifying question, involved a
meeting of peer managers to decide between two
investment proposals. The focal manager has
completed his own ®nancial analysis beforehand
and favours one alternative.12 In the meeting,
another manager argues in favour of the other
alternative, basing this argument on the results of
a ®nancial analytical technique referred to by the
acronym IVA (for intrinsic value analysis). The
focal manager has no knowledge of this technique,
but it appears to be familiar to all the other managers at the meeting and is apparently leading a
number of those managers to favour the other
alternative.
Scenario 2, expressing a contrary or challenging
opinion, described a situation in which a divisional
manager has called a meeting of his marketing,
design and production department managers, and
their assistant managers, to discuss the poor performance of the division. With the meeting not
going well and the marketing and design managers
each blaming the other, the assistant marketing
12
All subjects in the scenarios were males to avoid any
potential gender eect. The focal managers in the scenarios
were given typical Chinese names in the Chinese version of the
interview instrument used in Taiwan, and typical Anglo-American names in the English version used in Australia.
569
manager speaks up. He provides information he
has obtained from customers and suggests that
there are de®ciencies in both the marketing and
design departments. Scenario 3, revealing a past
mistake, involved a department manager who had
been promoted to that position a year earlier. The
manager had, as one of his ®rst decisions, pushed
for the introduction of a new technology to
replace an existing technology in the department.
A year later, the new technology is looking like
an expensive mistake through cost mis-estimation, but a mistake which the manager has been
able to conceal in the absence of post-audits of
speci®c projects. The scenario states that the
manager and his superior have been asked to
attend a meeting at another plant to advise on a
similar technology replacement decision. The scenario creates a situation where, unless the department manager openly discloses his previous misestimation, the other plant is likely to repeat that
mistake.
4.1. Quantitative results
As noted earlier, for each scenario respondents
were initially asked to indicate how likely it was
that the focal manager (if he were a typical person
in the respondent's organization) would ask a
clarifying question (Scenario 1), speak up and
express a contrary or challenging opinion (Scenario 2), or reveal a past mistake (Scenario 3).
Respondents were asked this question twice, once
assuming the superior were present in the context,
and the other assuming his absence.13 A ninepoint response scale was used for each question
anchored by 1=``would de®nitely not (ask; speak
up; reveal mistake)'' and 9=``would de®nitely
(ask; speak up; reveal mistake)''. The descriptive
statistics are given in Table 1.
13
The order of superior presence/absence was varied. In
Scenario 1, the ®rst question assumed the superior was absent,
while the second asked if there would be a dierence in behaviour if the superior were present. In Scenarios 2 and 3, the ®rst
question assumed the superior was present, with the second
asking if there would be a dierence in behaviour if the superior were absent. The variation was used simply to ensure that
the respondent managers were thinking carefully about each
scenario and question.
570
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
Table 1
Descriptive statistics for scenario responsesa
Scenario
1. Asking clarifying questions:
with superior absent
with superior present
2. Speaking up and expressing a contrary
or challenging opinion:
with divisional manager absent
with divisional manager present
3. Revealing a past mistake:
with superior absent
with superior present
a
Country
Observed
range
Mean
(SD)
Taiwan
Australia
Taiwan
Australia
6±9
2±9
3±9
1±9
7.72 (0.72)
6.84 (1.74)
6.25 (1.43)
6.07 (2.29)
Taiwan
Australia
Taiwan
Australia
3±9
2±9
3±9
2±9
6.48 (1.78)
7.51 (1.54)
6.54 (1.50)
6.81 (1.76)
Taiwan
Australia
Taiwan
Australia
3±9
2±9
2±8
1±9
6.94 (1.24)
7.08 (1.66)
5.87 (1.59)
6.12 (1.94)
Response scale: 1=low, 9=high.
Table 2
Results of estimating interaction model for scenario responses
Variable
Coecent
Value
SE
t
p
6.840
0.872
ÿ0.770
ÿ0.692
0.231
0.324
0.327
0.458
29.595
2.693
ÿ2.356
ÿ1.511
0.000
0.007
0.019
0.132
Panel b: speaking up and expressing a contrary or challenging opinion (Scenario 2)b
Intercept
b0
7.510
0.233
Nation
b1
ÿ1.029
0.327
Superior
b2
ÿ0.700
0.330
Interaction
b3
0.758
0.462
32.196
ÿ3.150
ÿ2.122
1.640
0.000
0.002
0.035
0.103
Panel C: reveal a past mistake (Scenario 3)c
Intercept
b0
Nation
b1
Superior
b2
Interaction
b3
30.875
ÿ0.429
ÿ2.960
ÿ0.257
0.000
0.669
0.003
0.797
Panel A: asking clarifying questions (Scenario 1)a
Intercept
b0
Nation
b1
Superior
b2
Interaction
b3
a
b
c
7.080
ÿ0.138
ÿ0.960
ÿ0.117
R2=0.14; adjusted R2=0.12; F=10.54; Signif. 0.0000.
R2=0.06; adjusted R2=0.04; F=4.15; Signif. 0.0070.
R2=0.09; adjusted R2=0.08; F=6.99; Signif. 0.0002.
0.229
0.321
0.324
0.454
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
The hypothesis was tested using the following
multiple linear regression model:
Y b0 b1 X1 b2 X2 b3 X1 X2 e
where:
Y= likelihood of asking question (Scenario 1),
speaking up and expressing a contrary and
challenging opinion (Scenario 2), revealing a
past mistake (Scenario 3);
X1 = nation, coded 0 for Australia and 1 for
Taiwan, proxying for culture; and
X2 = superior absence (coded 0) or presence
(coded 1).
The results are shown in Table 2, with Panels A,
B and C presenting the results for Scenarios 1, 2
and 3 respectively. Table 2 shows the main eects
for nation in Scenarios 1 and 2. The Taiwanese
managers were perceived as more likely than the
Australian managers to ask clarifying questions
(Panel A, t =2.69, p =0.007); however, the Australian managers were perceived as more likely to
speak up and express a contrary or challenging
opinion (Panel B, t=3.15, p=0.002). No dierence was reported in the tendency to reveal past
failures. In all three scenarios and for both the
Australian and Taiwanese samples, Table 1 shows
that mean scores are above the mid-point indicating
an overall propensity to share information. Table
2 also shows a main eect for presence/absence of
a superior in all three scenarios, with the direction
in each case being a reduced tendency to share
information with the superior present compared to
absent. A weak interaction eect was found only
in Scenario 2 (at p=0.10). This eect was contrary
to expectation with the Australian respondents
perceiving that the presence of a superior would
have a greater eect on reducing the likelihood
that a manager would express a contrary or challenging opinion than the Taiwanese.
4.2. Qualitative results
The quantitative results reveal little about
information sharing behaviour in the face-to-face
meetings context. This was not unexpected given
571
the lack of prior theory, and the fact that the literature reviewed for the paper provided several
relevant but potentially con¯icting cultural implications for such behaviour. Hence, the qualitative
data from the open-ended interview questions
were looked to for insight. These data are reported
in Tables 3, 4 and 5 for Scenarios 1, 2 and 3
respectively. The tables show: (i) the categories of
factors identi®ed by the interview respondents as
reasons for or against information sharing in each
scenario;14 (ii) examples of the spoken text units
contained in the interview transcripts which were
taken to indicate each category; and (iii) the
absolute and percentage frequency of citation of
each category across the Taiwanese and Australian interview responses. Panel A in each table
summarises the factors in¯uencing the likelihood
of information sharing in each scenario, while
Panel B focuses speci®cally on the impact of a
superior's presence (Scenario 1) or absence (Scenarios 2 and 3). By contrast with the quantitative
results, the qualitative data were revealing, with
Tables 3, 4 and 5 showing several systematic and
consistent dierences underlying the general propensity to share information. These dierences
are, in turn, consistent with the cultural characteristics of Taiwanese and Australian societies.
4.3. Scenario 1: Asking clarifying questions
Table 1 showed that both national samples
considered it likely that the typical person would
ask (for the IVA technique to be explained to
them) when only his peers were present at the
meeting. However, Table 3 (Panel A) shows that the
factors or reasons underlying this propensity to ask
were seen and expressed dierently by the Taiwanese and Australian respondents. First, by far the
most frequently stated reason seen as underlying
14
Occasionally, a factor was raised by a respondent on a
one-o basis. Such factors are not shown in the tables for eciency reasons. This is not to say these factors are not important in speci®c contexts. As a reviewer pointed out, factors such
as the nature of the superior's characteristics or the dyadic
relationship between superior and subordinate may all be
important in speci®c circumstances. This paper concentrates,
however, on factors that were identi®ed with some frequency
by interviewees.
572
Table 3
Asking clarifying questions (Scenario 1)
Category
Examples of text units
Australia
Number
%
Number
%
47
90
1
2
0
0
26
62
3
6
9
21
0
0
6
14
39
75
0
0
5
10
4
10
1
3
2
6
7
0
17
0
Panel A: factors in¯uencing likelihood of asking questions
Reasons for asking
The good of the company
Individual assertiveness
Company culture
Contingent factors
Individual dierences
Problem can't be realized/solved without further explanation/understanding of
problem/content/analysis; company decision would be aected; eect of company
decision would be great/critical/important; have to understand problem/analysis
to avoid wrong/bad decision/judgement; whole company/entity/section would be
aected/harmed; can't communicate eectively if no understanding
People are vocal/forthright/open/not backward/con®dent; not worried about sticking
their neck out; no compunction in admitting ignorance/asking ``dumb'' questions; no
embarrassment; would ask in no uncertain terms; no/few impediments
Company/corporate culture encourages/supports/allows questioning/asking
questions; people expected to participate; culture of openness/maturity
Personality; some outgoing/some introverted; shy/con®dent; that's the way they are
Panel B: impact of superior presence on likelihood of asking questions
Less likely to ask
Loss of face
Adverse opinion/perception by superior
Career risk
Superior responsibility
Afraid of losing face; problem of/with face; problem of face more important if
superior present; more conservative to protect face
Afraid that superior would doubt knowledge/consider him little talented and little
learned; have bad impression; showing insucient knowledge
Career risk; (potential) adverse eect on career/future
Expect superior to ask question/make decision
C.W. Chow et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 24 (1999) 561±582
Taiwan
Table 4
Speaking up and expressing a contrary or challenging opinion (Scenario 2)
Taiwan
Category
Examples of text units
Australia
Number
%
Number
%
34
65
0
0
0
0
14
33
5
10
16
38
7
13
0
0
7
7
13
13
0
3
0
7
1
2
16
38
No/less concern/about problem about face; face not as serious; individual and boss
No/less/reduction in pressure; not harmful to interests/career; free to ¯oat
ideas/speculate/kite ¯y; lower feeling of intimidation/uncertainty; greater con®dence;
consider themselves decision-makers/problem solvers
Emphasize cause of/solution to problem
4
19
8
37
0
6
0
14
4
8
0
0
Speaking up is useless/ineective/loses eectiveness/can't do any good in absence of
superior/decision-maker/person responsible/person with real power; problem can't be
solved; meeting is unimportant/can have no conclusion; emphasis on problem and blame,
not on solution; people won't listen
Save others' face; avoid oense
No/not much/marginal dierence/impact; no change; not aected; not an issue
18
35
0
0
2
10
4
19
0
23
0
55
Panel A: factors in¯uencing likelihood of speaking up
Individual assertiveness
Company culture
Reasons against speaking up
Maintenance of harmony
Face
Heirarchy and status
Contingent factors
Individual dierences
Bene®t/bene®cial/useful to/good of/in interest of/concern for/ the company/whole
company/whole entity. Emphasize cause/understand truth of problem; solving
problems is everyone's responsibility; let everyone see/pay attention to problem;
righteous speaking is good for company
People (here) are pretty vocal/forthright/keen to speak up/to ``put their oar in''/get
things discussed/out in the open; not at all backward; don't hold back; point will be
made regardless of consequences
Company culture is open/encourages open speaking/telling the truth/raise problems;
create supporting environment/climate; more concerned with problem solving than
apportioning blame; try ``not to shoot the messenger''; expect people to speak up
Maintain/preserve/emphasize harmony/human relations/friendship; have to cooperate
with colleagues afterward; avoid people blaming each other and cause future trouble
Face; problem about face; self-protection; save others face
Respect superior's opinion/viewpoint; speaking has no eectiveness because of junior
status; lower level would be taken lightly/considered unimportant; afraid of giving
dierent ideas from superior; lack of status
Depends on person; people dier on personality/con®dence/characteristics; extroverts
vs