Social Institutions and Work Centrality: Explorations Beyond National Culture

• Published in: Organization science (Providence, R.I.) Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 137 - 148
• Main Authors: Parboteeah, K. Praveen, Cullen, John B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linthicum INFORMS 01.03.2003; Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subjects: Attitudes; Cross-national analysis; Cultural institutions; Cultural values; Culture; Economic systems; Employment; Hours of work; Hypotheses; Incentives; Individualism; Industrialization; Institutionalism; Institutions; Japanese culture; Labor unions; Leisure; Nation; National Culture; Organization theory; Organizational behavior; Sanctions; Social inequality; Social Institutions; Socialism; Socialization; Society; Sociology; Studies; Work Centrality; New York
• ISSN: 1047-7039; 1526-5455
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.14.2.137.14989

In spite of the popularity of institutional explanations of organizational form, most international management research uses dimensions of national culture to explain cross-national differences in individual work centrality. In this study, we show that social institutions explain variance in work centrality in addition to Hofstede's (2001) dimensions of national culture. Using individual-level data from 30,270 interview respondents from the World Value Survey and institutional data for their 26 countries, we developed hypotheses to investigate whether selected social institutions (i.e., socialism, union strength, educational accessibility, social inequality, and industrialization) affect individual work centrality. We tested our cross-level hypotheses using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Findings showed that all of the social institutional variables studied predicted lower work centrality.