Culture and job design

摘要

Imagine Americans, Israelis and Japanese participating in an international management training program. They all assemble in one lecture room, each with a personal computer with an Internet connection. The training session begins with an in-basket simulation. Each participant gets a set of problems to solve. The instructor lets them know that they can use any method they want to work out the problems. They can sit in class or go outside. They can use Google to get more information, exchange ideas with each other, or both. The instructor then observes their free styles of gathering information. What he sees is the following: The Americans open up Google in search of relevant information, and continue to work on the problem individually. The Israelis look around and signal to each other to go outside and talk in small groups. They exchange ideas about solving the problems, and then approach the instructor to ask whether they can work as a team and submit a team project rather than individual projects. The Japanese participants are most confused with the lack of a clear task structure. They are not sure whether they can go outside and talk to each other or not. They are also not sure about the seniority differences among the group members. Consequently, each Japanese participant stays in the room and does his job, feeling very hesitant and uncomfortable.