Business owners’ cultural orientations : conceptualization, measurement, and implications for business success in China and Germany

摘要

This dissertation comprises three studies of business owners’ cultural orientations. The first study focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of owners’ cultural orientations. Scenario-based scales measuring the cultural orientations performance orientation, humane orientation, future orientation, assertiveness, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance were developed. The cultural orientations are manifested in the practices business owners use in their businesses. The scales were validated on 260 Chinese and 201 German business owners. The cross-cultural validation suggested that the scales hold cross-cultural validity and, thus, allow for meaningful comparisons across China and Germany. Moreover, the scales show good test-retest reliabilities. The construct validation suggested that the scales hold construct validity and, thus, allow for accurate descriptions and predictions of behaviors. The second study focuses on the implications of owners’ cultural orientations for business success. It was assumed that business owners’ cultural orientations moderate the relationships between vision characteristics and business success. This assumption implied that the effectiveness of vision characteristics depends on whether they match business owners’ cultural orientations. Hypotheses on the moderator effects of the cultural orientations performance orientation, humane orientation, future orientation, assertiveness, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance were tested on 215 Chinese and 130 German business owners. The results showed that business owners’ cultural orientations moderate the relationships between vision characteristics and business success but that there are Chinese-German differences in the moderator effects. In China, vision characteristics are more effective for business owners who match them with their cultural orientations than for business owners who do not. In Germany, a match between vision characteristics and business owners’ cultural orientations increases the effectiveness of vision characteristics in some cases but decreases it in others. The third study also focuses on the implications of owners’ cultural orientations for business success. The relationships between the cultural orientations performance orientation, humane orientation, future orientation, assertiveness, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance on the one hand and business success on the other hand were longitudinally studied on 120 German business owners. The results showed that business owners’ performance orientation and uncertainty avoidance have effects on business success, whereas business success has an effect on business owners’ humane orientation. In the relationships between business owners’ future orientation, assertiveness, and power distance on the one hand and business success on the other hand, no effects could be detected.