Setiadi, Bernadette N

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Grand Valley State UniversityScholarWorks@GVSUPapers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences IACCP2004Industrial/Organizational PerspectivesIntroductionBernadette N. SetiadiFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/iaccp_papersPart of the Psychology CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the IACCP at ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Papers from theInternational Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information,please contact scholarworks@gvsu.edu.Recommended CitationSetaidi, B. N. (2004). Industrial/organizational perspectives introduction. In B. N. Setiadi, A. Supratiknya, W. J. Lonner, & Y. H.Poortinga (Eds.), Ongoing themes in psychology and culture: Proceedings from the 16th International Congress of the InternationalAssociation for Cross-Cultural Psychology. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/iaccp_papers/242551 INTRODUCI10N Because ongoing themes in Industrial/Organizational psychology at IACCP conferences have been reasonably consistent over the years, re-search, theory, and, especially, applications in this area have been impor-tant in the development of cross-cultural psychology. For example, both the six-volume 1980 Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (edited by Harry Triandis and his team of coeditors) and its three-volume revision in 1997 (edited by Berry and colleagues) have chapters on organizational and industrial applications. Many cross-cultural psychologists focus on topics in this domain of research, and the Yogyakarta conference included a number of papers that fall in this category. In this section there are two chapters from India, two from Indonesia, and one from Brazil. The first cl1apter features what has proven to be the most prominent paradigm or idea during the past twenty years - that of individualism and collectivism. Ghosh examined the pattern of individualist-collectivist ori-entations across different occupational groups in Calcutta, India. Vertical and horizontal dimensions of individualism-collectivism were measured by a scale developed by Triandis and Gelfand. Ghosh found that in his sample of Indian executives, entrepreneurs, and college teachers in Calcutta, both individualist and collectivist orientations exist among the different groups, but that entrepreneurs scored significantly higher than the other groups in tl1e dimension of horizontal individualism. Ghosh cautions, however, against the assumption that this pattern will be the same in other parts of India or in other cultures. The second chapter, and the first of two from Indonesia, features the topic of intercultural sensitivity (!CS) and its importance in adjusting to overseas assignments, especially in such contexts as selecting managers for employment in other societies. As Panggabean points out, !CS in its various forms (such as cultural ernpatl1y and cultural awareness) has been mentioned often in the literature. She summarizes effons to identify char-acteristics of Indonesian !CS in multicultural and international works groups. Her focus was on Indonesian and German workers as well as students, many of whom panicipated in computerized management game simula-552 Introduction: IndustriaVorganiz.1.tional tions, Syntex and Syntalk. While these simulations were not designed to study JCS, Paanggabean could use them for this purpose. Using transcrip-tions of the dialogue produced in the games, Panggabean provides numer-ous details of JCS. Also featured in the research was the Indonesian con-cept of rasa, which entails a person's ability to "feel" and "sense" others. In the third chapter, Sinha and Rai examined various aspects of lead-ership and competencies affecting relationships in different service organi-zations. Transformational leadership is an important concept in their chap-ter. This concept includes charisma, intellectual stimulation, and individu-alized consideration. The authors report results from two states in no1th India. The studies involved middle managers from numerous branches of major nationalized banks. Using various questionnaires, the researchers gathered data concerning transformational leadership, competencies, self-control, performance, and culture. The latter concept, culture, was mea-sured on a "strong-weak" continuum, where a strong culture is one in which core values are intensely held. For better organizational function-ing, training for competencies and self-control is recommended by Sinha and Rai, as well as the enhancement of the transformational aspects of leadership style. In the chapter focusing on Brazil, Ferreira and her colleagues exam-ined "organizational culture" in both public and private Brazilian compa-nies, using a questionnaire developed and validated by FeITeira and others. Four value sub-scales measured cooperative professionalism, hierarchical power structure, competitive professionalism and employee satisfaction. An additional four sub-scales were associated with others aspects of mana-gerial practices. The authors also contrast the values adopted by private companies with those adopted by public companies, and how the values relate to different kinds of customers. The authors mention that the results of their study concur with a similar study recently conducted in Brazil. As one of the first studies of this kind in Brazil, Ferreira et al. correctly caution that this initial exploratory approach is primarily suggestive of the direc-tions future research may take. The last chapter in the section, and the second one with an Indone-sian emphasis, is also exploratory. Dwi Riyanti, examines success of small-scale entrepreneurs in Indonesia. Her study includes measures of person-ality, age and extent of experience, as well as the nature of innovative behavior shown by entrepreneurs. To help in the analysis of the data, Introduction: lndustriaVorganiz.ationa! 553 which were collected using questionnaire-type scales as well as extensive demographic information, an entrepreneur achievement model was pro-posed by the author and analyzed with various psychometric techniques. Employing structural equation modeling, three models were used in at-tempts to explain the data. Age, (i.e., entrepreneurial age and not calendar age) was significantly related to business success. A variety of other rela-tionships were shown, and this study begs similar excursions into the nature of entrepreneurial success amid the multicultural complexity of Indonesia. 

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