Some Multivariate Comparisons of Multinational Managers

Area of Science:

• Organizational behavior
• Cross-cultural management
• Multinational corporations

Background:

• Understanding organizational attitudes across diverse national contexts is crucial for multinational corporations.
• Previous nation clustering methods may yield inconsistent results when applied to managerial perceptions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine and compare different methods for clustering nations based on organizational attitudes.
• To investigate the perceptions of managers within a multinational corporation across Western nations.

Main Methods:

• Survey of 1,768 managers from 15 Western nations.
• Application of various nation clustering techniques.
• Analysis of organizational attitudes and perceptions.

Main Results:

• Divergent results were obtained when applying different clustering methods.
• Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) and cluster analysis yielded distinct outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Reconciliation of divergent findings is necessary.
• Further research is required to compare interpretations of Smallest Space Analysis (SSA).
• The utility of independent methods like cluster analysis warrants further investigation.