Work Meaning Among Mid_level Professional Employees_a Study of the Importance of Work Centrality and...

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

49(3) 264–284

! The Author(s) 2011

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Article

Work meaning among

mid-level professionalemployees: A study of theimportance of work centralityand extrinsic and intrinsicwork goals in eight countries

K Peter KuchinkeUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Alexandre ArdichviliUniversity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Margaret BorchertUniversity of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

Edgard B Cornachione Jr University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Maria CsehGeorge Washington University, Washington DC, USA

Hye-Seung (Theresa) KangUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Seok Young OhKorean Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training,

Seoul, Korea

Andrzej PolanskiMaria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland

Urmat TynalievUniversity of Central Asia, Bishkek, The Kyrgyz Republic

Elena Zav’jalovaSt Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia

Corresponding author:

Professor K Peter Kuchinke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 355 Education, 1310 S. Sixth Street,

Champaign, IL 61820, USA

Email: [email protected]


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Abstract

We conducted a survey-based study on the meaning of work of some 1500 mid-level

professional employees in private and public organizations in eight countries. Using the

country clustering described in the GLOBE series of studies and the theoretical frame-work of the Meaning of Work study, five hypotheses were tested. The study found support

for the universal valuation of work and family as major life domains and the relative

importance of leisure, religion, and community involvement. Work centrality was related

in differentiated ways to performance orientation, assertiveness, and humane orientation

indices. Extrinsic and intrinsic work goals differed and were related to country clustering.

The report concludes with implications for the theory and practice of human resourcedevelopment and offers suggestions for further research.

Keywords

cross-cultural research, GLOBE, meaning of work, work values, work centrality

Few topics over the past thirty years have captured as much attention in the broader

social science literature and the popular business press as the changing nature of

work, with its effects on countries, organizations, families, and individuals giving

rise to a broad literature on new careers and new work. Far from presenting a uniform

picture of the effects of changing work provisions, the literature points to highly

differentiated and complex sets of responses and assessments of the value of workin the new economy (for example, Baldry et al. 2007; Cooper and Burke 2002; Hall

2004; Volti 2008; Wrzesniewski 2001). While much of this research has focused on

changes in objective provisions of work, the concern of human resource management

is with the coherent and strategic management of individuals, groups, and other

subsets of employees. Thus a deeper understanding of how individuals experience

work and its changing nature is essential in a rapidly globalizing economy. The

focus on the subjective meaning of work can provide insight into the construction

of work as subjectively experienced and offers information about how individuals

make sense of, negotiate, and navigate the new work environment.

Despite its central role in guiding behavior at work, empirical cross-cultural HRresearch on the topic is underdeveloped. To help advance understanding and explore

implications for research and practice, a group of researchers from countries around

the world convened in late 2007 to plan and implement a multi-country empirical

study focused on the core question of similarities and differences in subjective under-

standing of work in a diverse set of cultures, countries, and economies around the

world. The population was defined broadly as mid-level professional level employees,

such as managers, engineers, accountants, and human resource professionals,

employed in medium and large public and private organizations in their respective

countries, and working full-time in diverse sectors and industries. The choice of thisvolunteer population was determined by accessibility, but more importantly by their

role as current or future leaders in their organizations. Mid-level managers and pro-

fessionals with comparatively high levels of education belong to the class of symbolic

analysts, characterized by Reich (1991) as individuals with potentially high impact on

Kuchinke et al. 265


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their organization’s success because of their education, experience, and skills levels.

Symbolic analysts are also viewed as the winners of globalization: as compared to

routine production workers and those providing personalized services, their career

prospects with the current employers are high and their skills in demand and portableto other organizations. Because of the value of their professional contributions, mid-

level professionals tend to be relatively well compensated but also often experience

high work loads, face intense time pressures, and work long hours (Shor 1991).

Collaborators from eight countries (Brazil, Germany, Hungary, South Korea,

Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Russia, and USA) formed the research team. These countries

are aligned with five clusters empirically developed in previous research, namely the

Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) series of

studies, a long-term program of research in 62 countries focused on the relationship

between societal culture, organizational culture, and organizational leadership (House

et al. 2004).This study, then, presents the first attempt in the HR literature to examine the

subjective definition of work in the context of five empirically derived societal clusters,

and allows us to test hypotheses about the characteristics of the specific cultures and

the subjective definition of work held by mid-level business professionals. By linking

the results from the large-scale GLOBE series of studies to the meaning of work, this

study extends the research on societal cultures and examines the relationship of soci-

etal characteristics to the subjective definition of work.

Theoretical framework and hypotheses

Theoretical framework

The stream of research, known as the Meaning of Work (MOW) studies, was initiated

by England and colleagues (MOW International Research Team 1987) in a landmark

study of participants in eight industrialized nations to investigate the meaning that

working adults attach to one of the most important life roles, working. This study,

and the follow-up studies it spawned, focused on working as carried out in organ-

izational settings, for pay, and in employment relationships. It excluded other forms

of working, such as volunteer, family, household, community, or church work, self-employment, and avocational activities, such as working on one’s hobby. The signifi-

cance of the focus is due to the importance of work in individuals’ lives: For the better

part of an adult’s life, working occupies a majority of time, generates economic and

socio-psychological benefits and costs, and is closely linked to other domains of life

(England and Harpaz 1990). As John Dewey observed, work is the primary means by

which individuals connect with the broader society though contributing effort and

receiving benefits in various forms (Dewey 1930).

The MOW project and its follow-up studies (for example, Ardichvili 2005; Harpaz

and Fu 2002; Kuchinke et al. 2009) concentrated on five primary domains: workcentrality, desired working conditions, work outcomes, work role identifications,

and social norms about working. Efforts to refine the dimensionality and validity

of the construct are ongoing, with some studies reporting results at the item level

(for example, England and Harpaz 1990), while others posit relative stability of a

266 Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)


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smaller number of factors over time (for example, Snir and Harpaz 2002). For the

purposes of this study, the survey focused on the two dominant work goals found to

be consistent internationally, across different organizational levels, between genders,

and among different age categories in a seven-country study (n¼

8192) (Harpaz 1990),namely the extrinsic goal of financial rewards and the intrinsic goal of interesting and

challenging tasks.

The GLOBE study presents an important advancement in the understanding of

cross-cultural differences, not only because of its recency compared to competing and

popular frameworks by Hofstede (1984), Trompenaars (1993), and Triandis (1995),

but more importantly because of its inductive theory development involving over

170 social scientists from 62 cultures and countries, and surveying more than

17 000 managers in more than 950 organizations (Javidan, House and Dorfman

2004; Javidan et al. 2006).

In addition to identifying nine cultural dimensions, the GLOBE project resulted inthe creation of ten regional clusters, composed of countries that have similar cultural

dimensions (examples of countries in each cluster are provided in parentheses): Anglo

(the USA, UK, Canada); Latin Europe (France, Italy); Nordic Europe (Finland,

Sweden); Germanic Europe (Austria, Germany); Eastern Europe (Hungary, Russia,

Kazakhstan); Latin America (Argentina, Brazil); Sub-Saharan Africa (Namibia,

Zambia); Middle East (Egypt, Kuwait); Southern Asia (India; Malaysia); and

Confucian Asia (China; Japan) (Gupta and Hanges 2004).

Our study included samples from the following five clusters: Germanic Europe

(Germany), Latin America (Brazil), Confucian Asia (South Korea), Anglo (USA),and Eastern European (Russia, Poland, and Hungary). Responses from Kazakhstan,

belonging to the GLOBE Eastern European cluster, could not be obtained and the

researchers decided to include instead responses from Kyrgyzstan, a country in close

geographic proximity, common religion, and common recent political and economic

history. We argue that Kyrgyzstan is a close substitute for Kazakhstan in this case,

since these countries share many common characteristics and are, at the same time,

significantly different from the above two groups of countries of the Eastern

European cluster. These two countries not only share the geographic space, but

also share ethnic roots (Turkic), and dominant religion (Muslim); both have a sig-

nificant share of Russian and Russian-speaking population; both have been dom-inated by Russia for more than 150 years, and later were part of the former USSR;

both Kazakhs and Kyrgyz had similar nomadic cultures in the recent past; the econ-

omies of both countries were closely related for many years, and are still significantly

related.

Hypotheses

The original MOW research reported that work was ranked among the most impor-

tant dominant life concerns and several follow-up studies have confirmed this ranking(Ardichvili 2005; England 1991; Harding and Hikspoors 1995; Harpaz 1999;

Kuchinke et al. 2009). With numerous economic and political changes occurring

between the original study and the follow-up studies conducted in 1990s and early

2000s, the question arises whether the trend towards high work centrality continues or

Kuchinke et al. 267


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if individuals retreat into non-work areas of life in response to the churning of the

economy. We assumed that the trend would continue despite the global economic

crises, and, therefore, hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 1: All countries in our sample will be high on work centrality, and work will

be ranked higher than other life domains in each country.

Our next hypotheses were related to the three GLOBE dimensions that appear

especially important to the relationship between culture and work meaning:

Performance Orientation, Assertiveness, and Humane Orientation.

According to Javidan (2004, 239), ‘Performance orientation reflects the extent to

which a community encourages and rewards innovation, high standards, and perfor-

mance improvement’. High performance orientation societies tend to ‘emphasize

results more than relationships with people, value financial bonuses and rewards,and utilize performance appraisal systems that emphasize achieving results,’ while

societies with lower performance orientation tend to ‘emphasize quality of life, senior-

ity and experience in promotions, value who a person is more than what the person

does, and regard merit pay as destructive to group harmony’ (Javidan 2004, 245). The

GLOBE results show that the United States and South Korea belong to the high band

on Performance Orientation scores; Germany, Brazil, and Poland to the middle band;

and Hungary, Russia, and Kazakhstan to the low band. We hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 2: Countries high on Performance Orientation will also be high on workcentrality and importance of financial rewards.

The GLOBE dimension of Assertiveness is defined as ‘beliefs as to whether people

are or should be encouraged to be assertive, aggressive, and tough, or nonassertive,

nonaggressive, and tender in social relationships’ (Den Hartog 2004, 395). Societies,

high on Assertiveness tend to value competition and merit pay, and place a high value

on the importance of the tasks performed during work. In the GLOBE study, Brazil,

Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and the United States were in the

high band on Assertiveness scores, while Poland and Russia were in the medium band

(Den Hartog 2004, 420). The meaning of work project measured work centrality butalso included factors related to work-role identification, including the importance of

the type of tasks performed during work and the amount of financial compensation

received. In many previous studies, respondents indicated a clear preference of finan-

cial aspects over the type of task performed (for example, England and Harpaz 1990)

but no previous research was located that linked the cultural dimension of

Assertiveness to these facets of the meaning of work. Thus, we proposed the following

hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Countries high on Assertiveness will also be high on work centrality, taskfocus, and financial rewards.

Humane Orientation is defined as ‘the degree to which a collective encourages and

rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others’



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(Javidan et al., 2004, 30). Previous MOW research had found high levels of import-

ance of work and family but had not linked it to the underlying cultural dimension of

humane orientation. Our study includes those that had been classified by GLOBE as

scoring in the middle band (Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Russia, and the UnitedStates) and in the lowest band (Germany, Hungary, and Poland). Therefore, our

hypothesis, related to Humane Orientation (HO), is:

Hypothesis 4: Countries, high on Humane Orientation, will be high on importance rat-

ings for community, family, religion and leisure compared to work

Our final hypothesis is related to country clustering. As mentioned earlier, coun-

tries in our study represent five GLOBE clusters: Germanic, Latin America,

Confucian, Anglo, and Eastern European. According to Gupta and Hanges (2004),

country clustering provides numerous benefits, including ability to focus theory devel-opment efforts, and to provide more practical recommendations for managing com-

plex multicultural organizations. Our sample covers 50% of GLOBE clusters and

contains countries from three continents. Thus, we are well positioned to test a

hypothesis that, based on meaning of work variables, countries in our sample form

clusters aligned with the GLOBE clusters:

Hypothesis 5: Countries will form clusters aligned with GLOBE results for country

clustering.

Method

Summary information on the eight countries in our study is presented in Table 1.

As can be seen from the table, in addition to representing variety of national cultures,

these countries represent a wide spectrum of levels of economic and human

development.

To answer the research questions about the structure of the meaning of work, we

conducted a field study that resulted in 1542 usable survey responses from Brazil,

Germany, Hungary, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Russia, and the UnitedStates. While a representative country-level sampling strategy was beyond the scope

of this project (as it is beyond the scope of all survey-based field research), attempts

were made to represent a broad spectrum of participants drawn from a diverse set of

industries, organizations, positions, and demographic characteristics.

Each of the authors of this article had primary responsibility for data collection in

their respective home country. During the planning phase of project, the research

team communicated in person and via e-mail to identify the sampling strategy, instru-

ment selection and translation, and data collection procedures. In four of the coun-

tries (Brazil, Germany, Poland, United States), participants were recruited from apool of participants of part-time graduate level executive university programs in busi-

ness administration and human resources with the respective authors serving as

course instructors. The survey was taken on-line and outside of the class time; two

reminder e-mails were sent one and two weeks after the first announcement.

Kuchinke et al. 269


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In Hungary, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia, members of the research team

obtained participants by contacting selected organizations directly using their profes-

sional network and selecting a wide variety of different industries and sectors. Subjects

were recruited via e-mail and personal communication. Response rates differed by

country, ranging from a high of 78% in Poland to 7% in Russia. In the United States,Germany, Brazil and South Korea, subjects were directed to a password-protected

Internet website to complete and submit the questionnaire. In Kyrgyzstan, Russia,

Poland, and Hungary, paper copies of the survey were distributed and the completed

forms returned to the researcher. A total of 13 922 invitations for participation were

issued and 1539 completed and usable responses were received, for an overall response

rate of 11%. Because of the anonymous nature of the on-line survey, non-response

bias could not be measured in any meaningful manner, nor can the survey results be

linked back to the employing organizations.

The survey instrument for this field study was taken from the original MOW study

representing the empirically tested model developed by the MOW internationalresearch team and designed to ‘capture the multidimensionality and richness embod-

ied in attitudes to work and work values’ (Snir and Harpaz 2002, 190). The survey

items represented the absolute and relative work centrality, lottery question, import-

ance of financial rewards, and importance of work tasks performed in the context of

working. The survey items were discussed by the members of the research team to

determine face validity and subsequently translated into the native language of each

country. Associates of the members of the research team in each country were asked

to back-translate the instruments into English, and the versions compared and final-

ized. In each country, the survey was administered to pilot groups of 10–15 individ-uals who provided qualitative feedback on the content and format of the questions.

While this process assured translation equivalence, metric and construct equivalence

was not measured, and this will constitute an objective for future research.

To eliminate the effects of differing cell sizes in country-level comparisons, data sets

Table 1. Economic and demographic characteristics and human development index (HDI) data

for eight countries

Population

(in millions)a

GDP

(billion dollars)a,b

GDP/capita

(dollars)a

GDP annual

growth rate (%)a HDIc

Brazil 201 2 194 10 900 7.5 .70

Germany 82 2 951 35 900 3.3 .89

Hungary 10 190 19 000 .8 .81

Korea 49 1 467 30 200 6.1 .88

Kyrgyzstan 6 12 2 200 –3.5 .60

Poland 38.5 722 18 800 3.3 .80

Russia 139 2 229 15 900 3.8 .72

USA 310 14 720 47 400 2.8 .90aCIA World Fact Book, data for 2010. Accessed at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.bPurchasing Power Parity.cHigher numbers indicate higher levels of HDI. Accessed at http://hdrstats.undp.org/.



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were adjusted by randomly selecting 105 responses from each country for an overall

number of 840 completed surveys from the eight countries.

Findings

One-way analyses of variance of demographic characteristics of the country-specific

samples, presented in Table 2, showed significant differences on all three characteris-

tics (age: F¼ 12.81, p < 0.000, df (7,812); education: F¼ 20.48, p < 0.000, df (7,811);

and gender: F¼ 26.25, p < 0.000, df (7,825)). Scheffe post-hoc tests showed that the

respondents from the eight countries were close in age, with only the youngest

(Poland) and oldest (Germany) belonging to distinctly different subgroups

(alpha¼ 0.05). Education levels differed, with respondents from Russia and

Hungary reporting, on average, lower levels and those from Poland and Korea

higher levels. The samples from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, the United States, andHungary had, on average, a higher percentage of females than those from Poland,

Brazil, South Korea, and Germany. Overall, the respondents from these eight coun-

tries were in their mid-career stage (average age: 37 years), slightly more male (42%

female), and more than one-half (52%) had earned a Masters degree or higher. To test

for the potential effects of these demographic characteristics and to avoid the poten-

tial for confounding effects, subsequent analyses used age, gender, and education

levels as controls.

Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for all variables in this study were

obtained (Table 3). The overall scale reliability was alpha¼0.90, with country-levelindices ranging from 0.69 (Hungary and Kyrgyzstan) to 0.91 for Germany. Zero-

order correlations were predominantly small (r


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T a b l e

3 .

M e a n s , s t a n d a r d d e v i a t i o n s , a n d z e

r o - o r d e r c o r r e l a t i o n s

M

S D

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1 0

1 1

1 C o u n t r y

4 . 5 0

2 . 2 9

2 A g e

3 6 . 4

5

1 0 . 0

6

– . 1 1

3 E d u c a t i o n

1 . 6 6

. 6 2

– . 1 2

. 0 3

4 G e n d e r

1 . 5 1

. 5 0

– . 1 7

. 1 6

. 1 5

5 A b s o l u t e w

o r k c e n t r a l i t y

5 . 5 6

1 . 1 8

– . 0 5

. 1 7

–

. 0 1

. 1 3

6 L o t t e r y

2 . 4 3

. 7 2

. 0 7

– . 0 8

–

. 0 2

. 0 5

. 0 7

R e l a t i v e i m p o r t

a n c e o f

7 L e i s u r e

5 . 3 1

1 . 3 3

. 0 7

– . 0 8

–

. 0 2

. 0 5

. 0 7

. 0 2

8 C o m m u n i t y

3 . 6 3

1 . 6 3

– . 1 5

. 0 5

. 0 8

. 0 9

. 1 3

– . 0 5

. 3 4

1 . 0 0

9 R e l i g i o n

3 . 3 0

1 . 9 8

– . 1 5

– . 0 5

. 0 2

– . 0 3

. 1 0

– . 0 5

. 1 3

. 3 5

1 0 F a m i l y

6 . 5 6

. 9 8

. 0 7

. 0 4

. 0 0

– . 0 5

. 2 4

. 0 0

. 3 5

. 1 5

. 1 3

1 1 F i n a n c i a l r e

w a r d s

5 . 1 1

1 . 2 8

– . 3 4

. 0 0

. 1 0

. 2 1

. 2 9

. 0 2

. 2 1

. 2 6

. 0 8

. 2 4

1 2 W o r k t a s k s

5 . 7 0

1 . 1 9

. 1 9

. 0 5

–

. 0 1

. 0 5

. 4 0

. 1 0

. 2 0

. 1 0

. 0 4

. 2 3

. 2 6

N ¼

1 5 3 9 .

N o t e : p ¼

. 0 5 o r s m a l l e r f o r P e a r s o n s ’ r <

| . 0 8 | .



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None of the demographic items were correlated strongly with any of the meaning of

work items and only a small number of correlations were negative.

Means, standard deviations, and country comparisons are displayed in Table 4 that

shows the results of analyses of variance with Scheffe post-hoc tests for each variable.In the table, superscripts indicate pairwise post-hoc tests using the Scheffe method.

Countries with different superscripts differ at a significance level of alpha¼ 0.05.

Absolute work centrality ranked high in each country and Scheffe post-hoc test

using harmonic means showed two subsets of countries. Respondents from

Hungary indicated the low level of work centrality while those from Germany,

Korea, and, interestingly, Kyrgyzstan reported higher levels. Compared to the import-

ance of other life domains measured in this study, work centrality ranked second to

the importance of family. The relative importance of family compared to work was

uniformly high and there were no differences in the responses to this aspect of the

meaning of work among the respondents from our eight countries.When conducting an analysis of variance with absolute work centrality as dependent

variable and controlling for age, gender, and education levels, country membership was

shown as the strongest predictor (F(7,815)¼ 5.63, p < 0.000) and an effect size of Eta-

squared¼ 0.05, considered close to medium size (Pierce, Block and Aguinis 2004). The

three demographic characteristics had a smaller influence on the perceived centrality of

work in respondents’ lives. Age appeared positively related to work centrality

(Beta¼ 0.16, Eta-squared¼ 0.03) while gender and education levels contributed only

a small amount of variance to the criterion variable. The analysis of the three items in

the lottery question added interesting detail to the question about the centrality of workin the work lives of mid-level professionals in our study. For the entire sample, the

majority of respondents (56%) indicated the preference to continue working under

changed conditions, and only 12% selected the choice to stop working altogether if

the necessity to earn a living was removed because of a large lottery win. When com-

paring the responses for each country, however, a more differentiated picture emerged.

Respondents from the United States indicated a greater preference for the ‘stop work-

ing’ option than those from the other countries, and the main effect for country mem-

bership had a large effect size of Eta-squared¼ 0.13, ( p< 0.000, Scheffe post-hoc). This

result was independent of the control variables of gender and education. Only age

showed a small effect on this variable, but the effect size was small and the resultconsidered an artifact of the sample size. In summary, hypothesis 1 was supported

by our analyses: Respondents from all eight countries in our sample indicated a high

level of importance for the centrality of work in their lives, but this role was viewed as

second to the importance of family.

The second hypothesis was related to the role of Performance Orientation (PO) to

predict work centrality and the importance of financial rewards for work. We assigned

dummy codes to the eight countries according to the GLOBE clustering, with respond-

ents from Korea and the United States in the high PO band, those from

Brazil, Germany, and Poland in the medium band, and those from Hungary,Kyrgyzstan, and Russia in the low band. Using a step-wise multiple regression

with the control variables of age, gender, and education entered in step one, we

assessed the effects of PO bands on work centrality and task orientation. The over-

all model summary for absolute work centrality showed significant overall PO band

Kuchinke et al. 273


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T a b l e

4 .

D e s c r i p t i v e s t a t i s t i c s a n d c o u n t r y

c o m p a r i s o n s

B r a z i l

( M ,

S D )

H u n

g a r y

( M , S D )

G e r m a n y

( M ,

S D )

K o r

e a

( M ,

S D )

K y r g y z s t a n

( M ,

S D )

P o

l a n d

( M

, S D )

R u s s i a

( M ,

S D )

U S A

( M ,

S D )

A b s o l u t e w o r k

c e n t r a l i t y

5 . 2 7 ( 1 . 5

0 ) a , b

5 . 1 0

( 1 . 4

2 ) a

5 . 8 0 ( . 9 3 ) b

5 . 8 4 ( . 9 1 ) b

5 . 8 4 ( 1 . 2

0 ) b

5 . 5 5 ( 1 . 0

2 a , b

5 . 4 2 ( 1 . 1

0 ) a , b

5 . 6 7 ( 1 . 0

3 ) a , b

L o t t e r y

S t o p w o r k i n g

. 0 2 ( . 1 4 ) c

. 2 0

( . 4 0 ) c , d

. 0 5 ( . 2 1 ) c , d

. 0 9 ( . 2 8 ) c , d

. 0 7 ( . 2 5 ) c , d

. 0 8 ( . 2 8 ) c , d

. 1 0 ( . 3 1 ) c , d

. 4 3 ( . 5 0 ) d

C o n t i n u e s a m

e

. 1 3 ( . 3 4 ) e

. 1 5

( . 3 6 ) e

. 1 5 ( . 3 6 ) e

. 4 8 ( . 5 0 ) f

. 3 8 ( . 4 9 ) f

. 5 0 ( . 5 0 ) f

. 2 9 ( . 4 5 ) e , f

. 3 0 ( . 4 6 ) e , f

C o n t i n u e d i f f e

r e n t

. 7 8 ( . 4 2 ) i . k

. 6 4

( . 4 8 ) h , I , k

. 8 0 ( . 4 0 )

. 4 2 ( . 5 0 ) g , h

. 5 5 ( . 5 0 ) h , i

. 4 2 ( . 5 0 ) g , h

. 6 1 ( . 4 9 ) h , I , k

. 2 6 ( . 4 4 ) g

R e l a t i v e i m p o r t

a n c e o f

L e i s u r e

4 . 7 6 ( 1 . 6

9 ) l

5 . 4 3

( 1 . 2

3 ) l , m

5 . 5 2 ( 1 . 2

6 ) m

5 . 2 6 ( 1 . 0

9 ) l , m

5 . 5 3 ( 1 . 1

3 ) m

5 . 3 0 ( 1 . 0

9 ) l , m

5 . 4 6 ( 1 . 2

7 ) m

5 . 2 7 ( 1 . 4

5 ) l , m

C o m m u n i t y

3 . 4 6 ( 1 . 6

4 ) n , o

3 . 4 3

( 1 . 4

6 ) n , o

4 . 0 4 ( 1 . 4

9 ) o

4 . 1 5 ( 1 . 3

2 ) o

3 . 3 3 ( 1 . 9

7 ) n , o

3 . 7 9 ( 1 . 3

2 ) o

2 . 7 3 ( 1 . 7

2 ) n

4 . 1 2 ( 1 . 4

7 ) o

R e l i g i o n

3 . 4 3 ( 2 . 0

8 ) q , r

2 . 2 4

( 1 . 8

3 ) p

2 . 7 9 ( 1 . 9

3 ) p , q

3 . 0 7 ( 1 . 6

9 ) p , q , r

3 . 9 3 ( 2 . 0

7 ) r , s

3 . 8 1 ( 1 . 6

9 ) r , s

3 . 0 7 ( 1 . 8

6 ) p , q , r

4 . 1 2 ( 1 . 9

5 ) s

F a m i l y

6 . 2 9 ( 1 . 5

5 ) t

6 . 6 8

( . 7 3 ) t

6 . 3 5 ( 1 . 0

7 ) t

6 . 5 2 ( 1 . 0

1 ) t

6 . 6 3 ( . 9 2 ) t

6 . 6 5 ( . 8 0 ) t

6 . 6 5 ( . 7 7 ) t

6 . 6 9 ( . 6 4 ) t

F i n a n c i a l r e w a r

d s

5 . 1 1 ( 1 . 6

4 ) v , w

4 . 7 2

( . 7 5 ) v

5 . 5 2 ( . 8 6 ) w , x

5 . 9 7 ( . 8 4 ) x

4 . 0 0 ( 1 . 0

4 ) u

5 . 8 8 ( . 8 7 ) x

3 . 9 7 ( 1 . 0

5 ) u

5 . 6 0 ( 1 . 0

3 ) w , x

T a s k i m p o r t a n c

e

4 . 9 7 ( 1 . 7

2 ) y

5 . 9 8

( 1 . 0

2 ) z

6 . 0 4 ( . 9 4 ) y , z

5 . 7 9 ( . 8 7 ) z

5 . 9 4 ( 1 . 2

0 ) y , z

5 . 7 2 ( . 8 4 ) z

5 . 7 8 ( 1 . 2

5 ) y , z

5 . 4 2 ( 1 . 0

8 ) y , z

N ¼

8 4 0 .

N o t e s : A l l s c a l e s a r e 7 p o i n t L i k e r t w i t h 1 ¼

l o w , e x

c e p t f o r L o t t e r y q u e s t i o n s c o d e d 0

¼

n o , 1 ¼

y e s . S a m e s u p e r s c r i p t i n d

i c e s i n d i c a t e m e m b e r s h i p o f h o m o g e n e o u s s u b s e t

f o l l o w i n g S c h e f f e p o s t - h o c a n a l y s e s w i t h a l p h a ¼ 0 . 0

5 .



12/21

effect after controlling for the demographic characteristics (R2adj ¼0.04, p < 0.001)

but the contribution of PO was slight (R2change¼ 0.01, p < 0.05). All independent

variables were related positively with work centrality, suggesting an increase in this

construct for males, older individuals, and those with higher levels of education.A somewhat clearer picture emerged with respect to the prediction of task orien-

tation. Here, none of the demographic variables were entered into the final model and

only PO emerged as predictive. The negative standardized regression coefficient

(Beta¼ –0.116, p < 0.001) suggests a lower importance ranking of the intrinsic work

dimension of challenging and rewarding tasks for countries higher in PO. As before,

however, much unexplained variance remained with PO explaining about 2% of

variance (R2adj ¼0.02, p < 0.001). In summary, the second hypothesis received support

in our study. Both work centrality and task orientation were related to PO.

Demographic characteristics explained a part of the variance for the former but not

the latter. Work centrality scores increased for countries higher in PO and the intrinsicwork goal of task orientation decreased. For both dependent variables, only a small

portion of the variance was explained, suggesting an underspecified model in our

study and the need for follow-up research to more fully explain the outcomes of

the meaning of work dimensions.

Hypothesis 3 sought to examine the relationship between the GLOBE cultural

dimension of Assertiveness and the meaning of work. Respondents from the eight

countries represented medium (Poland and Russia) and high (Brazil, Germany,

Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, United States) bands on Assertiveness in the

GLOBE study. Using dummy coding for Assertiveness levels, stepwise multipleregression analyses were performed for work centrality, task orientation, and the

importance of financial rewards, controlling, again, for age, education levels, and

gender. Absolute work centrality could be predicted by age and gender

(R2adj ¼ 0.04, p < 0.001), and older and male employees tended to score higher than

younger and female individuals. Assertiveness levels, however, did not add to the

variance explained. When using the lottery questions as indicators of Work

Centrality, Assertiveness contributed significantly to the decision to continue working

in the same job but not to the decision to stop working or to continue working under

changed conditions. The regression slope was positive, indicating that participants

from countries higher on Assertiveness also showed a preference to continue workingeven when the necessity to earn a living was removed. In this instance, however, the

amount of additional variance explained was less than 2% and the overall model

accounted for 4% (R2adj ¼0.04, p < 0.001). Demographic characteristics and country

assertiveness levels were not related to the importance rating of interesting and chal-

lenging tasks. The importance of financial rewards, finally, was predicted by gender.

Male respondents across all eight countries score higher than females (t (822)¼ –6.06,

p < 0.001) with 4% of variance explained (R2adj ¼ 0.04, p < 0.001). In summary,

hypothesis 3, examining the influence of country level characteristics of

Assertiveness on individual importance ratings of work centrality, task orientation,and financial rewards, was not supported.

The fourth hypothesis addresses the question of the influence of Humane

Orientation on the perceived importance of leisure and community and family

involvement as compared to work. As before, we controlled for the possible effects

Kuchinke et al. 275


13/21

of age, gender, and education. Because of the medium-size zero-order correlation

between several of the relative work centrality items (Table 3), a MANCOVA analysis

was conducted, entering the importance of family, religion, community, and leisure as

dependent variables, the three demographic variables as controls, and the countryhumane orientation level as predictor variable. MANCOVA requires random sam-

pling, independence of observations, normal distribution, and homogeneity of vari-

ance. The first two criteria were met by the research design. Normality assumptions

were tested by applying the Levene test that showed equal error variance across all

groups for three of the four dependent variables. Univariate homogeneity of variance

was confirmed (Bartlett-Box F and Cochran’s C) but multivariate homogeneity of

dispersion (Box’s M) was not established. Seldom, however, are all assumptions for

MANCOVA precisely met, especially with large sample sizes, and the procedure is

robust with respect to violation of assumptions (Bray and Maxwell 1985). All four

multivariate tests (Pillai’s, Wilks, Hotelling, Roy) showed significant differencesbetween countries ranking high and lower on Humane Orientation ( p < 0.01,

alpha¼ 0.05) with the influence of age on leisure as the only significant covariate

effect (F(1,770)¼ 5.86, p < 0.01). Univariate follow-up tests (ANCOVAs) yielded

more specific insights. As shown in Table 5, religious involvement differed between

countries but the results did not follow the predicted pattern. Respondents from the

United States and Brazil – countries rated as high in Humane Orientation by the

GLOBE studies – also rated high in the importance of religious involvement relative

to work, but respondents from South Korea and Russia did not. Participants from

Germany and Hungary – countries rated lowest in HO by GLOBE – also rated theimportance of religious involvement as low, but Polish respondents rated the import-

ance of religion high. The fourth hypothesis, thus, was supported only for selected

countries in our study (Table 5).

The final hypothesis was about the clustering of countries in this study along the

clusters identified by the authors of the GLOBE study. To examine this question, a

discriminant function analysis (DA) was performed to determine the clustering of

countries around specific variables able to differentiate among them. DA can be

used with unequal cell sizes as long as the sample size of the smallest group exceeds

the number of predictor variables (Tabachnick and Fidell 2000). DA, furthermore, is

robust with respect to violation of multivariate normality caused by skewness ratherthan outliers. As described previously, outliers were changed following Tabachnick

Table 5. Summary statistics for the country level differences in the relationships between

Humane orientation and the relative importance of non-work life domains for eight countries

Hypoth MS Error F Sig. Partial Eta-squared

Leisure 50 1.69 .30 .59 .00

Community 13 2.61 .05 .83 .00

Religion 38.10 3.77 10.10 .00 .01

Family 1.13 .84 1.34 .25 .00

N¼ 840, alpha¼ .05.



14/21

and Fidell’s (2000, 71) recommendation. Tests of equality of group means (Wilks’

lambda) resulted in significant F tests for all variables. Box’s test of equality of

covariance matrices was not met, indicating unequal population covariances

(F(196,762859)¼

3.45, p<

0.000). DA, however, is robust with respect to violationsof this requirement provided there are no outliers. In addition, large sample sizes are

likely to result in spurious significant differences attributable to small differences in

the covariance matrices. Discriminant analysis resulted in two major functions

accounting for 73% and 16% of variance respectively. The remaining five functions

were much smaller and considered to be statistical artifacts that were dismissed. Using

variables with a standardized canonical discriminant function coefficient of ¼ 0.40

or greater (Cohen et al. 2003), two items were retained in each of the major functions

to represent those variables that are best suited to differentiate between the eight

countries. These included the importance of leisure as compared to work and impor-

tance of financial rewards for the first function and the importance of religion andspiritual involvement and the importance of challenging and interesting tasks for the

second function. Table 6 shows the canonical discriminant function coefficients and

country classification coefficients.

Figure 1 shows the combined group plot mapping the group centroids for each

country. Two distinct country groupings were found for the first function: Russia and

Kyrgyzstan scored very similarly, as did the United States, Korea, Brazil, and Poland.

Participants from Hungary and Germany formed separate groups. For the minor

function, the countries clustered tightly with differences between two groupings:

Germany, Hungary, and Korea on the one hand and Kyrgyzstan, Brazil, and theUnited States on the other. Based on this analysis, supported by the homogeneous

subgroups for each variable presented in Table 4, two countries of the Eastern Europe

cluster (Russia and Kyrgyzstan) showed similar values in our first function, comprised

of the importance of leisure and financial rewards. Our hypothesis was that the

GLOBE study clustering of countries would extend to the meaning of work con-

structs, such that five distinct clusters would emerge on the two functions:

Germanic Europe (Germany), Latin America (Brazil), Confucian (Korea), Anglo

(USA), and Eastern European (Russia, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, and Hungary). This

was not the case. Countries showed similarity in meaning of work dimensions

where the hypothesis expected differences, and the multi-country cluster of EasternEurope emerged as more heterogeneous than predicted, with the exception of simi-

larities between Russia and Kyrgyzstan related to the value of leisure and extrinsic

rewards.

Conclusions and discussion

This study served as a new milestone in a string of MOW follow-up studies, con-

ducted in 1990s and early 2000s. Like Harpaz and Fu (2002), we have found that,

despite gradual (and in some cases, rather abrupt) changes in the socioeconomicconditions in various countries, major indices of MOW remain relatively stable

over time. An important finding of our study was the confirmation of the work cen-

trality trend, detected in MOW follow-up studies in 1990s and early 2000s: In the

majority of countries in our sample high overall centrality of work was detected, and

Kuchinke et al. 277


15/21

T a b l e

6 .

S t a n d a r d i z e d a n d c l a s s i f i c a t i o n c a n

o n i c a l f u n c t i o n c o e f f i c i e n t s

S t a n d a r d a r d i z e d c o e f f i c i e n t s *

C l a s s i f i c a t i o n c o

e f f i c i e n t s

F u n c t i o n 1

F u n c t i o n 2

U S A

B r a z i l

G e r m a n y

P o l a n d

K o r e a

R u s s i a

K y r g y z s t a n

H u n g a r y

L e i s u r e

– . 4 0

. 5 3

. 4 6

. 8 5

. 6 0

. 4 9

1 . 2 3

1 . 1 6

. 9 5

R e l i g i o n

. 8 5

. 4 0

. 2 9

– . 0 2

. 3 5

. 0 5

. 2 5

. 4 4

– . 1 2

F i n a n c i a l r e w a

r d s

1 . 1 0

2 . 1 2

1 . 8 8

1 . 8 5

2 . 4 1

2 . 5 0

. 1 4

. 0 4

. 9 7

T a s k s

– . 6 2

1 . 5 1

1 . 3 8

2 . 1 6

1 . 8 0

1 . 7 4

2 . 4 2

2 . 3 6

2 . 5 1

N ¼

8 4 0 .

F i s h e r ’ s l i n e a r d

i s c r i m i n a n t f u n c t i o n s .



16/21

work was second only to family as the most important life domain. Furthermore, our

study confirmed once more what many other studies have found regarding the lottery

question: the majority of respondents in all eight countries in our sample preferred to

continue working even in the absence of the financial need to work. Thus, the results

of our study contribute to the long-term agenda of international MOW research,

documenting changes (or the absence of major changes) in main MOW indices.

Our investigation into the links between MOW indices and cultural value dimen-

sions, identified by the GLOBE project, produces a number of interesting results.

First, both work centrality and task orientation were related to PerformanceOrientation. This finding can be regarded as an additional confirmation of the con-

vergent validity of the GLOBE Performance Orientation construct: the set of values,

underlying the PO construct (e.g., achievement orientation, belief in the intrinsic value

of work and job performance, competitive nature of work relationships, high levels of

N = 840

–5.0 –2.5 0.0

F u n c t i o n

2

Function 1

Canonical discriminant functions

Country

USABRGermanyPolandKoreaRussiaKyrgystanHungaryGroup centroic

5.0

2.5

0.0

–2.5

–5.0

2.5 5.0

Figure 1. Discriminant analysis results of meaning of work in eight countries

Kuchinke et al. 279


17/21

interest in material compensation and rewards), tracks well with work centrality and

task orientation and should, thus, result in statistically significant relationship with

these two constructs.

Second, contrary to our expectations, Assertiveness was not linked to high workcentrality and emphasis on material rewards. This finding is in line with findings of the

GLOBE project, which discovered only a low correlation between Assertiveness and

Performance Orientation practices (Den Hartog 2004). Den Hartog indicates that,

following the logic of Hofstede’s Masculinity/Femininity dimension, societies where

striving for success and high performance are valued will also value challenging work

and material success. However, by making a distinction between Assertiveness and

PO, the GLOBE study allows to make more accurate and fine-tuned categorizations

of work-related practices.

Finally, we have found that lower work centrality and lower emphasis on financial

outcomes is associated with Humane Orientation. This confirms the negative correl-ation between Performance Orientation and Assertiveness, on the one hand, and

Humane Orientation, on the other, found in GLOBE.

In addition to contributing to the body of research on work-related values, the

above findings could help to produce more specific recommendations for practice. For

example, confirmation that work is of central importance to individuals in a certain

social group or organization is informative by itself. However, from the point of view

of practice, it is even more useful that now we are able to explain the implications of

this finding by relating them to characteristics associated with the Performance

Orientation dimension. When considering results of research on work-relatedvalues, managers and HR professionals are looking, in the first place, for specific

suggestions on how to motivate their employees, and what incentives, learning oppor-

tunities, or work conditions are valued the most by employees and are likely to lead to

best performance outcomes. Thus, as suggested by our study, if a social group assigns

high centrality to work, it is also likely to ‘value and reward individual achievement’

and ‘performance appraisal systems that emphasize achievement of results’; believe

that ‘anyone can succeed if he or she tries hard enough’; believe that ‘schooling and

education are critical for success’; and likely to ‘value feedback as necessary for

improvement’ (Javidan 2004, 245).

Our findings regarding country clustering provided little evidence that countries inour sample formed clusters similar to those found in GLOBE. Only Russia and

Kyrgyzstan were grouped together on several dimensions, and this finding partially

confirmed the GLOBE results related to Eastern Europe. However, contrary to

GLOBE findings, two other Eastern European countries, Hungary and Poland, did

not participate in the same cluster as Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Our conclusion on this

is that attempts to cluster together such geographically and culturally distant coun-

tries as nations of the Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe should be made

with caution.

Another noteworthy observation is the wide variation among Eastern Europeancountries regarding the importance of religion. This finding, again, suggest caution

against making generalizations to a wide variety of countries of the former communist

block. While Russia, Poland, and Kyrgyzstan demonstrated relatively high levels of

importance on this item, and were close on this dimension to the United States and



18/21

Brazil, Hungary was clearly positioned outside the Eastern European group, and was

closer to Germany with its significantly lower rating on this variable.

Overall, our failure to find the confirmation of country clustering found in

GLOBE suggests the need to exercise caution when making generalizations and rec-ommendations based on prior research. GLOBE clusters were based on the analysis

of specific cultural dimensions, and should be used only in reference to these

dimensions.

Several future research implications can be suggested based on our reflections on

the limitations of the current study. First, we have found only limited evidence that

GLOBE country clusters can be used when classifying countries for the purposes of

work meaning-related analysis. However, before we decide that the GLOBE cluster-

ing should not be considered in future MOW-related work, it would be advisable to

verify this finding on a larger sample of countries. We also hope that future studies

will expand our research to other countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, onesuggestion for future research should be to expand the Confucian cluster and include

major economies such as Japan and China.

A final item on our wish list for future research is, again, linked to a limitation of

the present study: instrument size limitations and logistics of our already complex

project did not allow us to include GLOBE items in our survey instrument. Therefore,

we had to base our comparisons on existing GLOBE results, but were not able to

ascertain that members of our specific sample would produce the same ratings if they

had a chance to answer corresponding parts of the GLOBE survey.

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K Peter Kuchinke (PhD, Minn.) is professor of human resource development at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A native German, he has spent his

career and personal life over the past 30 years in the United States. He is active in

international research, teaching, and consulting, and currently focuses his scholarship

on the education of human resource professionals and on career development in

teaching, medicine, and related science fields.

Alexandre Ardichvili (PhD, MBA, Minn.; PhD, Moscow State Univ.) is professor of

HRD at the University of Minnesota. Alexandre has published an edited book and

more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the areas of human resourcedevelopment, international education and development, entrepreneurship, business

ethics, and knowledge management. He has conducted research and professional

development workshops in the United States, China, South Korea, Brazil, Poland,

Russia, and other countries of the former USSR, and consulted with numerous mul-

tinational companies, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.

Margaret Borchert holds the chair for Personnel and Organizational Management at

the Mercator School of Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen in

Germany. Her current research interests are in the area of incentive systems, person-

nel development in small and medium-size enterprises, performance management, and

human resource management in IT organizations.

Edgard B Cornachione, Jr (PhD, USP; PhD, Illinois) is professor at the College of

Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), where he

serves as the chairman of the Department of Accounting and Actuarial Sciences. The

former director of graduate programs in accounting at USP, he is a Brazilian char-

tered accountant. He serves as the Brazilian director of a state-funded bi-lateral

exchange program between four Brazilian and US universities.

Maria Cseh (PhD) is an associate professor and chair of the Human and

Organizational Learning Department at The George Washington University, USA,

and honorary professor at the University of Pe ´ cs, Hungary. Dr Cseh’s cross-cultural

and international research studies on workplace learning, organizational development

and change, and leadership were published in peer-reviewed journals and book chap-

ters and presented at international conferences. She is a member of the advisory board

for four international journals, was elected to serve for two terms on the board of

directors of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and serves as adviser

and consultant to organizations.

Hye-Seung (Theresa) Kang is a PhD candidate in the graduate program of the

Department of Human Resource Education at the University of Illinois and served

for three years as the editorial assistant for an international HRD journal. Before

Kuchinke et al. 283


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coming to Illinois, Theresa worked as a researcher and lecturer at the International

Study Center at Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea, before serving at Sangnam

Business Institute at Yonsei University in South Korea as a general and executive

manager. Theresa’s research interests lie in international human resource develop-ment, particularly Korean corporate expatriate development around the world.

Seok-Young Oh (PhD) is a research fellow at the Korea Research Institute for

Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET). He is also affiliated with the

Korean Association of Human Resource Development as a board director and

with Yonsei University as a lecturer. His research interests are related to informal

learning, organizational learning, collaborative learning, and community of practices.

His current research at KRIVET is focused on the learning process in the vocational

high school curriculum and the analysis of work-study programs in higher education.

Andrzej Polanski is professor of human resource development at the Maria

Sklodowska-Curie University in Lublin, Poland, where he also serves as associate

dean in the College of Pedagogy and Psychology and as director of the postgraduate

study program in HRD. He has worked as a manger and consultant with a number of

private, non-profit and public institutions in Poland, the United States and the EU.

His current research focuses on managerial education in Europe, strategic planning in

HRD, and career and educational development. He is an editorial board member of

an international HRD journal.

Urmat Tynaliev (PhD, Minn.) has worked on several international development and

educational reform projects. Currently he is a manager of the Central Asian Faculty

Development Program at the University of Central Asia. He had also been a full-time

teaching fellow of the Civic Education Project in Central Asia and Mongolia. His

research interests are broad, focusing primarily on organizational and social issues in

post-Soviet countries.

Elena K. Zavyalova (PhD) is professor of organization behavior and HRM, Graduate

School of Management, St Petersburg State University. Professor Zavyalova’s

research interests include psychological problems of HRM and HRD: managementby values, labor motivation, organizational culture and job satisfaction. She has pub-

lished over 80 articles, reports and books, mainly in the areas of HRM and HRD. She

is a member of editorial board of an international HRM journal, and a member of the

International Association of Researchers in Economic Psychology and the Academy

of Human Resource Development.


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