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rules say.
Business people from both societies will tend to think each other corrupt. A universalist will say of particularists they cannot be trusted because they will always help their friends; a particularist, conversely, will say of universalists you cannot trust them; they would not even help a friend. (The European Commission in Brussels is a continuing example of this dilemma.)
In practice we use both kinds of judgement, and in most situations we encounter they reinforce each other. If a female employee is harassed in the workplace we would disapprove of this because harassment is immoral and against company rules and/or because it was a terrible experience for Jennifer and really upset her. The universalists chief objection, though, will be the breach of rules: women should not have to deal with harassment in the workplace; it is wrong. The particularist is likely to be more disapproving because of the distress it caused to poor Jennifer.
Universalist versus particularist in different cultures
Much of the research into this cultural dimension has come from America, and is influenced by American cultural preferences. The emerging consensus among these researchers is that universalism is a feature of modernisation per se what happens when societies become more modern and complex. Particularism, they argue, is a feature of smaller, largely rural communities in which everyone knows everyone personally. The implication is that universalism and sophisticated business practice go together and all nations might be better if they more closely resembled America.
I do not accept this conclusion. Instead, I believe that cultural dilemmas need to be reconciled by understanding the advantages of each cultural preference. The creation of wealth and the development of industry should be an evolving process of discovering more and better universals covering and sustaining more particular cases and circumstances.
The following story, created by two Americans, Stouffer and Toby, is an exercise used in our workshops with international managers. It takes the form of a dilemma that measures universal and particularist responses:
You are riding in a car driven by a close friend. He hits a pedestrian. You know he was going at least 35 miles per hour in an area of the city where the maximum allowed speed is 20 miles per hour. There are no witnesses. His lawyer says that if you testify under oath that he was only driving 20 miles per hour it may save him from serious consequences. What right has your friend to expect you to protect him?
a. My friend has a definite right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure.
b. He has some right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure.
c. He has no right as a friend to expect me to testify to the lower figure.
What do you think you would do in view of the obligations of a sworn witness and the obligation to your friend:
d. Testify that he was going 20 miles an hour?
e. Not testify that he was going 20 miles an hour?
Figure 1 shows the result of putting these questions to a variety of nationalities. The percentage represents those who answered that the friend had no right or some right and would then not testify (c or b+e). North Americans and most northern Europeans emerge as almost totally universalist in their approach to the problem. The proportion falls to under 70% for the French and Japanese, while in Venezuel