The usefulness of an ethnographic approach to the international comparison of organizations (1996-1997) - Philippe d'Iribarne

Résumé du document

Philippe d'Iribarne (born 1937) is ethnologist and sociologist, graduated from the Grande Ecole of Science and Technology and from the Grande Ecole for political science. He is carrying out studies in the national centre for scientific research about the impact of culture on business and on the economy. In this text, Philippe d'Iribarne wants to prove the potential of an ethnographic approach to the international comparison of organizations. For that, he compares two studies' results based on the main approaches in this field, the questionnaire-based and the ethnographic ones. The first study was lead by Geert Hofstede (1980, 1991).

Extraits

[...] The usefulness of an ethnographic approach to the international comparison of organizations (1996-1997) - Philippe d'Iribarne Philippe d'Iribarne (born 1937) is ethnologist and sociologist, graduated from the Grande Ecole of Science and Technology and from the Grande Ecole for political science. He is carrying out studies in the national centre for scientific research about the impact of culture on business and on the economy. (http://www.scienceshumaines.com/-0acultures-nationales-et-cooperation-en- entreprise-rencontre-avec-philippe-d-iribarne-0a_fr_4360.html) In this text, Philippe d'Iribarne wants to prove the potential of an ethnographic approach to the international comparison of organizations. [...]

[...] All the more, the interpretation of the study's results is complex: not being stressed can be a social value rather than a result of the corporate management. In conclusion, Hofstede's study stays a reference and its drawbacks are those of all quantitative studies at that time. But the development of ethnographic research will permit creating new questions that really suit to the specificities of a country. But there is a particular point that struck me: How a study comparing one metallurgical factory in a country can permit to elaborate a complete model describing the way of living and governing of this country (p.31)? [...]

[...] For example, that's not because one firm apply Neo-Taylorism methods that another do the same (it's even impossible in the tertiary sector). Second why would people act the same in their work and in the society? Besides, why is it sufficient to look only at two of the dimensions found by Hofstede (p. 34) to compare its results with those of an ethnographic one? It's not sufficient to verify a hypothesis, as Milton Friedman writes it in Essays in Positive Economics: if a test confirms the forecasting of your model, it don't means that your model is right. [...]

[...] And yet an ethnographic study reveals that these two expressions don't have the same meaning in this country. In France, people actually maintain and use a large hierarchical distance in order to limit the power of their bosses, arguing that they haven't the right skills to intervene in their work. All the more, The PDI doesn't allow us to make specific comparisons between areas: the United States and Netherland have almost the same PDI score but they have very different approaches of hierarchy. [...]