A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON OF MANAGERIAL BEHAVIOR IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

This article presents a study that makes a cross-cultural comparison of managerial behavior in England and France. A successful manager is a very efficient learning system. He uses the values that he inherits from his culture to forge conditions sufficiently strong for the execution of business. Very often the desired goal, or sub-goal. is not achieved, and this may cause the manager to modify his beliefs--within the limits of his culturally determined value system--and thus his future behavior. According to the model used in the article, the notion of profit is an intellectual abstraction for the French, whereas for the English manager it is more the result of a personal effort. In the French model, if the organization is efficient then profit ensues automatically; if there is no profit, it is due to malformation of some part of the system. In England, personality is brought into play. Lack of profit implies personal failure, which is traceable to managerial weakness, or perversity, an excessive preoccupation with boundary defense perhaps, or lack of cooperation. The Frenchman will react to defeat with detachment or resignation, the Englishman with aggression and defiance. In neither case is such a reaction necessarily logical. The logic of the reaction depends upon a careful a priori evaluation of the value of goal achievement.