The Role of the Ideal Organization in Comparative Management: A Cross Cultural Perspective of Japan & Korea Lane Kelley, Arthur Whatley, Reginald Worthley and Harry Lie* ABSTRACT It is popular to talk of the "Confucian Work Ethic" when explaining the successes of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. This is not an accurate impres- sion. The authors of this article found significant differences in management prac- tices -- both actual and ideal ~ between Japan and South Korea. Cross-cultural management research creates methodological issues that extend beyond other types of management research. One issue is how to decide when managerial behavior is reflective of culture and when it is not. Negandhi (1975) claims that management practices, behaviours and effectiveness are as much caused by the contextual variables of size, technology, location and market con- ditions as they are of sociocultural variables. For example, the economic climate of the 1930s in the United States was instrumental for the passage of the Wagner and Morris La Guardia Acts. Both of these laws dictate how managers practice industrial relations, not their culture per se. A second issue stems from commonly assuming that attitudes and values are in- terchangeable when in fact they are not the same. Attitudes are normative stances regarding how things are in reality, values reflect how reality should or ought to be (Myrdal, 1969). Values are more prospective. For example, the United States is "valued" as a horizontal culture, but in actuality our institutions reflect a much more vertical culture. If we ask managers to tell us whether or not US in- stitutions are, in actuality, vertically or horizontally organized, we are likely to get a different answer than if we ask what type of organization should or ought to exist. Values are most likely to reflect the manager's culture. Hofstede (1983: p. 78) makes the distinction clearly: "... values, not the attitudes, reflect differences in mental programming and national character." Values are also more durable than attitudes (Lusk and Oliver, 1974). England (1967: p. 53) states that "Values are similar to attitudes but are more ingrained, permanent, and stable in nature... 'Value'... is closer to ideology or philosophy than it is to attitudes." Values, then, ought to be the focus of cross-cultural comparative manage- ment research primarily because they "become integrated both in personalities and social systems" (Parsons and Shils, 1962: p. 79) and thus influence more directly managerial behaviour. The identification and measurement of cultural values will allow predictions and generalizations to be made that could not be based on the more ephemeral, and less normative attitudes. As compara- tive management scholars search for both similarities and differences between cultures (Adler, 1983), it may be useful to study not only perceptions about the way things are in a culture but also the way they should or ought to be. Professors Lane Kelley, Reginald Worthley and Harry Lie are from the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii while Professor Arthur Whatley is from the College of Busi- ness Administration & Economics, New Mexico State University. Asia Pacific Journal of Management Vol. 3 No. 2 January 1986 59