 We are talking about national cultures and its effect on human resource management. In this topic we are going to talk about various aspects of the national culture and this particular topic is going to deal with the aspect of national culture which is attitude towards power and authority. The attitude towards power and authority varies among different types of cultures. There is always inequality of power in every type of society. You know that power is unequally distributed when people come and live together. Power is distributed in a form of hierarchy and some people have more power over other people. The sources of power can be a number of things. The power can come from education who are educated or informed or knowledgeable because knowledge is power, they become more powerful. Then wealth, money is also a source of power. Then your social or political position, that can also be a source of power which can then lead to unequal distribution of power in the society. At the macro level, that is, on the level of broad society you can distinguish the aspects that are the class, caste and feudal system. You have seen that even in our society, there is a class system, caste system and feudal system. On the basis of class, caste and feudal system, people assign power differently to the society. In Indian culture, particularly in Hindu culture, caste system defines exactly the entire system of society in the Hindu culture starting from the Brahmin and then the lower classes. The entire power system is based on that caste system. It can be an amalgamation of the class, caste and feudal type of system or one particular type holding more influence in the society. On the macro level, you see that this is the basis of distinction between the unequal distribution of power. At the micro level, how does it reflect in our attitudes? At the micro level, it can be seen in the extent to which individuals might be willing or able or reluctant or even scared to challenge the authority of people in the senior positions, be it their parents, religious leaders, teachers or their rulers. So, it is the extent to which in some cultures the extent to this hesitance or reluctance to challenge the authority is high and those cultures are high in equality cultures. Whereas in some cultures, the power to or the ability to challenge this kind of authority is low. So, in that kind of a situation, those cultures, they are low in equality cultures. So, on the basis of that, national cultures, they vary in the degree to which inequality between members exists or is accepted in the society. So, if the members they have more inequality among them, they cannot challenge, they are not able to challenge, then that culture is a high in equality culture. Just as in Pakistan, there is high inequality between the upper classes and lower classes and you see that the lower classes people, they cannot challenge the authority of people that are in the higher classes. That can be that source of inequality that can come from religious background, that can also come from social background. The peasant of the village does not challenge it. Similarly, Malvi Sahab does not challenge it. Similarly, your rulers do not challenge it. People do not speak out against people in the higher positions and there is a lot of hindrance in challenging the authority of people in the higher upper echelons of the society. So, high inequality cultures are the ones in which people cannot challenge and then there are low inequality cultures. For example, most of the developed nations, they have low inequality cultures in which people can challenge or people are able to challenge the authority of people in the higher level positions. So, for example, in the UK, you see that the prime minister of UK does not move around with any protocol. He or she, they just move around in the society like anybody else as compared to Pakistan in which the people in the higher positions, they are saluted, given protocol and given all kinds of treatment that makes the distance between upper and lower classes more pronounced. So, this is about the national culture and when these things exist in the national culture, they actually are translated in the organizational culture as well because the organizational culture is a part and parcel of the national culture and it comes out of the national culture and it cannot be separated from it. But how it is manifested in the organizational culture? It is manifested in the form of formal and informal hierarchical structures. So, one is that on the formal side, the hierarchical structure is tall like people have more steps in the hierarchy and the top of the organization and the bottom of the organization is separated by a number of steps. And then it can also reflect in informal hierarchical cultures that the distance between the, even if there is only one step, but the distance between the boss and the supervisor is considered to be of higher value. And then it is also manifested in the relationship between organizational members. So, how organizational members that treat each other? How do they talk to each other? How do they communicate with each other? That also reflects whether the distance between top and lower levels of the organization is high or low. For example, if you talk to your boss by speaking his first name, then it means that the distance between the two people is low. But if you have to pronounce that person as sir or your highness or something like that, it means that the distance between the two positions is that is high. So, the organizational level, it is manifested in the form of the hierarchical structures, formal in informal as well as the relationship between organizational members. So, we as human resource managers, we are particularly concerned about what happens when there is high distance between the levels. So, in high inequality cultures, the employees would not challenge their supervisors or superiors. They will not, even if they see that the supervisor or the bosses are doing something wrong and it is going to lead to some kind of disaster, they are not going to challenge it. They are not going to speak against it. Superiors may also be reluctant to give them the opportunity. So, when the culture becomes like this, then even if you want, the bosses are reluctant to give them the opportunity to speak up because they are afraid that if we let them speak, they will continue to speak and they will not stop. So, because there is reluctance, they do not let them speak, so the employees do not assume this power. And then, because of this, the management style is to be either paternalistic or autocratic. So, paternalistic means that there is a benevolence, but benevolence is not a top-down. But autocratic, that is then a direction and strict supervision. There is no benevolence in it. There is a strict autocratic culture in the organization in which the superiors tell the employees the lower level of organizational members to do what they are supposed to do. And they are not concerned either. But paternalistic method is that the bosses are concerned about the well-being of the lower level employees and they do give them some kind of margin and good treatment, but that is also top-down. But in the autocratic type of culture, the bosses are coercive and they just direct the employees about what to do and it is also top-down. Then in high inequality cultures, organizations, they are highly centralized. Obviously, authority is not going to be delegated when there is a lot of distance between the levels of the organizational members and centralization will be there with a rigid, hierarchical chain of command. The chain of command is going to be really rigid. It is not going to be bypassed. It is not going to be broken. It is going to be followed with a lot of strictness. As it happens, for example, in the military culture that you cannot go against your senior and you cannot bypass your senior and that is also reflected in the behaviors that you show towards your senior, how you behave in front of your senior and what you are supposed to do. So that is a kind of organization which is highly centralized and which has a rigid, hierarchical chain of command. Then in such kind of cultures, instructions, they flow from the top. So whatever you are supposed to do that is instructed to you and you are not allowed to participate in making the decisions what you are supposed to do in your organization. And then finally, obedience is expected from those in the lower levels. So the people who are below a particular position they are supposed to show obedience to the person who is above them. So obedience and submission is also a very important aspect of cultures which are high inequality cultures. On the other hand, you can well imagine that in low inequality cultures, what can you imagine? Employees, they respect their managers but feel able to point out when they do not agree with their views. So employees, they do respect, they sure respect but they can speak out and they can share their views regarding a particular stance or a particular, for example if a project is going to be launched, they will share what they think about that project. And then the employees who are in the lower levels, junior employees they expect that they will be consulted, they will be asked when a decision, particularly a decision is affecting them or their working or their unit or their related organizational aspects are affecting them so they expect that they will be asked and if they are not asked they will feel that the psychological contract with them has been breached. So this happens in the low inequality cultures. So you can well imagine that what kind of management style is going to be employed in such kind of cultures the management style would be either participative or consultative. Participative means that participation is invited but consultative is even more than that that you consult and then you actually, the leader or the manager it actually includes the advice and opinion of lower level employees in the decisions that actually follow. Participative means that they are asking but it is not necessary to make decisions based on that but consultative is like that. And then authority hierarchy is flat and flexible or even replaced by networks and leaderless work teams in which there is no leader it's just a work team and people they are assigned role without any kind of hierarchical position who is supposed to be managing them or supervising them they supervise them themselves and they are called self managing teams so that happens in low inequality cultures. This is how the national culture of a country it can affect the organizational level dynamics.