What are some of the characteristics that societies with achievement orientation value most?

Organizational behavior is an essential element in every organization. The organizations in the world are differ according to their culture which means that the values applied in each organization are differ across cultures.

Individualism and collectivism are the two most commonly mentioned cross-cultural value. Individualism can be defined as the extent to which a person values independence and personal uniqueness. Highly individualist people value personal freedom, self sufficiency, control over their own lives, and appreciation of the unique qualities that distinguish them from others. The main characteristics of individualism are 1) identity is based on the individual 2) Tasks prevail over relationships 3) speaking one's mind is a sign of honesty.

Whereas collectivism is the extent to which people value duty to groups to which they belong and to group harmony. Highly collectivist people defined themselves by their group membership and value harmonious relationship within the group. The main characteristics of collectivism are 1) identity is based on the group to which one belongs 2) relationships prevail over tasks 3) direct confrontations should be avoided.

Besides, power distances another type of cross-cultural value. It is different from one country to another especially where there is a huge different between Asia and Western country. Power distance can be defined as the extent to which people accept unequal distribution of power in a society and in an organization. According to Samovar et.al.(1998) people in high distance countries, ...believe that power and authority are facts of life. Both consciously and unconsciously, these cultures teach their members that people are not equal in this world and that everybody has a rightful place, which is clearly marked by countless vertical arrangements. Social hierarchy is prevalent and institutionalises inequality. On the other hand, Hofstede (1991) contends that in lower power distance countries 'there is a preference for consultation' and 'subordinates will quite readily approach and contradict their bosses'.

Achievement and nurturing orientation reflects a competitive versus cooperative view of relations with other people. people with a high achievement orientation value assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism. They appreciate people who are tough and favor the acquisition of money and material goods. The three characteristics of achievement orientation are 1) material success and progress are dominant 2) stress on equity, competition among colleagues and performance 3) live in order to work.

In contrast, people in nurturing-oriented cultures emphasize relationships and the well being of others. They focus on human interaction and caring rather than competition and personal success. The three main characteristics of nurturing orientation are 1) caring for others and preservation are dominant 2) stress on equality, solidarity and quality of work life 3) work in order to live.

From the definition and the understanding of the three types of cross-cultural values mentioned above, a country is actually can be named as a big organization where every country apply these three cross-cultural values. For example, Malaysia is one of the organization among the others where the role of Malaysia as an organization is much more similar to any other common existing company to which Malaysia is playing a role as profit making organization. Malaysia earns a large amount of income by attracting investors in the world come across to Malaysia. The number of investment is one of the big factors that affect the entire Malaysia's income and economy and a stable economy ensure the continuous growth of Malaysia.

Here, we divide Malaysia's environment into four parts:
1) The owner of the organization (Malaysia) - All Malaysians
2) Management team - The government (Prime Minister, Ministers, State Ministers etc.)
3) Employees - People who work for the government
4) Competitors - All countries excluded Malaysia

So, who are responsible to ensure the continuous growth and the competitiveness of Malaysia? The answer should be the management team and the employees who are taking their responsibility to control the whole working process of Malaysia, to make sure Malaysia is in the right condition and is growing and the most important things are to fulfill the owner's target (reduce the rate of poorer, increase family income and GDP) and to achieve the organization's goal (Mission 2020).

Now, the study of organizational behavior becoming one of the most essential parts to bring along Malaysia from the condition of developed country (developed organization) into a full developed country (full developed organization). First of all, the employee's behavior in Malaysia are react to be more collectivism. They are not too individualistic as they are willingly to work in group. Even though most of the employees are likely to hang up in a group during lunch time or where there is a short break and it increases the opportunity for the workers towards knowledge sharing and increases the cooperation among each other. It is good as it push Malaysia into the line in becoming a learning organization where the people is practices to be more innovate. This will certainly improve the competitiveness of an organization.

Malaysia tends to have high power distance scores. The employees accept and value unequal power, value obedience to authority, and are comfortable receiving commands from their superiors without consultation or debate. Besides, the prefer resolving differences or contradicting their boss indirectly through formal procedures. It is true that the employees should have a letter regarding to the issue discussed and they have to go step by step to get the approval from lower management until to the top management where the entire process is known as bureaucracy. Let's take for another example, the State Minister (as middle or lower management) should get the approval or support from the Prime Minister or Ministers (top management) before a project can be started and we can see that there is a strong hierarchical applied in Malaysia. the example is just similar to a common company where a trainer should get support from the top management of an organization before a training program can be started.

In the context of achievement-nurturing orientation, Malaysia is stand at the middle between achievement orientation and nurturing orientation. The employees, the working process and the results are not really achieving when compared to others like Japan. This might cause from the bureaucracy system which is applied strongly in Malaysia and it slows down the entire working process and reduces the efficiency of workers. The strong bureaucracy system might be one of the big factors that reduces the number of investors and this will directly affect Malaysia's income as a whole.

As a conclusion, Malaysia is still finding her way to improve and so were the other countries (competitors). The great competition among the countries is indirectly improve the life of their own citizens and this will also affect the wealth of a country.

My experiences in applying the three cross-cultural values

Individualism-collectivism

I experienced collectivism concept during 308 election in year 2008. During the 15 days before the election started, i was one of the working committee for party DAP (Democratic Action Party) in my hometown. We have about 60 of us and we were divided into several groups where every groups has their own duty. This is the most important activity that i took part before where we learn a lot from there. Working in a group have let us came out with a lot of ideasin a process of publishing a good magazine, the distribution of magazine, organizing a speech and etc. It is hard to apply individualism concept here where people are tend to miss up some of the important ideas and informations especially in the writing of an article where the article is published to read for all.

Power distance

The experiences of applying the concept took part during the Mandarin debate competition in my school. Our group applied lower power distance as the group leader empowered the group members where all of us brainstormed and have chance to speak out of our ideas about the topic discussed. Good idea which is related to the debate topic is accepted by the group leader and there was not much of procedures carried on in speaking out our ideas.

Achievement- nurturing

When recalled back to my past 20 years, i decided to put "entering into university" is my biggest achievement that i have achieved. Some of them may think this is not a really good achievement, but for me, getting my step into university is the starting point of the change of my life.

Penny Bassett (2004). Chinese and Australian Students' Cultural Perceptions: A Comparative Study [On-line] Available
http://eprints.vu.edu.au/archive/00000383/01/wp9_2004_bassett.pdf.Virtual Language Technologies, LLC (2001). Comparing Cultures, ALTA Language Services, Inc

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