Style Ethics in Thailand and the US for Managers - Essay Example

(Lattal, 2004) An is a summary or condensed version of the research report. The is organized, it identifies the general problem or research question and the general approach taken to implement the research. The abstract also briefly describes the people included in the study and one of the most important findings. Abstract has a length of 97 words which is three words shorter than the usual length for research abstracts. The research article to be critiqued is a comparison of the influence style ethics in Thailand and the U.S. for managers in two life stage (age) groups, early adulthood and middle adulthood. The abstract provides a clear idea about two important factors whether the research addressed the question of interest and whether it studied individuals or situations are relevant. Aside from giving information about the purpose of the study, it also includes who was included in the study as well as an overview of the findings and the implications of the findings to practice. The findings confirm that Eastern and Western cultures emphasize different influence styles. This is a confirmation of a previous research finding. The findings also indicate that life stage is as important as culture, and possibly more important than culture, in explaining the ethical perceptions of upward influence behavior. This involves the new discoveries or concepts from the research. The abstract is found on the first page of the research. It has the findings which provide the summary of the key components of the research. The abstract provides a short summary of the study. It includes the aim of the study, outline of the methodology and the main findings. The purpose of the abstract is to allow the readers to decide if the study is of interest to them Introduction of the problem (Kerlinger, 2003) The introduction section of the research paper describes the gap in knowledge that is addressed by the research study. In this section of the report, the researcher explains why the research was needed, why the study was carried out in the manner that it was and what the researcher is specifically asking or predicting. As the business world evolves from a nation-state focus to a global focus, managers who are proficient at understanding cultural differences should be more effective in exercising influence in culturally mixed situations. Research on how culture affects individuals' choices of upward influence strategies has been limited. This study provides a first step in the investigation of the interaction of age and culture on the upward influence ethics of managers. The primary goal of this study is to ascertain the interrelationship between life stage (age) and culture on the influence strategies employed by managers in order to identify compatibilities (or incompatibilities) in influence styles among age-culture groups. Review of related Literature (Beasley, 2003) This is a focused summary of what has already been published regarding the question or problem for which there is a gap in knowledge. The literature of the research article gives the readers' a picture of what is already known or has already been studied in relation to the problem and identifies where the gaps in knowledge may be. The literature review does not necessarily only include published research studies. It also may include published reports about issues related to practice or a description of a theory. A theory is a written description of how several factors may relate to and affect one each other. The factors described in a theory are usually abstract: that cannot be readily observed and immediately defined and recognized by everyone. The research report discusses a theory in its introduction section, the study tests and further explains the relationships proposed in that theory. The meta-category perspective is used in the research report. It is expected that the study will be based on this, and that is to examine some aspect of life events and perceptions affect the variables in the research. The literature review should reflect the current state of knowledge relevant to the study and identify any gaps or conflicts. It should include key or classic studies on the topic as well as up to date literature. There should be a balance of primary and secondary sources Related studies, on the other hand, are studies, inquiries, or investigations already conducted to which the present proposed study is related or has some bearing or similarity. They are usually unpublished materials such as manuscripts, theses, and dissertations. Since the study is based on existing theory, then the researcher already has an idea of what relationships to be found. These ideas are stated in the form of a hypothesis, a prediction regarding the relationships or effects of selected factors on other factors. For any study to include a hypothesis there must be some knowledge bout a problem of interest so that the researchers can propose or predict that certain relationships or effects may occur. The research provided two sections for the hypotheses: Life stage (age) hypotheses and Country culture hypotheses. Methods (Fawcett, 2004) The methods section of the research report describes overall process of implementing the research study, including who was included in the study, how information was collected, and what interventions, if any, were tested. The methods section describes those systematic procedure used to collect information to the reader. Participants' views on influence ethics were assessed using the Strategies of Upward Influence [SUI] instrument. The SUI consists of 38 short scenario items. Each item was measured on an 8-point Likert-type scale, where the value 8 indicated that an item was extremely acceptable for co-workers to use as a means of influencing a superior, and the value 1 indicated that an item was extremely unacceptable. Thus, the higher the score, the greater is the acceptability of a type of influence behavior. The research made use of quantitative methods which focus on the understanding and breaking down on the different parts of a phenomenon to see how they do or do not connect. Therefore, quantitative methods involve collecting information that is specific and limited to a particular parts or events of the research subject being studied. Methods sections of research reports usually include information about three aspects of the research method: sample, data collection procedure and the data analysis methods. Knowledge gaps that involve a concrete response or action lend themselves to a quantitative approach, in which each factor that might contribute to a problem is identified, defined, and measured. The researchers, using the quantitative approach, believe that knowledge can best be generated by breaking down a phenomenon into its different pieces and objectively measuring and examining each piece and its relationship to each other pieces. Sample (Bailey, 2004) A sample is the smaller group, or subset of the group, of interest that is studied in the research study. Describing the sample is important for understanding the results of quantitative study such as the research article being critiqued. The 501 participants in this study were managers and professionals from the U.S. and Thailand. Data were collected in the U.S. using a nation-wide mail survey, and the Thailand data were collected at the beginning of seminars on local business issues held at a university in Bangkok. It should be noted that the two data collections employed different methodologies, but share two very important commonalities. Both were voluntary and both were anonymous. In a mail survey, voluntarism and anonymity are reasonably easy to insure. The sampling subsection in the methods section of the research report describes how people were chosen for the study, what was done to find them, and what, if any, limits or restrictions were placed on who could participate in the study. Understanding samples and sampling is important part of making intelligent decisions about the use of research in practices therefore, samples and samplings should be discussed properly. Research procedures (Fowler, 2004) In addition to information about samples, the methods section usually includes information about procedures used in the study. Research procedures are similar because they are the specific actions taken by researchers to gather information about the problem being studied. Participants were instructed that there were no right or wrong answers, and that it was their perceptions that were important. They were asked to indicate the acceptability of co-workers engaging in the behavior described in each of the 38 scenario items as a means of influencing a superior. The participants were asked to indicate the acceptability of co-workers using these tactics, rather than reporting on activities in which they personally engaged, to encourage participants to be more willing to respond honestly. This approach has been found to reduce the possibility of participants ''faking'' desirable responses in studies that deal with sensitive information, such as upward influence attempts. In this study, the researchers used the Strategies of Upward Influence [SUI] measure to assess managerial upward influence strategies. The SUI consists of three dimensions that create a hierarchy of ethical influence behaviors: organizationally beneficial behaviors, self-indulgent behaviors, and destructive behaviors. These dimensions serve as the basis for our hypotheses regarding upward influence in organizations. Because the methods use in a quantitative study involve identifying specific aspects of a problem, the procedures involve actions to isolate and examine those particular aspects of pieces. The focus of the quantitative study is on clearly defining and examining selected aspects that are believed to be potentially relevant to the problem being studied. Therefore, procedures involve carefully defined repeated observations as set time intervals. Conclusions (Babbie, 2004) The conclusions in the research report specifically describe or discuss the researcher's final decisions or determinations regarding the research problem. The research report includes the implications for practice. The conclusion state either new knowledge or confirmation of previous knowledge. The goal of the research is to generate knowledge that can be used in management practice: in the conclusions section of a research report , the findings of the study are directly translated into that new knowledge: that is, the conclusions go beyond simply saying what was found in the study. They present the implications of or meaning of those for future practice. As such the conclusions of a research report is powerful. They are used as a basis for decisions about direct employee relations, whether one-on-one care or developing clinical standards or pathways that direct business management. Because of the power and importance attached the conclusions, the determinations and decisions described in the conclusions of the research report are carefully worded and list relevant limitations. "As noted previously, while both samples were collected anonymously from volunteer subjects, different collection techniques were used. As a result, the Thai sample may be described as more of a convenience sample than the U.S. sample. Additionally, the data are from one country in each of two different culture groups. Thus, the findings may not be generalizable to all countries within each culture group. Future research is needed to explore the cultural consistency of these relationships." The conclusion section of a research report has fewer unique research terms than does the rest of the report. One term that appears in the conclusion sections is the limitations. Limitations are the aspects of the study that create uncertainty concerning the meaning that can be derived from the study as well as the decisions that can be based on it. The description of the study's limitation addresses the beginning's section of the report such as the study's methods and samples. Aside from this, limitations do not mean that the results of the study are flawed or meaningless. They do indicate the boundaries or constraints to the knowledge generated by the research. Finally, the conclusion section of the research report contains recommendations for future research regarding the problem of interest. These recommendations directly address the limitations that have been described and suggest additional studies that are needed to further build on the new knowledge generated from the study described in the report. The implication for practitioners from this study, as well as from previous research, is that it may be nave to assume relative consistency in behavior within a culture. Results (Abramson, 2003) The results section of the research report summarizes the specific findings from the study. Almost no research report can give all of the information that was actually gathered during the research study, so the results section contains a summary or condensed version of what the authors believe are the most important findings. Data are the information collected in the study. Organizing and compiling data is called data analysis. This pulls elements or information together to present a clear picture of all the information collected, but it does not interpret or describe the implications for practice of the information. The data analysis methods used to summarize the information collected in a research study creates some unique language found in this section of the report. Results or findings are presented and reported in the form of numbers, words arranged in tables of solutions. The table for the presentation of results is entitled "Duncan multiple comparison test results for the four groups on the three influence dimensions". The variables that are tabulated are marked as Dimensions, Mean, Standard Deviation and Groups. Under the Dimensions column, there are organizationally beneficial behavior, self-indulgent behavior and destructive behavior. The results of the Mancova test. The research study on effects of culture and life stages collected information in the form of numbers, such as age, scores and proportions. Again, the authors did not list all the scores and data from all of the participants; rather they summarize the numbers in several forms, such as percentages, proportions, averages and standard deviations. The language that describes data analysis of information in numbers is called statistics, and the language of statistics is often some of the most intimidating language to readers in research. Overall, the researchers found that the Hofstede cultural values dimensions were generally ineffective in predicting country differences in influence ethics. In light of a growing body of literature that has questioned the utility of the Hofstede's values dimensions scores as cultural predictors Almost any research report, eve those that are mostly reporting results of interviews in the form of words, includes descriptive results. Descriptive results summarize information without comparing it to other information. The authors do not compare these findings to any other group; they simply describe what they found using language that summarizes the information such as percentages or averages. Statistical significance is important because of the need to be sure what was found in the small group of patients studied is not something that happened by chance rather than because of some factor that the research is studying. The findings regarding managers' perspectives on organizationally beneficial influence strategies were less definitive. Contrary to life stage theory, the researchers found no significant differences between younger and older U.S. managers in their views of the high acceptability of organizationally beneficial behaviors. Further, the researchers found that younger Thai managers viewed these influence behaviors as being more (rather than less) acceptable than older Thai managers. These findings are more consistent with the culture hypothesis, but only with respect to organizationally beneficial strategies being viewed as more acceptable in low power distance cultures. One plausible explanation for the younger Thai managers being more like the higher-scoring U.S. groups may be a crossvergence effect due to global technological and modernization developments. REFERENCES: Abramson, J.H. (2003). Survey Methods in Community Medicine. NY: Churchilll. Ader H, Mellenbergh G, eds. Research Methodology in the Social, Behavioural and Life Sciences. London: Sage Publications, 1999. Babbie, E. (2004). Survey Research Methods. 2nd Edition CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co Bailey D. Research for the Health Professional: A Practical Guide. London: Sage, 2004. Beasley D. Beasley's Guide to Library Research. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Brman A. Quantity and Quality in Social Research. London, New York: Routledge, 2003. Fawcett J, Downs FS. The Relationship of Theory and Research, 3rd ed. Philadelphia, F.A. Davis, 2004. Fowler F. Survey Research Methods, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2004. Kerlinger FN. Foundations of Behavioral Research, 4th ed. New York, NY, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2003. Lattal K, Perone M, eds. Handbook of Research Methods in Human Operant Behavior. New York: Plenum Press, 2004. Read More