Dr Jamal Khan :
(From previous issue)
One, simultaneously, comes across a perceptible insufficiency of appreciation for and undertaking of the sociological aspects of management, change, growth, development and empowerment. Sociologically-induced organisational behaviour and managerial leadership are, in part, generalisable and, in another part, particularistic.
Social attitudes, beliefs and values vary in courts around the world and operate at different levels in diverse ways. Socio-cultural variables conditioning public management in, for example, Bangladesh point to attitudes regarding organisational use of information and patterns of organisational confidentiality; social distance that is created and sustained over time between managers and personnel and personnel and customers; pervasive and persistent hierarchy tend to produce false social distinction, status consciousness and social inequality; offering and receiving bribery to obtain outputs and rationalising such transactions as fair service charge; and it has long been traditional for people to spend their lives working for some organisations or sectors, although there appears to have been some shift in this belief and practice in recent years.
These are few examples, but there are many more. Bringing our discourse to an end, each national culture has a unique – but some generic – effect on institutions/organisations operating in that culture and this effect, ultimately, tends to constitute the primary pathology of the organisations.
(Dr Jamal Khan was professor of public sector management at the University of the West Indies. [email protected].)
(Concluded)
