Management Survey
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Research Methods in Management and Change in Africa

Management Survey

The purpose of the management survey is to gather extensive descriptive data about managers in African countries (by region, country, district and cultural/ethnic group), as there is currently a lack of information. Later, this information will be fed into management interviews, and management workshops, both to inform managers, and to gather additional corroborative information, and to develop more intensive case study material. 

The principal research tool is the management questionnaire, which is currently available in French and English Methods for gathering data must ensure comparison of data between countries and cultural/ethnic groups. These methods include the following.

A. Postal survey of individual managers

Postal survey of individual managers through an established management database [this is the preferred method which should always take precedence over other methods]. Steps to be taken are as follows:

Identify potential collaborators in target country with access to a database of managers (e.g. institutes of management in Anglophone countries with a membership database, chambers of commerce in Francophone countries, university management/ administrative school with a client or alumni database). Academic collaborators will be invited to be co-authors on resulting publications. ‘Practitioner’ collaborators will be provided with a report of the project that will be of benefit to their organization or membership.

Collaborators identify a representative sample of up to 1000 questionnaire (400 would normally be the minimum, with an anticipated response rate of 25% - a minimum of 100 completed questions per research site). Representation should be by geographical region, industry, size of organization, level of management (we would normally expect to see a larger sample sizes of middle managers) and, where possible and relevant, by ethnic/cultural group. Each questionnaire should be mailed out with a covering letter from the collaborating institution.

B. Postal survey based on database of businesses or organizations

A database of businesses or organizations may be held typically by a chamber of commerce.

In the same way as A. above, collaborators should be sought within the institute (this may typically be the  Head of Training).

A representative sample of 20-30 organizations should be selected (by geography, size and sector) for a possible uptake of 10-15 organizations, and the person responsible (typically HR manager) in each organization should be contacted (by post, and then if possible, followed up by telephone).

 It is anticipated that some of these organizations may be used as future participating organization in the organizational survey stage. This possibility  can be followed up by telephone.

C. Survey of managers on MBA and executive courses

This method, in universities and other institutions, should only be used to supplement other methods of data collection in the same country, not to replace them. For some academic collaborators, this may be the only opportunity of collecting data. Generally, these types of ‘convenience’ samples are not highly regarded in international publications. Supplementary samples of 50-100 practicing managers may be collected in this way. Samples of full-time students of non-practicing or potential managers should not be collected.

Typically this may be done at the end of a class, allowing up to 40 minutes for completion. 

Understanding the Management Questionnaire 

The structure of the questionnaire

The questionnaire comprises two separate forms referred to here as (A) Side One, items 1-27, and (B) Side Two, items 1-33.

  A. Side One - Organization:    a) current organization

                        Items 1-27        b) ideal organization

                                                c) direction of change

The first questionnaire (A) looks at organizational culture, and is based on the literature on organizational culture (Vertinski, Tse, Wehrung and Lee, 1990 is a good start, and some of the current questionnaire items are taken from their study) rather than societal/national culture: although levels of  hierarchy and strict rules, for example, may be explained by societal cultures such as power distance, uncertainty avoidance and others. Its purpose is to discern (a) the current situation in organizations; (b) the ideal, or the way that respondents would want their organization to be; and, (c) the way it seems to be going. (c) may differ from both the current situation and the ideal situation, and reflects respondents' perception of the direction of change (e.g. whether their organizational is becoming more centralized or less centralized).

No attempt has been made to construct discrete scales (a 'scale' is a number of items which contribute to the same concept or dimension, such as 'hierarchy',  or 'consultative decision-making') in the first questionnaire (A), although items are intended to capture information in the areas shown on the next page.

The intention is that factor analysis of items will provide relevant dimensions. For example data from 140 respondents from the South African Police Service provided four factors: 'people orientation' (items 20.people-oriented, 13.motivates, 16.inter-ethnic, 26.diverse-opinions, 21.consults, 12.equal-opps, 14.emp-relations, 8.ethical, 23.flexible, 22.formal 1.market); 'results orientation' (18.results, 9.successful, 19.management, 17.client-relations ); 'dynamics orientation' (5.centralized, 2.risk, 15.unions, 27.promotion, 3.objectives, 10.changing); and 'control orientation' (4.hierarchy, 7.rules, 6.authoritarian, 24.government), having fairly low scores on the first two and medium to high scores on the last two factors for current organization.

Relevant literature includes:

Vertinsky, I, Tse, D K, Wehrung, D A, and Lee, K-H, (1990) Organizational design and management norms: a comparative study of managers' perceptions in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and Canada, Journal of Management, 16(4), 853-67.

(Items 21-27 are adapted from one of the questionnaires used in this study. It is particularly relevant for pointing to the various elements of organizational culture and in thus doing brings together a lot of the literature in this area, particularly focusing on cross-cultural elements. This article also provides a good bibliography).

Alternative approaches are those provided by Hofstede, G (1994) The business of international business is culture, International Business Review, 3(1) 1-14. and Reynolds, P D (1986) Organizational culture as related to industry, position and performance: a preliminary report, Journal of Management Studies, 23(3), 333-45. Both these are examples of the dimensions approach to organizational culture, and are useful for providing conceptual frameworks for understanding aspects such as results focus, flexibility and risk taking in organizations.

Laurent, A (1989), A cultural view of change, in P Evans, Y Doz and A Laurent (eds) Human Resources Management in International Firms: Change Globalization, Innovation. 1989, London: Macmillan. This provides a cross-cultural view of change concerned with the nature of management, authority, organizational structure and relationships within the organization. It points to cultural differences in organizations being seen as instrumental and as social systems, and provides some basis for the assumptions in the current study that their are differences between instrumentality and humanism in organizations and management assumptions.

AREA                                      ITEM (VARIABLE LABEL)

                                                [items in italics are out of sequence]

Strategy in terms of:                 1. orientation towards the market (market)

                                                2. risk taking      (risk)

                                                3. clear objectives (objectives)

Structure in terms of                 4. very hierarchical (hierarchy)

                                                5. highly centralized (centralized)

Governance and decision-          6. very authoritarian (authoritarian)

making in terms of                   21. consults employees (consults)

Control in terms of                    7. many strict rules (rules)

                                               22. has clear and formal rules of action (formal)

                                               23. very flexible (flexible)

                                   24. bound by government regulation (government)

                                   25. influenced by family relationships (family)

Character in terms of                8. very ethical (ethical)

                                                9. very successful (successful)

                                               10. undergoing rapid change (changing)

                                               11. foreign owned (foreign)

Internal policies in terms of       12. provides equal opportunities for all (equal-opps)

                                                14. clear policies on employee relations (emp-relations)

Internal climate in terms of        13. motivates employees (motivates)

                                                15. strong trade unions (unions)

                                                16. inter-ethnic harmony (inter-ethnic)

                                                26. encourages diversity of opinions (diverse-opinions)

                                                27. much internal competition for promotion       (promotion)

External policies in terms of       17. clear policies on client/customer relations (client-relations)

                                                18. results oriented (results)

Management in terms of            19. high level of management expertise and skill (management)

People orientation in term of       20. has the well-being of its people as major objectiv (people-oriented)

B. Side Two - Management:                a) Me, as manager (participant response)

                        Items 1-33                  b) Managers generally in my organization (Observant response)                                            

                                                          c) The type of manager required for the future of the organization (ideal response)

  The items 1-10 represent various aspect of work MOTivation, and do not constitute a scale or scales. Item 10 refers specifically to the centrality of work (England, 1986), and items 6 (MOTgoals), 9 (MOTdirect) and 7 (MOTteam) also refer to McClelland's  (1987) Achievement, Power and Affiliation motives respectively.

Items 11-20 refer to the orientation toward the COLlective as being target specific (11.COLgroup, 18.COLrelatives, and 19.COLorganization) versus orientation to the self or INDividualism: depending only on self  (12.INDself, ), being assertive and confrontational (13.INDconfront), and being achievement oriented (20.INDachieve). This also has parallels, but may cut across a dimension of HUManism versus INSTrumentalism: the well being of people as main objective of organizations (14.HUMpeople), being completely ethical (17. HUMethics) versus seeing results as paramount (15.INSTresults) and condoning all business practices (16.INSTbusiness)

Relevant literature includes:

MOTIVATION (items 1-10)

Carr, J B (1979) Communicating and Relating. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamen/Cummings. Provides a related questionnaire on work motivators. Kelly, L, Whatley, A and Worthy, R (1991) 'Self appraisal, life goals and national culture: an Asian-Western Comparison, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 7(2), 164-73. This compares six life goals relating to community, family, leisure, religion, wealthy and work between Japan, US, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and Philippines. Alpander, G G and Carter, K D (1991) Strategic multinational intra-company differences in employee motivation, Journal of Managerial Psychology,  6(2), 25-32. This is based on Kafka's self-discovery checklist, and compares need for control, belonging, recognition, economic security and self-worth across 8 countries. England, G W (1986), National work meanings and patterns - constraints on management action. European Management Journal, 4(3) 176-84. Focuses on work centrality across countries (item 10) but also on specific work goals. Is one article from the wider literature on the Meaning of Work Study. McClelland, D C (1987) Human Motivation, Cambridge: CUP. Discusses in detail his theory of Achievement, Power and Affiliation motivation (note that Hofstede, G. [in 1991, Culture and Organizations, London: McGraw-Hill] correlates Achievement motivation with Masculinity and low Uncertainty Avoidance at the national cultural level).

ORIENTATION TO SELF, COLLECTIVE AND BUSINESS

Koopman, A (1991) Transcultural Management, Oxford: Basil Blakwell. This is a  text by a management practitioner about the building of a multicultural commercial organizatonal 'Cashbuild' in South Africa. Provides interesting insights into different concepts of human being from different cultural perspectives, and distinguishes individualism and communalism. Wagner, J A (1995). Studies of individualism-collectivism: effects on cooperation in groups, Academy of Management Journal,  38(1), 152-172.  Provides descriptions of collectivist and individualist attributes. Laurent,  A, (1989) - as above.

CULTURAL FACTORS

Lane, H W and DiStefano, J J (1992). International Management Behavior. Boston, MA: PWS-Kent.   Provides detailed descriptions of  cultural variables which have been used as a basis here, and draws on the work of F R Kluckholn and F L Strodtbeck,  (1961) Variations in Value Orientation, New York: Row, Peterson an Co. See also the work of F Trompenaars (1993) Riding the Waves of Culture, London: Nicholas Brealey, which also draws on the work of Kluckholn and Strodtbeck.

AREA                          ITEM (VARIABLE LABEL)

Work motivators.         1. preferring security of a steady job (MOTsecure)

(Carr, 1979, and           2. preferring work to be unpredictable (MOTunpredict)

see Kelly, Whatley         3. very ambitious to reach the top (MOTambition)

& Worthy, 1981,           4. freedom in job to adopt own approach (MOTautonomy)

Alpander & Carter,        5. eager for opportunities to learn and develop (MOTlearn)

1991, and                     6. setting self difficult goals (MOTgoals)

England, 1986,              7. enjoying above all else to work as part of a team (MOTteam)

McClelland (1987)          8. preferring above all else to work alone (MOTalone)

                                    9. preferring above all else to direct other people (MOTdirect)

                                   10. believing that work is the most important thing in life  (MOTwork)

Orientation towards      11. making sacrifices for the good of the group (COLgroup)

self, collective and        12. depending only on self (INDself)

business.                      13. being confrontational and assertive (INDconfront)

(Koopman, 1991,           14. regarding the well-being of is people as the objective of an Wagner, 1995,                                  organization (HUMpeople)

Laurent, 1989)              15. considering only the results of the organization as being                                                paramount                     (INSTresults)

                                    16. condoning all business practices if objectives are met  (INSTbusiness)

                                    17. believing that managers must act completely ethically (HUMethics)

                                    18. honouring responsibilities towards relatives (COLrelatives)

                                    19. being completely loyal to the organization, above all other things (COLorganization)

                                    20. believing that if one is motivated enough, anything can be achieved (INDachieve)

Cultural factors              21. believing that own achievement is based very much on

Lane & DiStefano,         outside forces (LOCexternal)

1992,                            22. basing decisions on pre-set principles rather than outcomes (TIMEpast)

                                    23. basing decisions on likely outcomes not on pre-set principles (TIMEfuture)

                                    24. believing that generally employees are not to be trusted (NATbad)

                                    25. having a complete democratic management style (NATgood)

                                    26. believing that reward should be based on status (RELhierarchy)

                                    27. believing that reward should be based on achievement (RELindividual)

                                    28. working through the hierarchy at all times (RELhierarchy)

                                    29. keeping a personal distance from subordinates (DISTprivate)

                                    30.socializing with subordinates outside work (DISTpublic)

                                    31. communicating openly (COMopen)

                                    32. giving subordinates open access to information (INFopen)

Level of management     33. a high level of management knowledge and skills (MANhigh)

AfricaManagement.org © Terence Jackson 2002