Systemic Conservatism in North American Organizations

Abstract

Rational theories of organizational decision-making have shown that organiza tional outcomes and performance reflect a mixture of behavioural, structural and contextual factors, such as the goals of managers, the size and function of the organization, and the condition of the external environment. Critiques of this model suggest that non-rational factors such as national or systemic cultural values also affect the decision-making process. This article treats Canada and the United States as similar systems that differ in the degree to which their cultures embody conservative values. The author hypothesizes that the expenditure pat terns of organizations in the two countries will reflect this variation in systemic conservatism, and tests this expectation against data from a longitudinal sample of firms from three industries in each of the two countries. The analysis suggests that the impact and relative importance of the factors included in rational models of decision-making differ in Canada and the U.S. in ways that are consistent with the systemic conservatism hypothesis.