EAST MEETS WEST MEETS MIDEAST - FURTHER EXPLORATIONS OF COLLECTIVISTIC AND INDIVIDUALISTIC WORK GROUPS

The extent of people's cultural beliefs of individualism or collectivism has been used to predict the effectiveness of many management practices. A key aspect of those characteristics is the relation of individualists and collectivists to members of their ingroup and outgroups. This study examined the implications of group membership for individuals' performance in a group setting through an experiment using Chinese, Israeli, and American subjects. The performance of individualists who thought they were working in an ingroup or an outgroup was lower than the performance of individualists working alone, whereas collectivists' performance was lower in an individual or outgroup context than in an ingroup context. Perceptions of individual and group efficacy and anticipated performance outcomes mediated the effects of the exogenous variables. A follow-up field survey showed support for a conceptual replication of the results.