The Challenges of Multiculturalism for the American Church

Malcolm Webber, Ph.D.

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Our Parochial Models and Theories of Organizational Leadership

According to Nancy Adler (1997), until recently, much of the published understanding of "secular" leadership and management came from the American experience.

American managers and American-trained researchers observed the behavior of people in U.S.-based organizations. From their observations and research, they developed models and theories to explain organizational and managerial behavior. The problem was in their assumption: they implicitly assumed that what was true for Americans working in the United States was also true for people from other countries. Both managers and researchers assumed that American work behavior was universal. They were wrong. (Adler, 1997, p. v)

The vast majority of management schools are in the United States, and the majority of management professors and researchers are American trained (Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991). Pfeffer (1985) has argued that just as scholars’ methodological and theoretical choices color the development of a field, so too do their ideological biases. This includes the American bias brought to the field of organizational behavior by its primarily U.S.-trained and -based founders and scholars. With the United States explicitly recognized by anthropologist Edward Hall (1976) as a low context culture, it is not surprising that U.S.-trained scholars habitually underemphasize contextual factors. Moreover, the majority of management research focuses on the United States: American researchers study American firms, American perspectives and questions most salient to American managers, rather than systematically including either non-U.S. sites or issues (Alder, 1983). Consequently, Americans have developed organizational theories and models without being sufficiently aware of non-U.S. contexts, models, research and values, thus imbuing management science with implicit, and inappropriate, universalism. For example, Hofstede (1980b, pp. 49-62) questioned the usefulness and appropriateness for cultural contexts other than the U.S., of models such as Maslow’s popular Needs Hierarchy (motivation theory), McClelland’s Need for Achievement (motivation theory), Likert’s System 4 Management Model (leadership theory), and Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Grid (leadership theory).

Although it is convenient and perhaps tempting to do so, prudence would not assume universality for current American-based theories. As Triandis (1983) observed, culture’s

influence for organizational behavior is that it operates at such a deep level that people are not aware of its influences. It results in unexamined patterns of thought that seem so natural that most theorists of social behavior fail to take them into account. As a result, many aspects of organizational theories produced in one culture may be inadequate in other cultures. (p. 139)

Recognizing culture’s profound influence on the development of theories is difficult (Triandis, 1972). As Hall (1959) observes, if culture is invisible, one’s own culture is most invisible. Culture to an organizational researcher or leader is like water to a fish: the fish does not recognize that water even exists until it is caught and exposed to a whole new paradigm! In the same way, many American managers and leaders, who only understand organizational models and processes that are U.S.-specific first realize their limitations when they find themselves embroiled in mystifying cross-cultural inadequacies or conflicts.

Heavily influenced by secular organizational theories, many American models and theories of church organization and leadership were also "made in the U.S.A." and shaped by the political, economic, and cultural context of the United States. American church leaders and researchers have studied the behavior of Americans in American churches, and developed models and theories to explain organizational behavior in churches. Furthermore, they have interpreted biblical references to church structure and life in the light of their own cultural predispositions. As with their secular mentors, the problem was in their implicit assumption that what was true for Americans in churches in the United States, was (or, at least, should be) also true for people from other countries in American churches. Thus, researchers and leaders in American churches have been as parochial as their secular counterparts.

Much that is promoted in current American church growth and leadership models has been largely "imported" from American secular theories of management and organization, and suffers the same encumbrance of being shaped by and for the American culture (e.g., Maxwell, 1995; 1998; Warren, 1995; Barna, 1992; Joyner, 1994; McLaren, 1998; Hawkins, 1997; Dale, 1996). This approach, while yielding valuable models and theories regardin ricans in American churches is, however, quite inadequate for a church landscape that is becoming increasingly multicultural in scope and mission. Moreover, little research yet exists explaining the specific ways in which American-based church growth and leadership theories must be altered to become applicable in a ministry context that is rapidly changing. Consequently, as Ortiz (1996) laments, "at this time we, the church in the U.S., are a great disappointment in terms of manifesting the new community founded in Christ Jesus and called to worship the King of the kingdom in the ministry of reconciliation…in this world of ever increasing diversity" (p. 45).

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« Introduction

Our Parochial Models and Theories of Organizational Leadership

America is Changing »

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© Malcolm Webber, Ph.D., www.healthyleaders.org.

Reproduced on this web site by permission.