Article

Work meaning among

mid-level professional
employees: A study of the
importance of work centrality
and extrinsic and intrinsic
work goals in eight countries

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

49(3) 264284
! The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1038411111413217
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K Peter Kuchinke
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Alexandre Ardichvili
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Margaret Borchert
University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

Edgard B Cornachione Jr
University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Maria Cseh
George Washington University, Washington DC, USA

Hye-Seung (Theresa) Kang

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

Seok Young Oh
Korean Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training,
Seoul, Korea

Andrzej Polanski
Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland

Urmat Tynaliev
University of Central Asia, Bishkek, The Kyrgyz Republic

Elena Zavjalova
St Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia

Corresponding author:
Professor K Peter Kuchinke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 355 Education, 1310 S. Sixth Street,
Champaign, IL 61820, USA
Email: Kuchinke@illinois.edu

Kuchinke et al.

265

Abstract
We conducted a survey-based study on the meaning of work of some 1500 mid-level
professional employees in private and public organizations in eight countries. Using the
country clustering described in the GLOBE series of studies and the theoretical framework of the Meaning of Work study, five hypotheses were tested. The study found support
for the universal valuation of work and family as major life domains and the relative
importance of leisure, religion, and community involvement. Work centrality was related
in differentiated ways to performance orientation, assertiveness, and humane orientation
indices. Extrinsic and intrinsic work goals differed and were related to country clustering.
The report concludes with implications for the theory and practice of human resource
development and offers suggestions for further research.
Keywords
cross-cultural research, GLOBE, meaning of work, work values, work centrality

Few topics over the past thirty years have captured as much attention in the broader
social science literature and the popular business press as the changing nature of
work, with its eects on countries, organizations, families, and individuals giving
rise to a broad literature on new careers and new work. Far from presenting a uniform
picture of the eects of changing work provisions, the literature points to highly
dierentiated and complex sets of responses and assessments of the value of work
in the new economy (for example, Baldry et al. 2007; Cooper and Burke 2002; Hall
2004; Volti 2008; Wrzesniewski 2001). While much of this research has focused on
changes in objective provisions of work, the concern of human resource management
is with the coherent and strategic management of individuals, groups, and other
subsets of employees. Thus a deeper understanding of how individuals experience
work and its changing nature is essential in a rapidly globalizing economy. The
focus on the subjective meaning of work can provide insight into the construction
of work as subjectively experienced and oers information about how individuals
make sense of, negotiate, and navigate the new work environment.
Despite its central role in guiding behavior at work, empirical cross-cultural HR
research on the topic is underdeveloped. To help advance understanding and explore
implications for research and practice, a group of researchers from countries around
the world convened in late 2007 to plan and implement a multi-country empirical
study focused on the core question of similarities and dierences in subjective understanding of work in a diverse set of cultures, countries, and economies around the
world. The population was dened broadly as mid-level professional level employees,
such as managers, engineers, accountants, and human resource professionals,
employed in medium and large public and private organizations in their respective
countries, and working full-time in diverse sectors and industries. The choice of this
volunteer population was determined by accessibility, but more importantly by their
role as current or future leaders in their organizations. Mid-level managers and professionals with comparatively high levels of education belong to the class of symbolic
analysts, characterized by Reich (1991) as individuals with potentially high impact on

266

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

their organizations success because of their education, experience, and skills levels.
Symbolic analysts are also viewed as the winners of globalization: as compared to
routine production workers and those providing personalized services, their career
prospects with the current employers are high and their skills in demand and portable
to other organizations. Because of the value of their professional contributions, midlevel professionals tend to be relatively well compensated but also often experience
high work loads, face intense time pressures, and work long hours (Shor 1991).
Collaborators from eight countries (Brazil, Germany, Hungary, South Korea,
Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Russia, and USA) formed the research team. These countries
are aligned with ve clusters empirically developed in previous research, namely the
Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Eectiveness (GLOBE) series of
studies, a long-term program of research in 62 countries focused on the relationship
between societal culture, organizational culture, and organizational leadership (House
et al. 2004).
This study, then, presents the rst attempt in the HR literature to examine the
subjective denition of work in the context of ve empirically derived societal clusters,
and allows us to test hypotheses about the characteristics of the specic cultures and
the subjective denition of work held by mid-level business professionals. By linking
the results from the large-scale GLOBE series of studies to the meaning of work, this
study extends the research on societal cultures and examines the relationship of societal characteristics to the subjective denition of work.

Theoretical framework and hypotheses

Theoretical framework
The stream of research, known as the Meaning of Work (MOW) studies, was initiated
by England and colleagues (MOW International Research Team 1987) in a landmark
study of participants in eight industrialized nations to investigate the meaning that
working adults attach to one of the most important life roles, working. This study,
and the follow-up studies it spawned, focused on working as carried out in organizational settings, for pay, and in employment relationships. It excluded other forms
of working, such as volunteer, family, household, community, or church work, selfemployment, and avocational activities, such as working on ones hobby. The signicance of the focus is due to the importance of work in individuals lives: For the better
part of an adults life, working occupies a majority of time, generates economic and
socio-psychological benets and costs, and is closely linked to other domains of life
(England and Harpaz 1990). As John Dewey observed, work is the primary means by
which individuals connect with the broader society though contributing eort and
receiving benets in various forms (Dewey 1930).
The MOW project and its follow-up studies (for example, Ardichvili 2005; Harpaz
and Fu 2002; Kuchinke et al. 2009) concentrated on ve primary domains: work
centrality, desired working conditions, work outcomes, work role identications,
and social norms about working. Eorts to rene the dimensionality and validity
of the construct are ongoing, with some studies reporting results at the item level
(for example, England and Harpaz 1990), while others posit relative stability of a

Kuchinke et al.

267

smaller number of factors over time (for example, Snir and Harpaz 2002). For the
purposes of this study, the survey focused on the two dominant work goals found to
be consistent internationally, across dierent organizational levels, between genders,
and among dierent age categories in a seven-country study (n 8192) (Harpaz 1990),
namely the extrinsic goal of nancial rewards and the intrinsic goal of interesting and
challenging tasks.
The GLOBE study presents an important advancement in the understanding of
cross-cultural dierences, not only because of its recency compared to competing and
popular frameworks by Hofstede (1984), Trompenaars (1993), and Triandis (1995),
but more importantly because of its inductive theory development involving over
170 social scientists from 62 cultures and countries, and surveying more than
17 000 managers in more than 950 organizations (Javidan, House and Dorfman
2004; Javidan et al. 2006).
In addition to identifying nine cultural dimensions, the GLOBE project resulted in
the creation of ten regional clusters, composed of countries that have similar cultural
dimensions (examples of countries in each cluster are provided in parentheses): Anglo
(the USA, UK, Canada); Latin Europe (France, Italy); Nordic Europe (Finland,
Sweden); Germanic Europe (Austria, Germany); Eastern Europe (Hungary, Russia,
Kazakhstan); Latin America (Argentina, Brazil); Sub-Saharan Africa (Namibia,
Zambia); Middle East (Egypt, Kuwait); Southern Asia (India; Malaysia); and
Confucian Asia (China; Japan) (Gupta and Hanges 2004).
Our study included samples from the following ve clusters: Germanic Europe
(Germany), Latin America (Brazil), Confucian Asia (South Korea), Anglo (USA),
and Eastern European (Russia, Poland, and Hungary). Responses from Kazakhstan,
belonging to the GLOBE Eastern European cluster, could not be obtained and the
researchers decided to include instead responses from Kyrgyzstan, a country in close
geographic proximity, common religion, and common recent political and economic
history. We argue that Kyrgyzstan is a close substitute for Kazakhstan in this case,
since these countries share many common characteristics and are, at the same time,
signicantly dierent from the above two groups of countries of the Eastern
European cluster. These two countries not only share the geographic space, but
also share ethnic roots (Turkic), and dominant religion (Muslim); both have a signicant share of Russian and Russian-speaking population; both have been dominated by Russia for more than 150 years, and later were part of the former USSR;
both Kazakhs and Kyrgyz had similar nomadic cultures in the recent past; the economies of both countries were closely related for many years, and are still signicantly
related.

Hypotheses
The original MOW research reported that work was ranked among the most important dominant life concerns and several follow-up studies have conrmed this ranking
(Ardichvili 2005; England 1991; Harding and Hikspoors 1995; Harpaz 1999;
Kuchinke et al. 2009). With numerous economic and political changes occurring
between the original study and the follow-up studies conducted in 1990s and early
2000s, the question arises whether the trend towards high work centrality continues or

268

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

if individuals retreat into non-work areas of life in response to the churning of the
economy. We assumed that the trend would continue despite the global economic
crises, and, therefore, hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 1: All countries in our sample will be high on work centrality, and work will
be ranked higher than other life domains in each country.

Our next hypotheses were related to the three GLOBE dimensions that appear
especially important to the relationship between culture and work meaning:
Performance Orientation, Assertiveness, and Humane Orientation.
According to Javidan (2004, 239), Performance orientation reects the extent to
which a community encourages and rewards innovation, high standards, and performance improvement. High performance orientation societies tend to emphasize
results more than relationships with people, value nancial bonuses and rewards,
and utilize performance appraisal systems that emphasize achieving results, while
societies with lower performance orientation tend to emphasize quality of life, seniority and experience in promotions, value who a person is more than what the person
does, and regard merit pay as destructive to group harmony (Javidan 2004, 245). The
GLOBE results show that the United States and South Korea belong to the high band
on Performance Orientation scores; Germany, Brazil, and Poland to the middle band;
and Hungary, Russia, and Kazakhstan to the low band. We hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 2: Countries high on Performance Orientation will also be high on work
centrality and importance of nancial rewards.

The GLOBE dimension of Assertiveness is dened as beliefs as to whether people

are or should be encouraged to be assertive, aggressive, and tough, or nonassertive,
nonaggressive, and tender in social relationships (Den Hartog 2004, 395). Societies,
high on Assertiveness tend to value competition and merit pay, and place a high value
on the importance of the tasks performed during work. In the GLOBE study, Brazil,
Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and the United States were in the
high band on Assertiveness scores, while Poland and Russia were in the medium band
(Den Hartog 2004, 420). The meaning of work project measured work centrality but
also included factors related to work-role identication, including the importance of
the type of tasks performed during work and the amount of nancial compensation
received. In many previous studies, respondents indicated a clear preference of nancial aspects over the type of task performed (for example, England and Harpaz 1990)
but no previous research was located that linked the cultural dimension of
Assertiveness to these facets of the meaning of work. Thus, we proposed the following
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Countries high on Assertiveness will also be high on work centrality, task
focus, and nancial rewards.

Humane Orientation is dened as the degree to which a collective encourages and

rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others

Kuchinke et al.

269

(Javidan et al., 2004, 30). Previous MOW research had found high levels of importance of work and family but had not linked it to the underlying cultural dimension of
humane orientation. Our study includes those that had been classied by GLOBE as
scoring in the middle band (Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Russia, and the United
States) and in the lowest band (Germany, Hungary, and Poland). Therefore, our
hypothesis, related to Humane Orientation (HO), is:
Hypothesis 4: Countries, high on Humane Orientation, will be high on importance ratings for community, family, religion and leisure compared to work

Our nal hypothesis is related to country clustering. As mentioned earlier, countries in our study represent ve GLOBE clusters: Germanic, Latin America,
Confucian, Anglo, and Eastern European. According to Gupta and Hanges (2004),
country clustering provides numerous benets, including ability to focus theory development eorts, and to provide more practical recommendations for managing complex multicultural organizations. Our sample covers 50% of GLOBE clusters and
contains countries from three continents. Thus, we are well positioned to test a
hypothesis that, based on meaning of work variables, countries in our sample form
clusters aligned with the GLOBE clusters:
Hypothesis 5: Countries will form clusters aligned with GLOBE results for country
clustering.

Method
Summary information on the eight countries in our study is presented in Table 1.
As can be seen from the table, in addition to representing variety of national cultures,
these countries represent a wide spectrum of levels of economic and human
development.
To answer the research questions about the structure of the meaning of work, we
conducted a eld study that resulted in 1542 usable survey responses from Brazil,
Germany, Hungary, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Russia, and the United
States. While a representative country-level sampling strategy was beyond the scope
of this project (as it is beyond the scope of all survey-based eld research), attempts
were made to represent a broad spectrum of participants drawn from a diverse set of
industries, organizations, positions, and demographic characteristics.
Each of the authors of this article had primary responsibility for data collection in
their respective home country. During the planning phase of project, the research
team communicated in person and via e-mail to identify the sampling strategy, instrument selection and translation, and data collection procedures. In four of the countries (Brazil, Germany, Poland, United States), participants were recruited from a
pool of participants of part-time graduate level executive university programs in business administration and human resources with the respective authors serving as
course instructors. The survey was taken on-line and outside of the class time; two
reminder e-mails were sent one and two weeks after the rst announcement.

270

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

Table 1. Economic and demographic characteristics and human development index (HDI) data
for eight countries

Brazil
Germany
Hungary
Korea
Kyrgyzstan
Poland
Russia
USA

Population
(in millions)a

GDP
(billion dollars)a,b

GDP/capita
(dollars)a

GDP annual
growth rate (%)a

HDIc

201
82
10
49
6
38.5
139
310

2 194
2 951
190
1 467
12
722
2 229
14 720

10 900
35 900
19 000
30 200
2 200
18 800
15 900
47 400

7.5
3.3
.8
6.1
3.5
3.3
3.8
2.8

.70
.89
.81
.88
.60
.80
.72
.90

CIA World Fact Book, data for 2010. Accessed at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.
Purchasing Power Parity.
c
Higher numbers indicate higher levels of HDI. Accessed at http://hdrstats.undp.org/.
b

In Hungary, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia, members of the research team
obtained participants by contacting selected organizations directly using their professional network and selecting a wide variety of dierent industries and sectors. Subjects
were recruited via e-mail and personal communication. Response rates diered by
country, ranging from a high of 78% in Poland to 7% in Russia. In the United States,
Germany, Brazil and South Korea, subjects were directed to a password-protected
Internet website to complete and submit the questionnaire. In Kyrgyzstan, Russia,
Poland, and Hungary, paper copies of the survey were distributed and the completed
forms returned to the researcher. A total of 13 922 invitations for participation were
issued and 1539 completed and usable responses were received, for an overall response
rate of 11%. Because of the anonymous nature of the on-line survey, non-response
bias could not be measured in any meaningful manner, nor can the survey results be
linked back to the employing organizations.
The survey instrument for this eld study was taken from the original MOW study
representing the empirically tested model developed by the MOW international
research team and designed to capture the multidimensionality and richness embodied in attitudes to work and work values (Snir and Harpaz 2002, 190). The survey
items represented the absolute and relative work centrality, lottery question, importance of nancial rewards, and importance of work tasks performed in the context of
working. The survey items were discussed by the members of the research team to
determine face validity and subsequently translated into the native language of each
country. Associates of the members of the research team in each country were asked
to back-translate the instruments into English, and the versions compared and nalized. In each country, the survey was administered to pilot groups of 1015 individuals who provided qualitative feedback on the content and format of the questions.
While this process assured translation equivalence, metric and construct equivalence
was not measured, and this will constitute an objective for future research.
To eliminate the eects of diering cell sizes in country-level comparisons, data sets

Kuchinke et al.

271

were adjusted by randomly selecting 105 responses from each country for an overall
number of 840 completed surveys from the eight countries.

Findings
One-way analyses of variance of demographic characteristics of the country-specic
samples, presented in Table 2, showed signicant dierences on all three characteristics (age: F 12.81, p < 0.000, df (7,812); education: F 20.48, p < 0.000, df (7,811);
and gender: F 26.25, p < 0.000, df (7,825)). Schee post-hoc tests showed that the
respondents from the eight countries were close in age, with only the youngest
(Poland) and oldest (Germany) belonging to distinctly dierent subgroups
(alpha 0.05). Education levels diered, with respondents from Russia and
Hungary reporting, on average, lower levels and those from Poland and Korea
higher levels. The samples from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, the United States, and
Hungary had, on average, a higher percentage of females than those from Poland,
Brazil, South Korea, and Germany. Overall, the respondents from these eight countries were in their mid-career stage (average age: 37 years), slightly more male (42%
female), and more than one-half (52%) had earned a Masters degree or higher. To test
for the potential eects of these demographic characteristics and to avoid the potential for confounding eects, subsequent analyses used age, gender, and education
levels as controls.
Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for all variables in this study were
obtained (Table 3). The overall scale reliability was alpha 0.90, with country-level
indices ranging from 0.69 (Hungary and Kyrgyzstan) to 0.91 for Germany. Zeroorder correlations were predominantly small (r < |0.29|) with only two coecients
of medium-size (|0.30| < r < |0.49|) (Cohen 1988), indicating a stronger relationship
between the importance of religion and community involvement relative to work.

Table 2. Demographic characteristics of respondents

Brazil
Germany
Hungary
Korea
Kyrgyzstan
Poland
Russia
United States
Total
N 1539.

Respondents

Response
rate (%)

Age: mean,
(SD)

Gender:
% male

Education: %
Masters
degree and higher

139
211
130
416
105
162
202
174
1542

23
8
13
9
11
79
7
34
11

35.91
44.53
37.37
36.59
34.17
32.62
34.18
39.60
36.94

72
80
42
69
26
61
27
30
58

74
44
43
81
28
82
28
54
52

(8.38)
(9.73)
(8.25)
(6.05)
(11.13)
(6.51)
(12.88)
(1.32)
(9.61)

2.29
10.06
.62
.50
1.18
.72
1.33
1.63
1.98
.98
1.28
1.19

5.31
3.63
3.30
6.56
5.11
5.70

SD

4.50
36.45
1.66
1.51
5.56
2.43

N 1539.
Note: p .05 or smaller for Pearsons r < |.08|.

1 Country
2 Age
3 Education
4 Gender
5 Absolute work centrality
6 Lottery
Relative importance of
7 Leisure
8 Community
9 Religion
10 Family
11 Financial rewards
12 Work tasks

.07
.15
.15
.07
.34
.19

.11
.12
.17
.05
.07

.08
.05
.05
.04
.00
.05

.03
.16
.17
.08

Table 3. Means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations

.02
.08
.02
.00
.10
.01

.15
.01
.02

.05
.09
.03
.05
.21
.05

.13
.05

.07
.13
.10
.24
.29
.40

.07

.02
.05
.05
.00
.02
.10

.34
.13
.35
.21
.20

1.00
.35
.15
.26
.10

.13
.08
.04

.24
.23

10

.26

11

272
Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

Kuchinke et al.

273

None of the demographic items were correlated strongly with any of the meaning of
work items and only a small number of correlations were negative.
Means, standard deviations, and country comparisons are displayed in Table 4 that
shows the results of analyses of variance with Schee post-hoc tests for each variable.
In the table, superscripts indicate pairwise post-hoc tests using the Schee method.
Countries with dierent superscripts dier at a signicance level of alpha 0.05.
Absolute work centrality ranked high in each country and Schee post-hoc test
using harmonic means showed two subsets of countries. Respondents from
Hungary indicated the low level of work centrality while those from Germany,
Korea, and, interestingly, Kyrgyzstan reported higher levels. Compared to the importance of other life domains measured in this study, work centrality ranked second to
the importance of family. The relative importance of family compared to work was
uniformly high and there were no dierences in the responses to this aspect of the
meaning of work among the respondents from our eight countries.
When conducting an analysis of variance with absolute work centrality as dependent
variable and controlling for age, gender, and education levels, country membership was
shown as the strongest predictor (F(7,815) 5.63, p < 0.000) and an eect size of Etasquared 0.05, considered close to medium size (Pierce, Block and Aguinis 2004). The
three demographic characteristics had a smaller inuence on the perceived centrality of
work in respondents lives. Age appeared positively related to work centrality
(Beta 0.16, Eta-squared 0.03) while gender and education levels contributed only
a small amount of variance to the criterion variable. The analysis of the three items in
the lottery question added interesting detail to the question about the centrality of work
in the work lives of mid-level professionals in our study. For the entire sample, the
majority of respondents (56%) indicated the preference to continue working under
changed conditions, and only 12% selected the choice to stop working altogether if
the necessity to earn a living was removed because of a large lottery win. When comparing the responses for each country, however, a more dierentiated picture emerged.
Respondents from the United States indicated a greater preference for the stop working option than those from the other countries, and the main eect for country membership had a large eect size of Eta-squared 0.13, (p < 0.000, Schee post-hoc). This
result was independent of the control variables of gender and education. Only age
showed a small eect on this variable, but the eect size was small and the result
considered an artifact of the sample size. In summary, hypothesis 1 was supported
by our analyses: Respondents from all eight countries in our sample indicated a high
level of importance for the centrality of work in their lives, but this role was viewed as
second to the importance of family.
The second hypothesis was related to the role of Performance Orientation (PO) to
predict work centrality and the importance of nancial rewards for work. We assigned
dummy codes to the eight countries according to the GLOBE clustering, with respondents from Korea and the United States in the high PO band, those from
Brazil, Germany, and Poland in the medium band, and those from Hungary,
Kyrgyzstan, and Russia in the low band. Using a step-wise multiple regression
with the control variables of age, gender, and education entered in step one, we
assessed the eects of PO bands on work centrality and task orientation. The overall model summary for absolute work centrality showed signicant overall PO band

(1.69)l
(1.64)n,o
(2.08)q,r
(1.55)t
(1.64)v,w
(1.72)y

5.43
3.43
2.24
6.68
4.72
5.98

(1.23)l,m
(1.46)n,o
(1.83)p
(.73)t
(.75)v
(1.02)z

.20 (.40)c,d
.15 (.36)e
.64 (.48)h,I,k

.02 (.14)c
.13 (.34)e
.78 (.42)i.k

4.76
3.46
3.43
6.29
5.11
4.97

5.10 (1.42)a

5.27 (1.50)a,b

5.52
4.04
2.79
6.35
5.52
6.04

(1.26)m
(1.49)o
(1.93)p,q
(1.07)t
(.86)w,x
(.94)y,z

.05 (.21)c,d
.15 (.36)e
.80 (.40)

5.80 (.93)b

Germany
(M, SD)

5.26
4.15
3.07
6.52
5.97
5.79

(1.09)l,m
(1.32)o
(1.69)p,q,r
(1.01)t
(.84)x
(.87)z

.09 (.28)c,d
.48 (.50)f
.42 (.50)g,h

5.84 (.91)b

Korea
(M, SD)

5.53
3.33
3.93
6.63
4.00
5.94

(1.13)m
(1.97)n,o
(2.07)r,s
(.92)t
(1.04)u
(1.20)y,z

.07 (.25)c,d
.38 (.49)f
.55 (.50)h,i

5.84 (1.20)b

Kyrgyzstan
(M, SD)

5.30
3.79
3.81
6.65
5.88
5.72

(1.09)l,m
(1.32)o
(1.69)r,s
(.80)t
(.87)x
(.84)z

.08 (.28)c,d
.50 (.50)f
.42 (.50)g,h

5.55 (1.02a,b

Poland
(M, SD)

5.46
2.73
3.07
6.65
3.97
5.78

(1.27)m
(1.72)n
(1.86)p,q,r
(.77)t
(1.05)u
(1.25)y,z

.10 (.31)c,d
.29 (.45)e,f
.61 (.49)h,I,k

5.42 (1.10)a,b

Russia
(M, SD)

5.27
4.12
4.12
6.69
5.60
5.42

(1.45)l,m
(1.47)o
(1.95)s
(.64)t
(1.03)w,x
(1.08)y,z

.43 (.50)d
.30 (.46)e,f
.26 (.44)g

5.67 (1.03)a,b

USA
(M, SD)

N 840.
Notes: All scales are 7 point Likert with 1 low, except for Lottery questions coded 0 no, 1 yes. Same superscript indices indicate membership of homogeneous subset
following Scheffe post-hoc analyses with alpha 0.05.

Absolute work centrality

Lottery
Stop working
Continue same
Continue different
Relative importance of
Leisure
Community
Religion
Family
Financial rewards
Task importance

Hungary
(M, SD)

Brazil
(M, SD)

Table 4. Descriptive statistics and country comparisons

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Kuchinke et al.

275

eect after controlling for the demographic characteristics (R2adj 0.04, p < 0.001)
but the contribution of PO was slight (R2change 0.01, p < 0.05). All independent
variables were related positively with work centrality, suggesting an increase in this
construct for males, older individuals, and those with higher levels of education.
A somewhat clearer picture emerged with respect to the prediction of task orientation. Here, none of the demographic variables were entered into the nal model and
only PO emerged as predictive. The negative standardized regression coecient
(Beta 0.116, p < 0.001) suggests a lower importance ranking of the intrinsic work
dimension of challenging and rewarding tasks for countries higher in PO. As before,
however, much unexplained variance remained with PO explaining about 2% of
variance (R2adj 0.02, p < 0.001). In summary, the second hypothesis received support
in our study. Both work centrality and task orientation were related to PO.
Demographic characteristics explained a part of the variance for the former but not
the latter. Work centrality scores increased for countries higher in PO and the intrinsic
work goal of task orientation decreased. For both dependent variables, only a small
portion of the variance was explained, suggesting an underspecied model in our
study and the need for follow-up research to more fully explain the outcomes of
the meaning of work dimensions.
Hypothesis 3 sought to examine the relationship between the GLOBE cultural
dimension of Assertiveness and the meaning of work. Respondents from the eight
countries represented medium (Poland and Russia) and high (Brazil, Germany,
Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, United States) bands on Assertiveness in the
GLOBE study. Using dummy coding for Assertiveness levels, stepwise multiple
regression analyses were performed for work centrality, task orientation, and the
importance of nancial rewards, controlling, again, for age, education levels, and
gender. Absolute work centrality could be predicted by age and gender
(R2adj 0.04, p < 0.001), and older and male employees tended to score higher than
younger and female individuals. Assertiveness levels, however, did not add to the
variance explained. When using the lottery questions as indicators of Work
Centrality, Assertiveness contributed signicantly to the decision to continue working
in the same job but not to the decision to stop working or to continue working under
changed conditions. The regression slope was positive, indicating that participants
from countries higher on Assertiveness also showed a preference to continue working
even when the necessity to earn a living was removed. In this instance, however, the
amount of additional variance explained was less than 2% and the overall model
accounted for 4% (R2adj 0.04, p < 0.001). Demographic characteristics and country
assertiveness levels were not related to the importance rating of interesting and challenging tasks. The importance of nancial rewards, nally, was predicted by gender.
Male respondents across all eight countries score higher than females (t (822) 6.06,
p < 0.001) with 4% of variance explained (R2adj 0.04, p < 0.001). In summary,
hypothesis 3, examining the inuence of country level characteristics of
Assertiveness on individual importance ratings of work centrality, task orientation,
and nancial rewards, was not supported.
The fourth hypothesis addresses the question of the inuence of Humane
Orientation on the perceived importance of leisure and community and family
involvement as compared to work. As before, we controlled for the possible eects

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

of age, gender, and education. Because of the medium-size zero-order correlation

between several of the relative work centrality items (Table 3), a MANCOVA analysis
was conducted, entering the importance of family, religion, community, and leisure as
dependent variables, the three demographic variables as controls, and the country
humane orientation level as predictor variable. MANCOVA requires random sampling, independence of observations, normal distribution, and homogeneity of variance. The rst two criteria were met by the research design. Normality assumptions
were tested by applying the Levene test that showed equal error variance across all
groups for three of the four dependent variables. Univariate homogeneity of variance
was conrmed (Bartlett-Box F and Cochrans C) but multivariate homogeneity of
dispersion (Boxs M) was not established. Seldom, however, are all assumptions for
MANCOVA precisely met, especially with large sample sizes, and the procedure is
robust with respect to violation of assumptions (Bray and Maxwell 1985). All four
multivariate tests (Pillais, Wilks, Hotelling, Roy) showed signicant dierences
between countries ranking high and lower on Humane Orientation (p < 0.01,
alpha 0.05) with the inuence of age on leisure as the only signicant covariate
eect (F(1,770) 5.86, p < 0.01). Univariate follow-up tests (ANCOVAs) yielded
more specic insights. As shown in Table 5, religious involvement diered between
countries but the results did not follow the predicted pattern. Respondents from the
United States and Brazil countries rated as high in Humane Orientation by the
GLOBE studies also rated high in the importance of religious involvement relative
to work, but respondents from South Korea and Russia did not. Participants from
Germany and Hungary countries rated lowest in HO by GLOBE also rated the
importance of religious involvement as low, but Polish respondents rated the importance of religion high. The fourth hypothesis, thus, was supported only for selected
countries in our study (Table 5).
The nal hypothesis was about the clustering of countries in this study along the
clusters identied by the authors of the GLOBE study. To examine this question, a
discriminant function analysis (DA) was performed to determine the clustering of
countries around specic variables able to dierentiate among them. DA can be
used with unequal cell sizes as long as the sample size of the smallest group exceeds
the number of predictor variables (Tabachnick and Fidell 2000). DA, furthermore, is
robust with respect to violation of multivariate normality caused by skewness rather
than outliers. As described previously, outliers were changed following Tabachnick

Table 5. Summary statistics for the country level differences in the relationships between
Humane orientation and the relative importance of non-work life domains for eight countries

Leisure
Community
Religion
Family
N 840, alpha .05.

Hypoth MS

Error

Sig.

Partial Eta-squared

50
13
38.10
1.13

1.69
2.61
3.77
.84

.30
.05
10.10
1.34

.59
.83
.00
.25

.00
.00
.01
.00

Kuchinke et al.

277

and Fidells (2000, 71) recommendation. Tests of equality of group means (Wilks
lambda) resulted in signicant F tests for all variables. Boxs test of equality of
covariance matrices was not met, indicating unequal population covariances
(F(196,762859) 3.45, p < 0.000). DA, however, is robust with respect to violations
of this requirement provided there are no outliers. In addition, large sample sizes are
likely to result in spurious signicant dierences attributable to small dierences in
the covariance matrices. Discriminant analysis resulted in two major functions
accounting for 73% and 16% of variance respectively. The remaining ve functions
were much smaller and considered to be statistical artifacts that were dismissed. Using
variables with a standardized canonical discriminant function coecient of  0.40
or greater (Cohen et al. 2003), two items were retained in each of the major functions
to represent those variables that are best suited to dierentiate between the eight
countries. These included the importance of leisure as compared to work and importance of nancial rewards for the rst function and the importance of religion and
spiritual involvement and the importance of challenging and interesting tasks for the
second function. Table 6 shows the canonical discriminant function coecients and
country classication coecients.
Figure 1 shows the combined group plot mapping the group centroids for each
country. Two distinct country groupings were found for the rst function: Russia and
Kyrgyzstan scored very similarly, as did the United States, Korea, Brazil, and Poland.
Participants from Hungary and Germany formed separate groups. For the minor
function, the countries clustered tightly with dierences between two groupings:
Germany, Hungary, and Korea on the one hand and Kyrgyzstan, Brazil, and the
United States on the other. Based on this analysis, supported by the homogeneous
subgroups for each variable presented in Table 4, two countries of the Eastern Europe
cluster (Russia and Kyrgyzstan) showed similar values in our rst function, comprised
of the importance of leisure and nancial rewards. Our hypothesis was that the
GLOBE study clustering of countries would extend to the meaning of work constructs, such that ve distinct clusters would emerge on the two functions:
Germanic Europe (Germany), Latin America (Brazil), Confucian (Korea), Anglo
(USA), and Eastern European (Russia, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, and Hungary). This
was not the case. Countries showed similarity in meaning of work dimensions
where the hypothesis expected dierences, and the multi-country cluster of Eastern
Europe emerged as more heterogeneous than predicted, with the exception of similarities between Russia and Kyrgyzstan related to the value of leisure and extrinsic
rewards.

Conclusions and discussion

This study served as a new milestone in a string of MOW follow-up studies, conducted in 1990s and early 2000s. Like Harpaz and Fu (2002), we have found that,
despite gradual (and in some cases, rather abrupt) changes in the socioeconomic
conditions in various countries, major indices of MOW remain relatively stable
over time. An important nding of our study was the conrmation of the work centrality trend, detected in MOW follow-up studies in 1990s and early 2000s: In the
majority of countries in our sample high overall centrality of work was detected, and

1.10

.40

N 840.
Fishers linear discriminant functions.

Leisure
Religion
Financial rewards
Tasks

.62

.85

.53
.40
2.12
1.51

.46
.29
1.88
1.38

Brazil

Germany
.85
.02
1.85
2.16

.60
.35
2.41
1.80

.49
.05
2.50
1.74

Korea

1.23
.25
.14
2.42

Russia

Poland

USA

Function 1

Function 2

Classification coefficients

Standardardized coefficients*

Table 6. Standardized and classification canonical function coefficients

1.16
.44
.04
2.36

Kyrgyzstan

.95
.12
.97
2.51

Hungary

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Kuchinke et al.

279
Canonical discriminant functions
Country
USA
BR
Germany
Poland
Korea
Russia
Kyrgystan
Hungary
Group centroic

5.0

Function 2

2.5

0.0

2.5

5.0

5.0

2.5

0.0

2.5

5.0

Function 1
N = 840
Figure 1. Discriminant analysis results of meaning of work in eight countries

work was second only to family as the most important life domain. Furthermore, our
study conrmed once more what many other studies have found regarding the lottery
question: the majority of respondents in all eight countries in our sample preferred to
continue working even in the absence of the nancial need to work. Thus, the results
of our study contribute to the long-term agenda of international MOW research,
documenting changes (or the absence of major changes) in main MOW indices.
Our investigation into the links between MOW indices and cultural value dimensions, identied by the GLOBE project, produces a number of interesting results.
First, both work centrality and task orientation were related to Performance
Orientation. This nding can be regarded as an additional conrmation of the convergent validity of the GLOBE Performance Orientation construct: the set of values,
underlying the PO construct (e.g., achievement orientation, belief in the intrinsic value
of work and job performance, competitive nature of work relationships, high levels of

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

interest in material compensation and rewards), tracks well with work centrality and
task orientation and should, thus, result in statistically signicant relationship with
these two constructs.
Second, contrary to our expectations, Assertiveness was not linked to high work
centrality and emphasis on material rewards. This nding is in line with ndings of the
GLOBE project, which discovered only a low correlation between Assertiveness and
Performance Orientation practices (Den Hartog 2004). Den Hartog indicates that,
following the logic of Hofstedes Masculinity/Femininity dimension, societies where
striving for success and high performance are valued will also value challenging work
and material success. However, by making a distinction between Assertiveness and
PO, the GLOBE study allows to make more accurate and ne-tuned categorizations
of work-related practices.
Finally, we have found that lower work centrality and lower emphasis on nancial
outcomes is associated with Humane Orientation. This conrms the negative correlation between Performance Orientation and Assertiveness, on the one hand, and
Humane Orientation, on the other, found in GLOBE.
In addition to contributing to the body of research on work-related values, the
above ndings could help to produce more specic recommendations for practice. For
example, conrmation that work is of central importance to individuals in a certain
social group or organization is informative by itself. However, from the point of view
of practice, it is even more useful that now we are able to explain the implications of
this nding by relating them to characteristics associated with the Performance
Orientation dimension. When considering results of research on work-related
values, managers and HR professionals are looking, in the rst place, for specic
suggestions on how to motivate their employees, and what incentives, learning opportunities, or work conditions are valued the most by employees and are likely to lead to
best performance outcomes. Thus, as suggested by our study, if a social group assigns
high centrality to work, it is also likely to value and reward individual achievement
and performance appraisal systems that emphasize achievement of results; believe
that anyone can succeed if he or she tries hard enough; believe that schooling and
education are critical for success; and likely to value feedback as necessary for
improvement (Javidan 2004, 245).
Our ndings regarding country clustering provided little evidence that countries in
our sample formed clusters similar to those found in GLOBE. Only Russia and
Kyrgyzstan were grouped together on several dimensions, and this nding partially
conrmed the GLOBE results related to Eastern Europe. However, contrary to
GLOBE ndings, two other Eastern European countries, Hungary and Poland, did
not participate in the same cluster as Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Our conclusion on this
is that attempts to cluster together such geographically and culturally distant countries as nations of the Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe should be made
with caution.
Another noteworthy observation is the wide variation among Eastern European
countries regarding the importance of religion. This nding, again, suggest caution
against making generalizations to a wide variety of countries of the former communist
block. While Russia, Poland, and Kyrgyzstan demonstrated relatively high levels of
importance on this item, and were close on this dimension to the United States and

Kuchinke et al.

281

Brazil, Hungary was clearly positioned outside the Eastern European group, and was
closer to Germany with its signicantly lower rating on this variable.
Overall, our failure to nd the conrmation of country clustering found in
GLOBE suggests the need to exercise caution when making generalizations and recommendations based on prior research. GLOBE clusters were based on the analysis
of specic cultural dimensions, and should be used only in reference to these
dimensions.
Several future research implications can be suggested based on our reections on
the limitations of the current study. First, we have found only limited evidence that
GLOBE country clusters can be used when classifying countries for the purposes of
work meaning-related analysis. However, before we decide that the GLOBE clustering should not be considered in future MOW-related work, it would be advisable to
verify this nding on a larger sample of countries. We also hope that future studies
will expand our research to other countries of the Asia-Pacic region. Thus, one
suggestion for future research should be to expand the Confucian cluster and include
major economies such as Japan and China.
A nal item on our wish list for future research is, again, linked to a limitation of
the present study: instrument size limitations and logistics of our already complex
project did not allow us to include GLOBE items in our survey instrument. Therefore,
we had to base our comparisons on existing GLOBE results, but were not able to
ascertain that members of our specic sample would produce the same ratings if they
had a chance to answer corresponding parts of the GLOBE survey.

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K Peter Kuchinke (PhD, Minn.) is professor of human resource development at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A native German, he has spent his
career and personal life over the past 30 years in the United States. He is active in
international research, teaching, and consulting, and currently focuses his scholarship
on the education of human resource professionals and on career development in
teaching, medicine, and related science elds.
Alexandre Ardichvili (PhD, MBA, Minn.; PhD, Moscow State Univ.) is professor of
HRD at the University of Minnesota. Alexandre has published an edited book and
more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the areas of human resource
development, international education and development, entrepreneurship, business
ethics, and knowledge management. He has conducted research and professional
development workshops in the United States, China, South Korea, Brazil, Poland,
Russia, and other countries of the former USSR, and consulted with numerous multinational companies, small businesses, and non-prot organizations.
Margaret Borchert holds the chair for Personnel and Organizational Management at
the Mercator School of Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen in
Germany. Her current research interests are in the area of incentive systems, personnel development in small and medium-size enterprises, performance management, and
human resource management in IT organizations.
Edgard B Cornachione, Jr (PhD, USP; PhD, Illinois) is professor at the College of
Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), where he
serves as the chairman of the Department of Accounting and Actuarial Sciences. The
former director of graduate programs in accounting at USP, he is a Brazilian chartered accountant. He serves as the Brazilian director of a state-funded bi-lateral
exchange program between four Brazilian and US universities.
Maria Cseh (PhD) is an associate professor and chair of the Human and
Organizational Learning Department at The George Washington University, USA,
and honorary professor at the University of Pecs, Hungary. Dr Csehs cross-cultural
and international research studies on workplace learning, organizational development
and change, and leadership were published in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters and presented at international conferences. She is a member of the advisory board
for four international journals, was elected to serve for two terms on the board of
directors of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and serves as adviser
and consultant to organizations.
Hye-Seung (Theresa) Kang is a PhD candidate in the graduate program of the
Department of Human Resource Education at the University of Illinois and served
for three years as the editorial assistant for an international HRD journal. Before

284

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 49(3)

coming to Illinois, Theresa worked as a researcher and lecturer at the International

Study Center at Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea, before serving at Sangnam
Business Institute at Yonsei University in South Korea as a general and executive
manager. Theresas research interests lie in international human resource development, particularly Korean corporate expatriate development around the world.
Seok-Young Oh (PhD) is a research fellow at the Korea Research Institute for
Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET). He is also aliated with the
Korean Association of Human Resource Development as a board director and
with Yonsei University as a lecturer. His research interests are related to informal
learning, organizational learning, collaborative learning, and community of practices.
His current research at KRIVET is focused on the learning process in the vocational
high school curriculum and the analysis of work-study programs in higher education.
Andrzej Polanski is professor of human resource development at the Maria
Sklodowska-Curie University in Lublin, Poland, where he also serves as associate
dean in the College of Pedagogy and Psychology and as director of the postgraduate
study program in HRD. He has worked as a manger and consultant with a number of
private, non-prot and public institutions in Poland, the United States and the EU.
His current research focuses on managerial education in Europe, strategic planning in
HRD, and career and educational development. He is an editorial board member of
an international HRD journal.
Urmat Tynaliev (PhD, Minn.) has worked on several international development and
educational reform projects. Currently he is a manager of the Central Asian Faculty
Development Program at the University of Central Asia. He had also been a full-time
teaching fellow of the Civic Education Project in Central Asia and Mongolia. His
research interests are broad, focusing primarily on organizational and social issues in
post-Soviet countries.
Elena K. Zavyalova (PhD) is professor of organization behavior and HRM, Graduate
School of Management, St Petersburg State University. Professor Zavyalovas
research interests include psychological problems of HRM and HRD: management
by values, labor motivation, organizational culture and job satisfaction. She has published over 80 articles, reports and books, mainly in the areas of HRM and HRD. She
is a member of editorial board of an international HRM journal, and a member of the
International Association of Researchers in Economic Psychology and the Academy
of Human Resource Development.