1 Comparative Management:
The Current State of the Art
SCOPE OF CHAPTER
After the objectives and scope of comparative management are
defmed, a classification and analysis of past research in this area
reveals that no study on control as a management process has
been done so far. It has either been treated superficially as part
of larger studies on management practices in general or only
parts of control have been studied. 1 Most frequently, control
has been studied from the point of view of the multinational
corporation 2 and thus not truly cross-nationally. The analysis
also reveals that findings are too inconclusive and contradictory
to permit identification of solidly based a priori hypotheses. In
fact, all authors concur on the" need for more empirical, opera-
tional research before we can usefully set down some hypotheses.
The general issue is whether or not management principles are
universal and hence transferable. The means of pursuing the
question chosen here is to see whether or not data on control
practices from three European nations can best be explained by
referring to universalist management principles or to some of
the more differentiated models drawn from work in comparative
management.
Given the relatively undeveloped status of work in the area of
control practices, this study will necessarily be largely explor-
atory in nature, and will draw as much on comparative manage-
ment theory for its theoretical orientations.
COMPARATIVE MANAGEMENT: OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE
OF THE FIELD
Comparative management has been burgeoning in the 1960s
with theories, conceptual models and field research conducted
J. H. Horovitz, Top Management Control in Europe
© Jacques Henri Horovitz 1980
10 Top Management Control in Europe
from the US and, as such, is not a very old field. Most scholars
refer to Harbison and Myers 3 as one of the first attempts to see
what is outside American management. The field grew out of
concern about the universality of management concepts, theories
and methodologies. Multinational corporations were developing
around the world and some questions arose as to whether one
should manage foreign and domestic operations in a similar way.
Early mistakes, or even blunders, made by managers when
abroad warned them that something might be different there.
Many people, although not all, regard the problem of com-
parative management as one of transferring American manage-
ment knowledge and practice to less developed countries. A
more useful approach consists in asking whether or not existing
management theory, concepts and practices can be applied
everywhere and then, if there are differences, to evaluate to
what extent they will be affected by the external environment
(political, economic, social and cultural forces prevailing in a
country) and fmally to assess what will work best in a given
situation.
There are many defmitions of the field of comparative
management. Boddewyn4 def"mes it as 'Dealing with cross-
cultural similarities and differences among actors, processes,
structures, functions and environmental interactions.'
That is, comparing managers as to who they are (actors);
what they do (process); how they are related to other people
(structures); what they contribute (function in society) and
how they interact with their milieu (interaction with environ-
ment).
A second definition is the one given by H. Schollhammer:
Comparative management theory can ... be defmed as being
concerned with the systematic detection, identification,
explanation and evaluation of uniformities and differences of
managerial phenomena in different countries or regions. The
analysis of the management-relevant similarities and variations
in a comparative fashion forms then a basis for predictive
statements about the degree of managerial effectiveness and
productive efficiency and the improvement thereof. 5
The common concerns in these and many other definitions
are that comparative management involves the study of similar-
