The relative effects of culture and work environment on organizational attitudes: A comparative research on Turkish employees working in Turkey and Germany

This study is about the relative impacts of cultural values and the working environment on organizational attitude. It is based on the analysis of the data collected through a questionaire consisting of 77 questions from three subgroups of the blue collar employees: Turkish in Turkey, Turkish and German in Germany in equivalent sectors. Cultural values consist of both vertical and horizontal level individualism and collectivism. Organizational attitude, on the other hand consist of process-result task orientation and maintenance-indifference expectations from the leader. Although, influence of acculturation is observed on both vertical and horizontal collectivisim and individualism, as the Turkish in Germany scored in that between Turkish in Turkey and German in Germany, it can not be concluded that Turkish in Germany internalized the German culture completely. About the task orientation, it is observed that all three subgroup of employees have tendency to be more process oriented than result oriented regardless of the gender and environmental difference but the variable is influenced by vertical collectivism. Maintenance-indifference expectation from the leader however is influenced by both vertical and horizontal collectivism. At the same time, all three subgroup of employees are observed to have the maintenance expectation and it is as well observed that the expectations have a relatively meaningful difference between Turkish in Turkey and German in Germany subgroups. Additionally, about the maintanence expectation having observed that the Turkish in Germany subgroup scored between Turkish in Turkey subgroup and Germany in Germany subgroup enables us to talk about the fact that there was an influence of acculturation on it.Key Words:Organizational Culture-National CultureAcculturationMaintenance-Indifference Expectation From the LeaderProcess-Result Task Orientation