Cross-cultural researchers have discovered that people from diverse cultures show tendency to use different response sets when answering questionnaires (Triandis, 1994). For instance, people from East Asian cultures tend to evade extreme ends of a scale while in Mediterranean cultures people tend to use extreme ends of a scale (Hui and Triandis, 1989; Triandis, 1994; Stening and Everest, 1984). The existence of these diverse response models can bias cross-cultural comparisons. The GLOBE research team used multi-method approach and a statistical standardization correction procedure to minimize the influence of biases. To prevent common source bias, GLOBE researchers used two quantitative surveys that were administrated to two divergent groups of respondents (for more details on sample design see part 4.1.2.). When analysing the associations among leadership and culture, the GLOBE team correlated responses from one group on leadership with those from another group on culture, thus inhibiting common source bias (House, et al., 2004). Furthermore, a statistical standardization correction procedure has been carried out to eliminate cultural response biases from questionnaire data. Following the description provided by Triandis (1994), the GLOBE team calculated each mean and standard deviation for every single item in the survey. individual’s Next, corrected individual item responses are computed by deducting that mean individual’s response from the actual responses for that item and dividing this divergence by that deviation (House, et al., 2004). Corrected scale scores were then individual’s standard accumulated to the society level of investigation. The classical model described by Triands (1994), even though very useful, has several limitations. First limitation refers to the inability to interpret the corrected scales. In particular, although helpful in eliminating cultural response bias, the classical correction procedure generates scores that are not attached to the initial 7-point scale. Moreover, the values of cumulative corrected scales often include negative values, hence, making it impossible to
Cross-cultural researchers have discovered that people from diverse cultures show tendency to use different response sets when answering questionnaires (Triandis, 1994). For instance, people from East Asian cultures tend to evade extreme ends of a scale while in Mediterranean cultures people tend to use extreme ends of a scale (Hui and Triandis, 1989; Triandis, 1994; Stening and Everest, 1984). The existence of these diverse response models can bias cross-cultural comparisons. The GLOBE research team used multi-method approach and a statistical standardization correction procedure to minimize the influence of biases. To prevent common source bias, GLOBE researchers used two quantitative surveys that were administrated to two divergent groups of respondents (for more details on sample design see part 4.1.2.). When analysing the associations among leadership and culture, the GLOBE team correlated responses from one group on leadership with those from another group on culture, thus inhibiting common source bias (House, et al., 2004). Furthermore, a statistical standardization correction procedure has been carried out to eliminate cultural response biases from questionnaire data. Following the description provided by Triandis (1994), the GLOBE team calculated each individual’s mean and standard deviation for every single item in the survey. Next, corrected individual item responses are computed by deducting that individual’s mean response from the actual responses for that item and dividing this divergence by that individual’s standard deviation (House, et al., 2004). Corrected scale scores were then accumulated to the society level of investigation. The classical model described by Triands (1994), even though very useful, has several limitations. First limitation refers to the inability to interpret the corrected scales. In particular, although helpful in eliminating cultural response bias, the classical correction procedure generates scores that are not attached to the initial 7-point scale. Moreover, the values of cumulative corrected scales often include negative values, hence, making it impossible to
PhD_Thesis_Danijela_Bogdanic.docx