Course Overview for

Psy 448 Cross-cultural Industrial Psychology in Argentina

Rosario provides a perfect setting for this course which examines multinational corporations and service organizations using the methods and concepts of cross-cultural psychology.  Many countries have multinational corporation offices in Rosario and nearby Buenos Aires (e.g. Japan, Spain, U.S., England, France).

The course is divided roughly into a personnel or human resource development part and an organizational emphasis part. In the first part (the industrial psychology emphasis) topics to be covered include:   individual differences, job analysis, psychological testing, selection and placement, performance appraisal, training and development, safety. In the second part (the organizational psychology emphasis) topics to be covered include:  individual abilities, work motivation, attitudes, personality, stress, affective responses to work (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout), group functioning, leadership and management, organizational development.  The organizational part of this course offers the greatest contrast between the countries because it highlights how the social structure of organizations parallels the social organization of the culture of origin. Special emphasis will be given to quality of work life issues.  In this section I will share results of my own cross-cultural research on burnout/job stress which has been recently published in a book entitled "Burnout Across Thirteen Cultures."  This is a survey course, so all topics will be touched lightly.  Country comparisons will highlight cultural assumptions underlying the ways in which organizations in each country executes the common tasks.

The course will use the cultural values dimensions identified by Hofstede (2001) in his 60 nation study of IBM as a framework for understanding the issues and concerns raised when organizations from one culture attempt to do business in a different culture.  The Hofstede dimensions (individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-femininity) will be applied to psychological issues in organizations.

In addition, both Argentine and multinational corporations will be examined for their manner of dealing various issues identified in cross-cultural psychology (social influence, gender relations, attribution of success and failure, group activity, use of space and time, family, individual development).  Both the work value and cross-cultural concepts will be related to basic organizational functions.  The cross-cultural focus will be on multinational corporations; however, some of the same principles can be applied to a single organization with members from different cultures.