Individualism and collectivism in Lebanon: Correlations with socioeconomic factors and effects on management and human resources practices

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to study individualism and collectivism as two construct indicators of social patterns in Lebanon using Triandis's (1995) framework of individualism and collectivism. This study explores the Lebanese autostereotypes and views of their extreme individualism and collectivism compared to the common opinion held by cross-cultural research. The study sheds light on how social patterns of different Lebanese individuals are distributed across four “cultural syndromes,” namely vertical and horizontal collectivism and vertical and horizontal individualism. These four social patterns will be tested against various contextual factors such as age, gender, and education. The results may provide a better idea for managers and human resources practitioners of how to prepare training and evaluation programs for their employees. Findings from 161 respondents showed that the subjects tested tended to be individualistic in their choices, and this suggests that the classification in the literature of the Lebanese as collectivists was based on the fact that there was no evidence to the contrary. Also, results showed a positive correlation between sociodemographic measures (gender, age, education, income, occupation, and location) and individualism. The author argues that these findings might have been the result of the evolution of the Lebanese family in the past 25 years. Suggestions for the use of these results in management and human resources practices and theory are given.

Citation

Dirani, K.M. (2008), "Individualism and collectivism in Lebanon: Correlations with socioeconomic factors and effects on management and human resources practices", Lawler, J.J. and Hundley, G. (Ed.) The Global Diffusion of Human Resource Practices: Institutional and Cultural Limits (Advances in International Management, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 211-233. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1571-5027(08)00009-0