ven culture bound theorists admit that only certain aspects of management practice lack universality. These aspects mainly involve interpersonal relationships between diverse groups in business.
Farmer and Richman have developed an environmental model of comparative management that considers the external factors which affect the efficient operation of an organization. Farmer and Richman contend that as long as the external environment for firms are similar, management theorists need not focus on external constraints. However, in cases where the external environment differs significantly, overwhelming pressures often come to bear on internal management. Management theory that does not consider all the crucial external variables is of limited value.
The environmental model of Farmer and Richman considers a variety of external constraints including (1) educational variables, (2) sociological-cultural variables, (3) political and legal variables, and (4) economic variables. These external constraints comprise the macromanagerial structure. The model determines what effect these constraints have on the following elements of the management process: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling, and policy making in operating areas. The external constraints, singly and in combination with the elements of the management process, affect management and managerial effectiveness, which in turn are determinants of firm efficiency and system efficiency.
Farmer and Richman assigned varying weights to each external constraint. For instance, in terms of educational characteristics, a country's literacy level was given more weight than its specialized technical training. In fact, basic literacy was identified as the most important factor of all. The literacy level describes the percentage of the total population that can read and write, as well as the average years of schooling of the adult population.
In terms of so...