• A study comparing British and German approaches to man­agement has revealed the deep gulf which
    separates managerial   behaviour  
    in many German and British companies. The gap is so fundamental, especially among   middle  
    managers, that it can pose severe prob­lems
    for companies from the two countries
    which either merge or collaborate.
    The findings are from a study called
    “Managing in Britain and Germany”
    carried out by a team of German and
    British academics from Mannheim University and Templeton
    College, Oxford.










      
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     




     



    The differences are shown most clearly in the contrasting attitudes of many Germans and Britons to managerial
    expertise and authority, according to the
    academics. This schism results, in
    turn, from the very different levels
    of quali­fication, and sorts of career paths,
    which are typical in the two
    countries.

     German managers – both top and middle - consider technical skill to be the most important aspect of their jobs, according to the study. It adds that German managers consider they earn their authority with col­leagues
    and subordinates from this “expert
    knowledge” rather than from their
    position in the organisational hierarchy.

    In
    sharp contrast, British middle managers see them­selves as executives first and technicians second. As a result, German middle man­agers may find that the
    only people within their British partner companies who are capable of helping
    them solve routine problems are technical specialists who do not have
    management rank. Such an approach is bound to raise status problems in due
    course.

    Other practical results of these differences include
    a greater tendency of British middle managers to regard the design of their
    departments as their own responsibility, and to reorganise them more frequently
    than happens in Germany.
    German middle managers
    can have “major problems in dealing with
    this”, the academics point out, since British middle managers also
    change their jobs more often. As a result, UK
    organisations often undergo “more or
    less constant change”.                                                         Of the thirty British mid­dle managers in the study, thirteen had held their cur­rent job for less than two years, compared with only three in Germany.
    Many of the Britons had
    also moved between unrelated depart­ments or functional areas, for example from
    marketing to human resources. In con­trast,
    all but one of the Germans had stayed
    in the same functional area. Twenty of them had occupied their current positions
    for five years or more, compared
    with only five of the Britons.

    The researchers almost certainly exaggerate the strengths of the German
    pattern;
    its very stability helps to create the rigid atti­tudes which stop many German companies from adjusting to external change. But the authors
    of the
    report are correct about the drawbacks of the more unstable and less technical­ly oriented British
    pattern. And they are right in con­cluding that the two coun­tries do not merely have
    different career systems but also, in effect, different ways of doing business.

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