The Interaction Between National Culture and Organizational Culture in Accounting Firms: Some Evidence from the Pacific Rim

ABSTRACT

In the current era of rapid globalization, accounting firms are increasingly expanding their international operations. As a result, an increasingly important issue is the extent to which the home-country organizational cultures can, and should be, transplanted to the operations in other national settings. Prior studies by Soeters and Schreuder (1988) and Pratt, Mohrweis and Beaulieu (1993) have examined the relation between accounting firms' home-country organizational cultures and those of the foreign countries in which they operate. Both studies have found that the home-country organizational cultures are exported, at least to some extent. Both also have suggested that employee selection is more potent than training and socialization as a means to accomplish this objective.

The current study extends the empirical analysis to an important Asian culture—the Chinese. Data were collected from a sample of 201 ethnically Chinese employees of independent domestic accounting firms and U.S. affiliates operating in Taiwan. The results are consistent with U.S. affiliates having organizational cultures which differ from those of the local Taiwanese firms in the direction of those of their U.S. parents. This finding suggests that U.S. accounting firms have found it desirable and feasible to transplant their organizational cultures that differ from the national culture of the foreign populace at large.