The influence of culture on information gathering in organizations: An authoritarian paradigm.

Abstract

The question asked in this dissertation is: How is information gathered in organizations? I have studied this subject from a cultural angle, since culture has been theoretically considered as a major impetus in information-gathering in organizations, but has been rarely utilized in empirical studies of information-gathering in organizations. I developed an authoritarian paradigm to portray cultural influence on information-gathering. Within this paradigm, culture is analogous to an authoritarian ruler. Its way of governing information-gathering processes parallels an authoritarian ruler's way of governing his/her regime. I have mainly employed comparative methods to verify a culture's power over information-gathering. The cases under comparison are the Legislative Yuan of the R.O.C. on Taiwan from 1967 to 1969 and from 1986 to 1988. The data I gathered are of three types: the backgrounds of informants who were invited to attend the standing committee meetings in the Legislative Yuan during the two periods; the bills under scrutiny during the two periods; and the formal and informal rules and procedures regarding information-gathering. This study offers a new perspective from which to conceive of a culture's power, shines some light on the information-gathering process in organizations, and provides some ideas on how to improve a given information-gathering system.