The Program Evaluation Standards in International Settings

8 Sandy TautThere is evidence to support the Joint Committee's recommendations that care has to be takenwhen applying the Standards as goals for professional conduct outside the North American(‘mainstream’) cultural context.The cross-cultural psychological and anthropological literature revealed values reflected in theProgram Evaluation Standards. Researchers from these fields examine cultural value dimensionsand a number of other concepts as a way to describe and differentiate cultures. The culturaldimensions and concepts used for the analysis of the Standards will be explained in more detailin the following chapter.A Summary of Relevant Cultural Value DimensionsCross-cultural psychologists commonly distinguish seven culture areas, namely, WestEuropean, Anglo, East European, Islamic, East Asian, Latin American, Japanese (Berry et al.,Vol. 3, p. 105). This distinction obviously displays a simplified view of the true diversity andnumber of cultures all over the world.As mentioned earlier, cross-cultural literature uses cultural value dimensions tocategorize differences between societies. For example, one of the most widely used andresearched categories is the Individualism-Collectivism dimension. This cultural dimension hasalso been employed by Smith et al. (1993, p. 12) to explain difficulties in the applicability of theStandards in India and Malta. Some additional common dimensions include Egalitarianism-Hierarchy (or Power Distance), Conservatism-Autonomy and Mastery-Harmony. Empiricalstudies show that these dimensions are valid and reliable (see Berry et al., 1997, Vol. 3). Thispaper will briefly describe these dimensions, followed by a description of other relevant culturalconcepts used in this analysis.Individualism-CollectivismPhilosophic trends beginning with Descartes, followed by British empiricism (Hobbes,Smith), social Darwinism (Spencer), phenomenology and existentialism (Kierkegaard, Husserl,Heidegger, Sartre) made individualism the hallmark of European social history since thethbeginning of the 16 century (see Berry et al., 1997, Vol. 3, p. 4). In contrast, eastern religionsand philosophies such as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Shintoism can beseen as roots of collectivism in these cultural settings. Early monotheistic religions arising in theMiddle East (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) also emphasize collective loyalties. However, thethEuropean Reformation in Christianity (16 century) later introduced individual responsibility(see Berry et al., 1997, Vol. 3, p. 5). Kagitcibasi (1997, in: Berry et al., Vol. 3, p. 5) states that“all societies must deal with tensions between collectivism and individualism, […] there is someof both everywhere. Nevertheless, differences in emphasis appear to be real.”Hofstede (1980) provided a more recent appraisal of the collectivist-individualistdistinction. He conducted a survey on work-related values with 117,000 IBM-employees from40 (later expanded to 50) countries. A factor analysis revealed four value dimensions: