Power distance (organizational theory)

The operation of a manager in an environment with a Power Distance norm lower than his or her own is more problematic. U.S. managers tend to find it difficult to collaborate wholeheartedly in the “industrial democracy” processes of such countries as Sweden, Germany, and even the Netherlands. U.S. citizens tend to consider their country as the example of democracy, and find it difficult to accept that other countries might wish to develop forms of democracy for which they feel no need and that make major inroads upon managers' (or leaders') prerogatives. However, the very idea of management prerogatives is not accepted in very low Power Distance countries. This is, perhaps, best illustrated by a remark a Scandinavian social scientist is supposed to have made to Herzberg in a seminar: “You are against participation for the very reason we are in favour of it-one doesn't know where it will stop. We think that is good.” Let us now take the case of Germany, a below-average Power Distance country. Here, the dialogue element in MBO should present no problem. However, since Germany scores considerably higher on Uncertainty Avoidance, the tendency toward accepting risk and ambiguity will not exist to the same extent.
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The idea of replacing the arbitrary authority of the boss with the impersonal authority of mutually agreed-upon objectives, however, fits the small Power Distance/strong Uncertainty Avoidance cultural cluster very well. The objectives become the subordinates' “superego.” In a book of case studies about MBO in Germany, Ian R.G. Ferguson states that “MBO has acquired a different flavour in the German-speaking area, not least because in these countries the societal and political pressure towards increasing the value of man in the organization on the right to co-determination has become quite clear. Thence, MBO has been transliterated into management by Joint Goal Setting (Führung durch Zielvereinbarung).” Ferguson's view of MBO fits the ideological needs of the German-speaking countries of the moment. The case studies in his book show elaborate formal systems with extensive ideological justification; the stress on, team objectives is quite strong, which is in line with the lower individualism in these countries.

Urban Growth and Development

The country's instability, owing to a lack of leadership and goals, to foreign invasions and conspiracies, to epidemics, and most of all, to the lack of national control by the central government, kept urban growth and development at a minimum. Any progress found in the Mexican urban setting during the period from 1821 to 1876—such as in Guadalajara—can be attributed to local officials and elites who were able to manage economic and social issues so that their cities were able to sustain some growth despite the national situation.

Scholar Alejandra Moreno Toscano described the powerful regionalism found in Mexico throughout the nineteenth century in Tres ejemplos de relación entre ciudades y regiones en Nueva España finales del siglo XVIII. She distinguished Mexican cities before the advent of Independence based on their economic activities, development of internal methods of communication, and commercial relations that survived well after 1821, which assured their continuity throughout the nineteenth century. In some cases small cities, such as Cholula, almost disappeared when their importance was corroded by competing confrontations with stronger neighbors. Other cities, such as Orizaba and Córdoba, developed in unison with nearby cities owing to a shared regional concern, such as industrial and agricultural warehousing to surrounding lands. The cities of the Bajío region of north-central Mexico , an important agricultural region, established ranking and connecting links that allowed their common development. Most of these colonial cities were thus able to enter the new era after Independence. However, they did not attain "national" status as their loyalty was given to the political elements in the capital only as long as they supported the local or regional interests. Thus, the relationship between the center and the rest of the country remained very volatile until the late nineteenth century because the cities' primary concerns were local and not national.

Mexican cities and regions began to be integrated into one nation with Porfirio Díaz's revolution in 1876. He took power as the nation's president and except for the years 1880 to 1884 did not relinquish his control until 1911. His dictatorship, organized with the cooperation of military, commercial, and regional urban leaders, enforced a national unity not achieved previously by any other president. His general idea of national development was enforced through a number of officials who identified with the positivist motto "order and progress," so popular in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Díaz placed loyal followers in all the state and city governments of the country and rallied merchants' and businessmen's support by retaining them as members of those local or regional institutions and accommodating their interests. An example can be seen in Tampico, where loyal Porfiristas were members of the city government between 1872 and 1914. The presidents who followed Díaz—Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro Obregón, and Plutarco Elías Calles— consistently applied the same centralization activities as those of the Porfiriato.

Changes in Spanish American Empire

The eighteenth century brought great changes to the Spanish American empire. Spain's Bourbon dynasty tried to implement in its colonies a series of economic, political, and financial measures that would guarantee greater commercial and industrial stability and hence a larger income for the Crown. Spain implemented these measures in order to avert a possible economic disaster for the empire. However, the new policies, both in America and Spain, upset many Spaniards, criollos (those of Spanish descent born in the Americas), and indigenous people. The old, established methods had changed, and their incomes were decreasing. Together with the late eighteenth century's growing philosophic and revolutionary mood, these policies led to a growing disaffection of the Spanish authorities.

Napoléon's invasion of Spain and Portugal and the collapse of royal authority in 1808 created a vacuum of political power, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the colonies, which criollos and Spaniards alike in both places rushed to fill. After 1810, war, hunger, diseases, the collapse of the mining industry, and higher taxes overwhelmed the viceroyalty of New Spain. The loss in population and commerce limited the economic and political possibilities of the new country born after the Plan de Iguala, signed by Vicente Guerrero and Agustin de Iturbide in 1821.

Throughout Mexico municipal councils, or cabildos, feared the new situation. For the first time since the viceroyalty's establishment in New Spain, power and authority were not distant forces in Europe, but were closer, in Mexico City. Enormous territories and regions held for centuries by overlapping authorities, mostly named by the king and the Council of Indies in Spain, were now forced to seek approval from a central government installed in the new capital. Spain had not organized a centralized empire but rather a loose one. Most Mexican cities, such as Guadalajara, which were controlled by local merchants and wealthy landowners whose incomes were not necessarily controlled by their relationship to Mexico City, tried to stay autonomous in their urban and regional actions, although they gave lip service to the "nation" and the problems that were dealt by the officials in Mexico City. Regionalism was deeply set in Mexico and was controlled by cities and their leaders throughout most of the early Independence period.

In 1803, the scholar Alexander von Humboldt assigned the viceroyalty of New Spain a total population of 5,800,000. Mexico City, its administrative center and largest city, had approximately 137,000 inhabitants. At the time there was a growing urban population, especially in cities located in mining and commercial regions, such as Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Veracruz, and Morelia. However, studies indicate that the urban growth in those cities and elsewhere stopped or decreased during and after Independence. Few of the studied cities were able to attain the population level reached in 1803 until the last years of the nineteenth century, and some not until after the Revolution of 1910.

The Urban Landscape of Mexico

The urban landscape of Mexico is old and sophisticated. Its major city embodies a broad national ethos: the great Temítistín or Tenochtitlan, capital of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire, major administrative center for the viceroyalty of New Spain, and Federal capital of the United States of Mexico. Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Teotihuacanos, Toltec, and many other civilized nations lived, worked, and prayed in cities that were destroyed or that have been renewed and refounded at different times in history. The Spanish Conquest could not have been accomplished without the creation of a new urban landscape of novel cities different from their Indian predecessors and with skins that could only be shed anew after Independence.

Mexico's urban centers were founded in three cultural, political, and social moments of the nation's past: the preHispanic, colonial, and post-Independence periods. The earliest cities can trace their origins to pre-Hispanic settlements built and designed in accordance with the cultural formations of the Indian civilizations that appeared in Mesoamerica for over 2,000 years. Some were administrative and religious centers, others were living communities; yet all planned differently from those built after the Conquest.

Spaniards founded many new cities between the sixteenth and early nineteenth century. The conquistadors used these cities to colonize the new lands and to control the rural environment and its population. The Spaniards constructed these cities based on traditions of urban architecture and military life found in Renaissance and Modern Europe. Although these cities were modeled on foreign urban ideas, they were immersed in a New World context that affected their planning and objectives. Over 60 Mexican cities, among them Puebla, Taxco, Guadalajara, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and Querétaro, have retained historical monuments of the colonial era. These churches, monasteries, and public and private buildings now are protected by nongovernmental, state, and federal organizations in an effort to preserve a legacy of New Spain's viceroyalty and the greatness of its political creation.

A third group of cities, founded after Mexico attained its Independence in 1821, are called, in the words of Argentine historian José Luis Romero, the "national" cities of Mexico. Among them are Tampico, Ciudad del Carmen, Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Ciudad Madero, and countless others varying in size and importance. Most have had a precarious life until recent years, when population growth or their location—whether on the coasts or frontiers—gave them unexpected importance. These "national" cities have played an important role in the life of the country, especially for their contribution as urban centers where local and regional political life has developed within the context of the nation and as immediate paradigms of the true life of the nation's people and their problems. In addition to these three broad groups of cities are thousands of villages and hamlets, tiny centers of urban-rural life deeply immersed in their natural environments. The great historical classic of Luis González y González, Pueblo en vilo: Microhistoria de San José de Garcia, studies one of these small centers.

Race Mixture

Virtually from the beginning of the Spanish settlement of Mexico, race mixture was quite common. Early on most of the resultant offspring were incorporated into either the Spanish or Indian elements of society. But within two to three generations, especially in the larger cities, a separate classification of mixed-race people, commonly termed mestizos, began to appear in appreciable numbers. This ethnic group grew rapidly, with most of its members holding semiskilled or unskilled positions in the Spanish sphere of urban life. They typically identified with the Spanish colonial world, not the Indian, and preferred urban residence for the most part. Only gradually and later in the colonial period did any significant numbers of these mixed bloods move into the countryside.

With the passage of time, other mixed-blood classifications were formed, but overall the urban dwellers of colonial Mexico effectively organized themselves and recognized three ethnic groups: Spaniards, mixed-bloods (also termed castas and commonly including mulattoes and the most acculturated Indians), and Indians (meaning here those who still substantially followed native ways and characteristically resided in the outlying barrios). In 1792, Antequera in the heavily Indian Oaxaca Valley that contained rather few Spanish-owned estates, had around 7,000 citizens of Spanish descent, only some 5,000 of Indian, fully 3,500 classified as mestizos (or castizos, a variant), and just over 2,100 mulattoes and other African-white mixtures. This is a remarkable mix of ethnic groups and mixed classifications for a city so distant from the colonial heartland in central Mexico.

Cities also served as the primary arena of social and ethnic mobility. A fair number of mixed-bloods and Indians enjoyed some level of economic success and social acceptance. Such people typically then sought to present themselves as a member of a higher ethnic classification: Indians as mestizos, and mestizos as Spaniards. They often succeeded, for in this dynamic urban world ethnic identity was determined as much by one's social category as by one's physical appearance. This process of racial mobility is termed "social race." Because of it, urban censuses in the late colonial period depict a much larger "Spanish" group than would be expected if a significant number of mixed-bloods were not successfully ascending into that category.

Mexican cities of the colonial period were typical of their counterparts worldwide in having higher death than birth rates over the long term. The lack of sanitation and crowded conditions combined with commonly ineffectual medical care to create this state. But cities grew nonetheless— although erratically—because of continual rural-to-urban migration. People from all ethnic categories and different social levels moved from the countryside to cities because of the enhanced economic possibilities they promised and the more vibrant cultural life they offered. In times of famine or rebellion, people tended to flock to the cities in heavy numbers, counting on supplies and safety that urban authorities seemed better able to provide.

Colonial Mexican cities certainly had quite high levels of crime, but they also experienced few social disturbances of notable scale or duration. The urban masses generally lacked a compelling grievance or any strong sense of class solidarity. Many lived in close association with their employers or masters. The many rural migrants and the varieties of ethnic identity also served to undercut group identity. Finally, cities usually provided more social services, such as hospitals, however rudimentary, than did the countryside, and municipal authorities sought to assure adequate supplies of basic foodstuffs at low prices to the commoners.