Latin American Higher Education: A Need for Strong Culture and Performance

During the past week, I attended a Congreso Latinoamericano in Panama where I presented information about the status of Latino students in the United States and engaged participants in a lively conversation about how different ethnic groups faired in their respective countries.  In addition to the conversations with participants in my session and throughout the conference, I had an opportunity to talk with one my colleagues from the Puerto Rico/Latin America office to learn more about the organizational culture of Latin American higher education institutions and leaders who might be institutionalizing a strong culture and performance.

At first, when trying to understand the Hofstede model, I was confused by the focus on country differences based on the IBM data.  However, when Hofstede (2009) shared the dimensions of organizational culture, I tried to get an overall idea of how higher education institutions in Latin American would rank in his dimensional paradigm.  Based on observations and conversations (J. Aponte, personal communication, March 31, 2012), most Latin American higher education institutions at this conference fell under the following dimensions:  “process oriented; job-oriented; professional; closed systems; tight control and normative” (Hofstede, 2009, p.10). This was an interesting assessment, but I decided to further understand how Latin American countries’ educational systems faired under Hofstede’s (2009) five dimensions.

In the first dimension measuring “differences between small and large power distance societies” (Hofstede, 2009, p.4) Latin American institutions would fall under an increased power distance where “the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally” (p.5).  Although, countries such as Panama, are trying to move to more “student -centered education” as was shared by the participants in my session, it seems like the “teacher-centered education” included in the first Hofstede (2009) dimension is still more prevalent (J. Aponte, personal communication, March 31, 2012).  This is congruent and validates the power distance index scores found for Latin American countries by Hofstede (2009).

As for the uncertainty avoidance and collectivism dimensions, there was agreement that the scores in Latin American countries are higher for the former and lower for the latter in these “less developed” countries (Hofstede, 2009).  Educators felt an enormous amount of pressure to “have all the answers” (p.5) which validates their higher score in uncertainty avoidance. However, they were very unified and it was interesting to see that the workshop attendance rate was quite high and that people felt a real need to discuss conference topics during their free time. The focus for learning though was still more pragmatically oriented on “how to do things” as opposed to “how to learn”  (Hofstede, 2009, p.5).  In addition, their sense of collectivism was highlighted by the opening speaker, Ing. Marcela Paredes de Vasquez, who spoke of the challenges faced by Panama and the need for Latin American educators to work and learn from each other to overcome these challenges (personal communication, March 31, 2012). There was a palpable sense of unity in the room since Dr. Aponte and his staff have done a great job in fostering collaboration and leveraging the societal cultural nuances applicable to these countries.
Higher education institutions in Latin American countries still tend to have a high score for the masculinity dimension.  Dr. Aponte pointed out that Chile, Brazil, and Mexico are making some progress and the women in higher positions tend to be more “assertive” in nature.  I was surprised when he mentioned Mexico as one of the countries making progress since Hofstede (2009) includes it in the high masculinity group, but his comment validated the assertion about Chile’s masculinity score being lower.  It was also refreshing to see a higher number of female participants in the conference which mean future progress for those countries with high masculinity indexes.
Although Hofstede (2009) does not have a rating for a short vs. long term orientation for Latin American countries, based on observations, it seems that they have a medium term orientation (J. Aponte, personal communication, March 31, 2012).  This is especially true when it comes to education as they are trying to develop structures to help them achieve long term goals, but there is a sense of urgency in getting this done.  A country like Panama, home to the host institution Universidad Tecnologica de Panama, lives with the reality that they need to increase the level of achievement of young people because their nation’s future depends on their ability to maintain and expand one of the biggest engineering feats in the world: the Panama canal.  

According to Dr. Aponte, Panamanian educators are focusing, with a high level of urgency, on increasing the math and science skills needed for the long term stability of their country (personal communication, March 31, 2012).  The Universidad Tecnologica de Panama, led by Ing. Marcela Paredes de Vasquez, is working very hard to integrate mission and university goals, similarly to the Medtronic case, to increase innovation, engagement and the effectiveness of her institution (Denison & Mishra, 1995).  It was clear from visiting the university and learning more about President Paredes de Vasquez that she is developing a strong culture and high performance expectations (J. Aponte, personal communication, March 31, 2012).  Fortunately, the President is implementing this strong sense of culture in a stable environment, so there is no danger of strong culture in this case becoming a liability (Sorenson, 2009).  I was truly impressed by her leadership, vision and commitment to her staff and students.  It is my hope that more institution leaders in Latin America emulate her steps and continue to increase the effectiveness and performance of their respective institutions because at the end of the day these organizations are impacting students.  In Latin America, just like in the United States, these students represent the viability and future success of our countries, so institutionalizing strong cultures and positively impacting performance (Sorenson, 2009) is extremely important to us all.

References

Denison, D. R., & Mishra, A. K. (1995). Toward a theory of organizational culture and effectiveness. Organizational Science, 6(2), 204-223.

Hofstede, G. (2009). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture,12(8), 1-13.

J. Aponte, personal communication, March 31, 2012.

Sorenson, J. (2009) Note on Organizational Culture, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-6