On transplanting human
resource practices to China
A culture-driven approach
Introduction
Many Western managers believe that all practices that have succeeded in the
West can be transferred, with enough patience and ardour, to an Asian country.
This assumption has been proved counterproductive by the experiences of
many multinational firms (1981). Even if a human resource practice is
transferable, the costs of implementation and the chance of backfire could be so
high as to wipe out all the potential benefits. After all, effectiveness of a human
resource management (HRM) practice hinges on the degree to which it fits the
values and beliefs of people in the host country. Values and beliefs are, in turn,
heavily influenced by a nation’s culture. Given that culture is extremely difficult
to change in a short time, it might be wise to choose those practices that have a
good chance of success, and then transplant them to the host country with
appropriate alterations. But which HR practices have a reasonable chance at
successful transfer?
This question requires a thorough understanding of the underlying reasons
why some practices are more transferable than others. To be sure, many noncultural
factors, such as legal constraints, demographic features and resource
limitations, may render an HRM innovation infeasible. However, identifying
these non-cultural factors is probably much easier than identifying cultural or
social factors.
In this article we intend to explore some tacit, intangible, culture-driven
explanations for the differences between Chinese and Western organizations in
terms of HRM practices. It will be shown that Chinese practices, even though
they would not be thought to be the most effective ones if implemented in
Western enterprise systems, are highly rational – even economically or
politically – in the sense that they serve certain functions and purposes valued
by Chinese practitioners. We compare the USA with the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC) to demonstrate that cross-national differences in
human resource practices are beyond what can be explained logically by the
political or economic structures alone. Such a comparison is particularly
intriguing because the PRC did not begin economic reforms until late 1970s,
while Taiwan has been an open economic system since the end of the Second
World War.
We will focus on four major aspects of human resource management: selection;
reward systems; performance appraisal and participative management.
A three-way comparison of human resource practices
Selection
The most striking difference between Chinese and US selection practices
perhaps resides in the frequency with which interviews are used in the
recruiting process and in the major functions served by interviews. The
interview has been considered by most US managers to be a crucial step in
recruiting key personnel. Except for unimportant, temporary positions, few US
managers would feel comfortable with hiring someone whom they had never
seen, much less talked to. By contrast, job interview is usually omitted in both
the PRC and Taiwan. For instance, many university administrators in Taiwan
offer jobs to new PhD recipients without seeing them in person. When a job
interview is used at all, usually it is not intended as a means to differentiate
candidates’ qualifications, but rather as an opportunity to provide the candidate
with useful information about job requirements and the work environment.
We found also a cross-national difference in the relative importance of various
selection criteria. In PRC or Taiwan, the credentials of a job applicant often are
weighted heavily, particularly for entry-level jobs. Among all data provided in
the credentials, the school from which the job applicant received the highest
degree is probably the most important factor. Although other factors might be
considered, those candidates who graduated from highly prestigious schools
tend to be favoured. This bias exists in both academic and industrial
organizations.
Furthermore, in Taiwan the similarity between recruiters and job applicants
in terms of educational and social backgrounds is a very good predictor of
success for applicants. For example, a manager who graduated from the
National Chengchi University may give favourable consideration to candidates
who also received their degrees from this university. A native of Kaohsiung City
would prefer hiring people who also originally came from Kaohsiung. Such a
bias is weaker in the PRC, but still much more salient than it is in the USA.
Given the strong subjective bias in the selection techniques used by Chinese
organizations, a more intriguing question is: If a Western firm is going to
pursue a joint venture with a firm in PRC or Taiwan, should it stress the
importance of the job interview, discount the prestige of the school from which
the job candidates graduated, and encourage the use of more objective selection
criteria that exclude, say, the alumni or home-town factors? Not necessarily.
In the first place, it is debatable still whether a job interview or an applicant’s
credentials would be the better predictor of future job performance. Based on 60
years of research, interview is the least reliable predictor of successful hiring:
most selection decisions are made in the first four minutes of the interview
conversation. The best predictor of successful hiring is the match of socio
economic background between interviewer and interviewee. To be sure, a job
interview is intended to serve three purposes:
(1) assessing a job candidate’s technical skills and knowledge;
(2) observing a person’s personality and interpersonal skill in order to detect
any potential for interpersonal conflicts; and
(3) finding out how serious the candidate really is about the job.
Given the limited time span typical of interviews, the first purpose may be
poorly served, anyway. The second purpose does not seem to be so crucial in
China as it is in the USA. We are not saying that Chinese recruiters consider
interpersonal skills to be unimportant; on the contrary, interpersonal harmony
is viewed as even more important in China than it is in the USA. Nonetheless,
the Chinese culture is characterized by a spirit of compromise and tolerance. At
different stages of education, Chinese students are taught repeatedly to be
patient, understanding and considerate. Personality conflicts do plague some
organizations, but have been much less prevalent than in the USA. Even during
an explicit interpersonal conflict, productivity is rarely hampered.
Moreover, like the Koreans and Japanese, most Chinese workers believe that
a good interpersonal relationship can only be nurtured through common
experience of life in an organization over a long period of time. Few believe that
one can select a good team member on the basis of the short encounter during a
job interview. As one executive of a Taiwanese high-technology firm (who we
interviewed) put it: “How can you accurately assess the personal fit of a job
candidate on the basis of a one-day interview?” In Chinese society, it is generally
believed that personality can be changed through a life-long re-education and
cultivation process.
To be sure, sometimes even US firms recruit employees by using the “old-boy
network”, in lieu of job interview. However, differences between the USA and
China in this respect seem to reside in the purpose of networking and the extent
to which it is used. In the USA personal connections usually are used in a much
more subtle and tacit way: managers tend to treat the old-boy network as a
useful source of information for qualified people. Their Chinese counterparts,
however, are more likely to make guanxi an explicit condition of employment.
Such a tendency is often negatively labelled by Westerners as “nepotism” or
“favouritism”. To a certain extent, however, it reflects a desire of Chinese
managers to secure some initial credibility through the third party (e.g., a family
member or best friend) who has had a well-established relationship with the
recruiter through years of social interaction.
Second, in both the PRC and Taiwan, the prestige of a university reveals a lot
more than just a good image. Unlike the US academic system in which most
prestigious colleges tend to be private, public universities in China are generally
considered to be more prestigious than are the private institutions. In order to
get admitted to these public universities, high-school graduates have to pass a
very competitive entrance exam that is collectively held by all universities,
similar to the SAT or GRE in the USA. Ranking different colleges is much easier
than it is in the USA, at least from the ordinary person’s perspective – the
prestige of a college is almost perfectly correlated with its required minimum
test score for admittance. As a result, one can easily rank universities, or even
departments, by the minimum entrance exam scores required. Although the
Ministry of Education in Taiwan has restructured the college entrance exam
system several times in the past two decades, the mind-set of most parents and
students has not changed much. A similar, but less competitive situation exists
in the PRC.
People in Taiwan are aware that students with high exam scores are not
necessarily “better” students, and although a reform of the college admission
system has been proposed, no-one wants to abandon completely the college
entrance exam. As a matter of fact, China started using exams to select civil
servants about 1,000 years ago, during the Tang Dynasty. This long history of
holding civilian exams must have taught Chinese government officials valuable
lessons about how to conduct large-scale tests that are fair to everyone. As a
result, the prestige of a university in the PRC or Taiwan, closely tied to its
minimum exam score requirement, has been a far more reliable predictor of a
person’s future success than has been the case in the USA.
It is more difficult to justify the selection bias associated with the locational
proximity of home-towns or alumni connections. A close examination of the
history and culture of China, however, seems to reveal a benign side-effect. For
thousands of years, the Chinese political and social systems have been geared to
numerous types of affiliation. Kinship with the royal family or a powerful
subject would surely facilitate a person’s career advancement. Moreover, special
favours could be obtained on the basis of commonality along the following
dimensions:
l
the person’s former teacher or mentor;l
the year when a person passed the qualifying exam for the civil services;l
the school that a person went to;l
a person’s last name;l
the clan a person belonged to;l
the city or province a person originally came from; and evenl
the place a person’s ancestors came from.The lesson: Western firms ought to be more careful in transplanting their
standard personnel selection procedures to China. Job interviews, if used at all
in Taiwan or the PRC, most likely would be perceived as a starting-point for
building a long-term partnership. It should therefore be formatted differently, so
that the assessment of the qualification is downplayed while the provision of
useful information (e.g. how to be a good team player in the organization) is
emphasized. Personal and cultural credentials should not be used as the sole
basis for hiring decisions but, given their relatively high credibility and
reliability as seen by most Chinese, they should probably be weighted more
than they are in Western countries. Finally, although a fair screening procedure
should still be established, a recruiter’s inclination to favour candidates with
similar social or educational backgrounds ought to be understood in terms of
their cultural significance rather than being interpreted as totally irrational
behaviour.
Reward systems
The existing reward systems in most Chinese firms are not as sophisticated as
those of their Western counterparts. In the USA, a wide variety of rewards are
used to motivate employees. Pay raises are based on a set of criteria tied to
merit, equity and seniority; and an emerging trend towards use of base salary
combined with gain sharing has been observed (1985). In Taiwan,
however, the “cafeteria-type” reward systems are still uncommon, even among
the largest firms; merit pay is used only in an informal and implicit manner;
profit sharing exists only in relatively young firms. This is even more the case
in the PRC. However, there are other differences between the reward systems
used in the USA and in China which go beyond the relative sophistication of
reward packages. The most fundamental differences seem to reside in the
relative importance of various rewards and the general philosophy of using
rewards.
In the USA, pay generally is not considered to be a strong motivating factor
(unless it is “big chunk” pay; that is, 20 per cent or more) and is likely to be a
dissatisfier if not adequate. “Dissatisfier” accurately describes the reaction of
Chinese employees as well, but the first statement does not. Since most workers’
incomes are still extremely low in the PRC, monetary rewards play a far more
important role than just as a “hygiene” factor. This is particularly the case when
pay is tied to individual worker productivity. We found a good example in a
small, privately-owned plant in a special economic zone of northern China. This
plant was founded as a joint venture by a local university and a venture
capitalist in Hong Kong, so it was allowed to use piece-rate wages. Its only
product was a tiny but vital electronic component used in the camera flashlight.
On a site tour, the general manager proudly told the first author that, as a result
of adopting a purely piece-rate wage system (no base wage at all), every worker
in that plant had become extremely productive. Within three years of founding,
this firm had generated a net income of seven times the initial investment. The
average wage of shop-floor workers was even higher than the general
manager’s salary. To be sure, the general manager still made more money than
did any worker, as a large shareholder of this company.
The situation in Taiwan is slightly different from that in the PRC. Because
most people are better off financially, pay is no longer as important as it was ten
years ago. A new generation of professionals seems to be emerging in Taiwan.
Like new professionals in the USA, they tend to be well-educated, ambitious
and articulate. Most of them have engineering or physical science backgrounds
and work in high-technology firms ( 1988). Naturally, for such new
professionals the most valued rewards are – as in the USA – job challenge,
responsibility and feedback. At the same time, however, Taiwan’s enormous
economic growth in recent years has attracted illegal immigrants from the PRC,
the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. As is typical of most illegal
immigrants to the USA, these individuals usually take on low-level positions in
labour-intensive industries. For these new immigrants, pay is still the most
crucial incentive and, accordingly, they tend to hold multiple jobs at the same
time.
Such a two-tier labour force implies that a dual reward system is needed for
motivating Chinese employees in Taiwan, with pay emphasized for those lowerechelon
workers and intrinsic rewards emphasized for professionals.
Second, in US industries, pay is supposed to be performance-contingent.
Although practically 70 per cent of employees do not believe that pay is
correlated with their performance, the basic philosophy is that the inducement
ought to be more or less commensurate with the contribution.
In the PRC, the reward system is generally designed on the basis of equality.
Conforming to the ideology of socialism, wage and salary are just another form
of wealth reallocation, and this reallocation system must ensure that “everyone
gets a fair share of the reward”. Wage differentiation is low: the highest pay
received in a firm may be no more than four times the lowest salary. In Taiwan,
the range of pay in an organization is usually wider than it is in the PRC, but
still lower than in the USA, which is between 50- and 100-to-1.
To be sure, no one in the PRC or in Taiwan would bluntly nullify the validity
of the inducement-contribution principle, a basic principle manifest in the
popular phrase “You get what you reward” (1975). Nevertheless, Chinese
people are less fervent in pursuing the equity principle largely because they do
not trust the managers’ ability to assess the relative contributions of individual
workers. The upside of this mistrust is a high degree of self-discipline. In other
words, Chinese managers are more likely to assume that two employees who
have been performing the same job for an equal length of time make basically
the same contribution. This assumption is sound if two other presumptions are
also true: first, that the two workers are equally competent; and, second, that
they put in equal amounts of effort per unit of time.
To a certain extent, the latter presumption is probably still true today. With
the control system held constant, there tend to be fewer social loafers in Chinese
firms than in US firms ( 1989). The first presumption could be justified,
too, if workers received identical training or if the tasks required little skill. In
the PRC, however, this assumption of equal competence is being questioned
today. It is not uncommon, for example, for college graduates to be assigned to
factories and to work side-by-side with hundreds of workers who received only
elementary school education. With regard to wage, a college degree does not
render the worker any advantage. This phenomenon implies a misalignment
between talents and jobs in the PRC. In performing a labour-intensive job, no
one would expect a college graduate to be more productive than an elementary
school graduate. Since the workforce is not homogeneous, the existing
egalitarian reward system has led to an enormous waste of human resources.
To a lesser extent, however, Chinese managers are right when they place little
trust in the merit pay system. In the USA, the use of merit pay has suffered from
some shortcomings. Research evidence indicates that the merit pay system is
seldom able to differentiate performance significantly; 70 per cent to 90 per cent
of merit programmes simply cover the cost-of-living adjustments; pay is not a
major motivating factor and is likely to be a dissatisfier if not adequate.
Moreover, Chinese employees are more concerned about the issue of menzu
“face”. Even if the managers were able to differentiate the performance of
workers and allocate the merit pay accordingly, those who did not receive the
merit bonus would probably feel humiliated. If they made an internal
attribution of such a failure, they would feel depressed. However, if they made
an external attribution, interpersonal conflicts in the organization would
intensify.
A classic example that demonstrates this point can be found in Jim Mann’s
case study of Beijing Jeep ( 1989). When the American Motors
Corporation started a joint venture with Beijing Automotive Works, the US
managers tried to start an incentive pay system by giving the “model manager”
of the joint-venture plant an award of 100 yuan. The manager promptly donated
the money to the Communist Youth League because “he felt that if he made too
much money, he would have a harder time dealing with the workers”
(1989). This is by no means an isolated incident: it really reflects the
prevalent ideology of Chinese workers. In essence, many Chinese workers see a
trade-off between differentiated compensations and the camaraderie among coworkers.
The lesson. Even if a match between performance and pay is desirable, one
should not push it too far either in the PRC or in Taiwan. A merit pay system, if
not properly administrated, may lead to intra-organizational conflict and
factional schism in Chinese enterprises. On some occasions, it might be better to
promote the self-discipline of Chinese employees rather than encourage them to
compete for merit pay.
Performance appraisal
The performance appraisal systems in the USA and in the PRC differ in both
substance and form. Research in HRM suggests that performance appraisal, if
it is to succeed, requires listening, giving and receiving feedback, counselling
and dealing with emotions. Ironically, although smooth interpersonal relations
are emphasized in the Chinese culture and most Chinese managers do have good
skills in listening and dealing with emotions, they tend to be reluctant to pursue
two-way communications or provide counselling. This can be explained
partially by the relatively large power distance found in China: to challenge the
authority of superiors is not considered appropriate for subordinates
(1980). More importantly, in providing feedback and counselling, the potential
for interpersonal friction between the superior and subordinates tends to
increase. Since both managers and workers in Chinese enterprises want to avoid
blunt confrontations, it is understandable that they would try to minimize the
frequency of such conflict-prone encounters in the workplace.
Concomitant with this phenomenon, the extent of participation by employees
has been low in most Chinese organizations (we will discuss this issue in
greater detail later). Peer evaluation, frequently used in US organizations,
virtually does not exist in the PRC. Intuitively, it could be attributed to the
traditional authoritarian leadership style prevalent in Chinese enterprises: only
supervisors are deemed qualified to evaluate subordinates’ performance.
Nonetheless, many organizational members are reluctant to participate in
performance appraisal even when they are invited to do so. This is because the
responsibility for the consequences of performance appraisal tends to come
hand-in-hand with the authority to evaluate others’ performance. Since the
consequences of a low performance rating could be very serious (e.g. demotion,
firing or lower bonus), many Chinese employees would rather not participate in
such a process lest friendship with co-workers be ruined.
There is, of course, a difference between Taiwan and the PRC in this respect,
although participation in performance appraisal in both countries is lower than
in the USA. Since the Chinese Communist Party took over government in 1949,
there have been several attempts, championed by central government, to
increase the participation of workers in performance appraisal. Such attempts
were never successful, for the system contradicts the Chinese culture and
tradition. Worse, on most occasions this sort of participation was abused for
political purposes in the battle between right-wingers and left-wingers within
the enterprise concerned. As a result, even today Chinese employees still refrain
from participating in performance appraisal because of political sensitivity.
The opposite is true of Taiwan in recent years. Workers are becoming more
vocal than ever before, and they ask for more participation. Although the basic
management structure of most firms in Taiwan has not changed thus far, it is
not unlikely that the system of performance appraisal will undergo a
fundamental reform in the near future. This reform, if it is realized, may
increase workers’ participation in performance appraisal, although we suspect
that the nature of such participation will be more symbolic than substantive.
The lesson. Avoid using too many objective, but tedious, performance
appraisal procedures or techniques in Chinese firms. The Chinese have a higher
tolerance of subjectivity. As long as they can trust the managers who conduct
performance appraisal, they would not mind receiving subjective evaluations
from supervisors. Moreover, they feel more comfortable with a straightforward
form of appraisal, even if it means some loss of precision or sophistication.
Participation in the performance appraisal procedure ought to be encouraged if
and only if the employees have shown an interest in it.
Participative management
Many people are tempted to assume that participative management is widely
adopted in Taiwan simply because Taiwan had been a colony of Japan for 50
years and its local culture is still heavily influenced by the Japanese culture. It
is indeed true that the leadership style of Taiwanese managers has been, more
or less, influenced by Japanese culture; but it is far-fetched to infer that the
Taiwanese have taken on Japan’s participative management orientation. In fact,
even in major Japanese firms, authoritarian leadership and participative
management – two seemingly antithetic managerial approaches – are often
found to co-exist. The former has existed for hundreds of years, while the latter
did not become popular until after the Second World War. Knowing this, one
should not be surprised to learn that many Taiwanese managers have inherited
an authoritarian leadership style, but not a participative management
approach.
Likewise, participation from organizational members is generally low in the
PRC, although collective leadership is prevalent in both political and business
organizations. Collective leadership refers to the presence of leaders with equal
power for making vital decisions at the top of the organization. In a typical
state-owned plant (the unit of enterprise in the PRC is usually a plant rather
than a company), the factory director is the official head; but his/her power is
rivalled by the director of the (Communist) Party Committee. Beneath these two
directors are three chiefs: the chief engineer, the chief accountant, and the chief
economist. Once again, these three chiefs have equal power. These five
managers make up the “decision level” in the organization. They do confer with
each other on vital decisions, but input from lower-level employees is minimal.
Nonetheless, the instrument of participation is in place already.
In fact, visitors touring plants in the PRC or Taiwan may notice signs visible
all around the shopfloor that encourage everyone in the organization to
“participate”. Participation, in such a context, really means “do a good job at
your post so that you can maximize your contribution to the entire organization
or the entire country”.
In Western countries, it is generally believed that employee participation and
involvement will eventually lead to increased organizational performance, as
well as to enhanced employee satisfaction ( 1986). However, some
research in HRM also suggests that neither participative management nor
increased job satisfaction has been correlated with increased output and
productivity. The latter seems to be at least partially true in the PRC and
Taiwan. Participation is low in both countries, but Taiwanese workers have
been consistently more productive than have PRC workers. As to job
satisfaction, no one has conducted a large-scale survey to find out how satisfied
Chinese workers are with their jobs in general. However, as mentioned earlier,
trade unionism and working-class ideology are gaining momentum rapidly in
Taiwan, in spite of the fact that all workers are essentially better off today. More
and more employees demand greater participation in important administrative
affairs. This phenomenon seems to suggest that the demand for participative
management is, generally speaking, a function of the economic wealth of a
country.
The lesson. Participative management should be introduced in a cautious,
step-by-step, manner in the PRC – if it is to be introduced at all. In order to
implement participative management successfully in a Chinese firm, one has
either to change the basic philosophy of life held by Chinese workers or build a
sophisticated administrative system which sanctions organizational members
in a perfectly equitable fashion (such that the benefits of participation can be
realized without hurting morale). Both tasks are probably too challenging for
Western firms that seek joint ventures or try to establish new branches in the
PRC.
Be “culturally rational”
The transplantation of HRM practices requires a thorough understanding of the
cultural, legal and social environments in the host and local countries. Often
Western managers are shocked by the “irrational” way of doing things in Asian
nations such as the PRC or Taiwan. We are convinced that the word
“rationality” ought to be interpreted in a specific cultural context, for culture
influences how people define a problem, how they go about trying to solve the
problem and how the actual solution is reached ( 1989). Some practices
that we perceive to be irrational in the Western world might be considered
totally rational by Chinese people – and are not necessarily wrong in light of the
PRC’s cultural context.
It is our conviction that when a culture-driven approach is applied, the Sino-
American differences in human resource practices have important implications
for cross-cultural studies of other nations, too. To begin with, the tendency of
Chinese firms’ to downgrade face-to-face interviews and to rely on guanxi and
personal credentials as primary bases for hiring may be attributed to the
Chinese cultural preference for a less direct interpersonal approach. While
Westerners feel more comfortable with face-to-face encounter and direct
evaluation, the Chinese may prefer using those well-established relationships
(such as kinship) or secondary data (such as credentials) to assess the fit
between the job candidate and the organization.
Likewise, the relatively narrow range of wage and salary bands in most
Chinese firms, and the infrequent use of incentive pay in the PRC, may be
results of a cultural value associated with menzu. There is no evidence to show
whether or not the incentive pay system is perceived by most Chinese as a
better or fairer way to reward employees. However, regardless of the fairness of
the pay system, highly-differentiated compensations are invariably viewed as
threatening by Chinese employees who have a stronger desire to save face than
their Western counterparts.
The less sophisticated performance appraisal system in the PRC can be
attributed partially to the shorter history and the underdeveloped structure of
Chinese industry. To a large extent, however, it can be explained also by the
lower desire for objectivity (or higher tolerance of subjective measures), as well
as a preference for simplicity. So long as people trust the judgements of
performance evaluators, it might be advisable to adopt an easy-to-understand,
straightforward performance appraisal system that requires less participation
from employees.
Finally, the lower degree of participative management in Chinese
organizations may be associated with the higher respect for “positional
authority” in Chinese culture. One of the most famous mottos offered by
Confucius is: “If you are not in an administrator’s position, you should not mind
the administrative business.” Today, this advice is still widely accepted by
Chinese. The distinction between managers and non-managers is much more
clear-cut in China than in the West. Chinese workers care about their welfare
and want to get their voices heard by the management, but they may feel less
comfortable if it means they have to be involved in those decisions that are
traditionally defined within the realm of management.
In order to make our findings more generalizable, we summarize the
hypothesized relationships between specific cultural attributes and desirable
HR practices in Figure 1. These relationships should be interpreted with
caution, however. They do not imply any “either-or” type of choice for human
resource managers. Instead, each should be viewed as a useful guideline for
making a choice among a full spectrum of alternatives. Also, our guidelines do
not hint at any objection to the economic reform (or the political and structural
reform) that is going on in the PRC. Most Chinese firms, particularly those
enterprises that are state-owned, still need to refurbish their HRM systems by
importing Western practices. Our empirical findings would, however, speak
loudly against an outright adoption of Western HRM systems by Chinese firms
without appropriate modifications.
To be sure, in adapting to the host country’s cultural environment, one would
face the dilemma of maintaining compatibility between the home office and
one’s overseas affiliates. Rational or not, it is difficult for a multinational firm to
operate with two or more inconsistent management systems installed in
different divisions, even if these divisions are geographically separate. We do
not suggest that Western firms adopt a chameleon strategy in managing
international joint ventures or overseas branches. Rather, managers are advised
to be alert to the numerous potential problems during the transition when
transplanting HRM practices to another country. Eventually, we suspect, the
world may become highly homogenized in terms of cultural, economic and
social contexts, so that a company will be able to unify its HRM practices and
make consistent use of a single system to manage multinational interests.
Before that dream comes true, however, we still need to create “steps” to close
the gap between Western and other systems. This task cannot be accomplished
until we incorporate considerations of techno-economic variation, dissimilar
social structures, and ideological and political differences between the cultures
concerned.
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