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Introduction
The ascendancy of globalization in many aspects of business and society has directed attention to the subject of comparative management. One aspect of this is whether managerial practices and characteristics are showing similarities across cultural, economic, and political fault lines. While there is good reason to believe that the technical process for, say, making steel can be the same in New York, in Ljubljana, in Tel-Aviv, in contrast, management practices might be expected to differ across these locations. Similar managerial issues may not be resolvable in the same way in different countries though the tasks of management may be similar everywhere. Moreover, much of contemporary business research have tended to originate in the USA, and the so-called "American" model - the model of prevailing economic superpower - have gained acceptance in many parts of the world.
The success of business organizations depends to a great extent on the caliber of managers. This article focuses on the individual manager by examining the extent to which attributes and abilities expected of upper level managers are similar or dissimilar in three distinct countries - Israel, Slovenia, and the USA - and to what extent these qualities contribute to desired organizational outcomes such as financial success and employee morale. Since the management function encompasses certain responsibilities, tasks, and challenges, which are universal in nature, effectively handling a difficult situation in one country could be replicated in another geographical location. American notions of the profile of successful managers have gained ascendancy because of the publicity given to management ideas developed in the USA and the advent of American-style education, most notably in the form of the Master of Business Administration (MBA).
Overview of Extant Literature
To set the context for this study, three areas of literature are reviewed. They are: characteristics of managers; the hypothesis of convergence and divergence of managerial practices; and the distinctive characteristics of national economic and political systems.
Managerial Characteristics. An extensive body of literature exists on managers and managerial characteristics; a broad overview is presented here to provide the rationale for the instrument used to gather data which serves as the basis for this study.
Managers manage organizations. Business organizations, the focus of this study, have distinctive goals and are composed of people. Thus,...