Strategies for enhancing organizational effectiveness in the Third World

While problems of organizational dysfunction in the public domain are a global phenomenon, the consequences of such dysfunction are generally greater in the Third World. Possible discipline‐based (human resource management) explanations for the chronicity of these problems and a number of strategies for overcoming them are advanced. These strategies are described in terms of a number of imperatives and variables of effective organization. Structural imperatives include: clearly identified and agreed missions, goals, strategies, and main functions; accountability linked to sufficient power and control; clearly specified roles; particular notions of individual effectiveness and performance appraisal tied to rewards; and effective transformational leadership. The implicit model extends contingency theory by taking account of the evidence pointing to the cross‐cultural convergence of certain organizational characteristics, but retains the central notion of adaptation and hence the possibility of adaptive and non‐adaptive culturally and/or ideologically based variation in organizational behaviour. The model is built around a central core of value imperatives. Implications for human resource management (HRM) interventions—e.g. management training—include a possible shift away from a primary focus on skill and knowledge transmission, towards value and attitude change.