Interpersonal influence and employee selection in two cultures.

From analyses of the American and Greek subjective cultures it was predicted that Greeks will give greater weight to recommendations by friends and relatives than will Americans, and Americans will give greater weight to recommendations by neighbors and unknown persons than will Greeks in reaching an employee selection decision. Sixteen hypothetical job applicants were presented to Americans working in Greece and to Athens employers. The predictions were supported. The data support a cognitive consistency theory analysis in which the decisions of people who are different on some characteristics are incorrectly generalized so that they are different on all characteristics.