Egalitarianism makes organizations stronger: Cross-national variation in institutional and psychological equality predicts talent levels and the performance of national teams ¬リニ

The current research examined whether cross-national variation in egalitarianism predicts talent levels and organizational performance. We propose that national variation in egalitarianism predicts country-level talent because egalitarianism influences policymaking at the institutional level and everyday social interactions at the psychological level. We compared the relative impact of institutional and psychological measures of equality using the context of international performance in the most popular worldwide sport – football (soccer). Both institutional and psychological measures of equality were associated with greater national team performance. Egalitarian countries also had higher talent levels, which mediated the link between egalitarianism and performance. Furthermore, psychological equality mediated the effects of institutional equality on performance: Countries with greater institutional equality had better performing national teams because they psychologically endorsed egalitarianism. Overall, the findings support a serial mediation model: institutional equality? psychological equality? top talent levels? performance. Importantly, psychological equality at Time 1 predicted the performance of national football teams at Time 2 more than a decade later. All of these effects held when controlling for a host of country-level variables. The forces of equality appear to be a critical driver of talent levels and ultimately performance. These findings demonstrate that both institutional practices and normative systems help determine talent levels and have important implications for organizational performance. 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Although highly skilled talent is often key to effective performance, teams, organizations, and societies often fail to capitalize on their available pool of talent. For example, a study of 40 global companies found that these firms identified insufficient talent levels in key strategic positions as undermining their capacity to perform at higher standards (Ready & Conger, 2007). In addition, a survey of more than 1300 executives in 23 EU countries by the Boston Consulting Group (2007) identified talent levels as the most important capability to strengthen, yet the one that was least well developed in most organizations. Perhaps not surprisingly, the failures in talent development are an increasing source of concern to CEO’s; in fact, CEOs have been documented to spend over 20% of their time on talent issues (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2006). Because talent levels drive the performance of teams, organizations, and countries, it is important to understand if and how talent levels can be managed more effectively. The present research investigates how the cultural context influences talent levels. We focus on one specific feature of culture – egalitarianism – which has been prominent in research on crosscultural differences and research on status and power, but has not been examined as a factor directly linked to talent levels. Egalitarianism relates to the extent that societies provide equal rights to citizens and encourages norms and values that individuals are equal (Schwartz, 2014); egalitarian societies also are less likely to tolerate abuses of power inequality (Schwartz, 2001). We propose that egalitarianism matters for talent levels because it influences policymaking at the institutional level and everyday social interactions at the psychological level. At the institutional level, egalitarianism reflects the initiation, enactment and enforcement of laws dealing with political rights, civil liberties, and discrimination. Societies with strong egalitarian institutions provide citizens more equal opportunities, thereby opening the doors to a larger and more diverse pool of talented individuals. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.05.002 0749-5978/ 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. q We thank Sean Fath, Eric Anicich and Anne Lorgeoux for their research support. We would also like to thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions, as well as participants in the INSEAD OB brownbag. ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: INSEAD, Organisational Behaviour Area, Boulevard de Constance, 77305 Fontainebleau Cedex, France. E-mail address: [email protected] (R.I. Swaab). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 129 (2015) 80–92