Change the culture, develop the country

President Noynoy Aquino is on the right track, pursuing into the second year his 2010 campaign agenda of “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap!” If anything can successfully change what many perceive—and to no small extent actually is—a culture of corruption in the Philippines, it is effective political transformational leadership. Not only can political transformational leadership change Pinoy culture, it can change the country, keeping it on track toward attaining the elusive goal of economic development so desperately sought by Filipinos, rich and poor alike.

Managers are well aware that corporate culture affects corporate performance, for better or worse. Passion for style and design at Apple, focus on continuous improvement at Toyota, dedication to serving the Pinoy palate—they are all corporate values that define the company’s business formula and contribute, critically, to success. Would Apple be the same without the curvy corners and sharp lines of its leading edge products? How could Toyota sustain its surpassing quality without its vaunted manufacturing intensity? Surely, Jollibee would fall far behind in the Pinoy fast food market if it dropped its flagship Yumburger or any of the other gems in its culinary portfolio!

But while managers give the nod to organizational development experts pounding the drum of corporate culture at top-level meetings, they profess less faith, perhaps, in the power of political leaders to change national culture for the sake of economic development. After all, a country is not a business—or is it?

Political leadership and cultural change

Lee Kuan Yew’s transformational leadership is the stuff of legend. Many marvel at Singapore’s First World per capita income, its top-ranked economic competitiveness, its world-class infrastructure, its highly regarded workforce. Theysee in the culture of the city-state the image of its founder—authoritarian, disciplined, frugal, pragmatic, obsessed with results, driven to achievement.

Although Singapore is an exception among exceptions, we could cite other political leaders whose influence has been critical to the development transformation of a country. Deng Hsiao-Ping, who rejected doctrinaire Maoism in favor of “pragmatic socialism,” kicked off China’s frenzied dash to reach the First World, not quite there. Deng encouraged capitalist values in the populace, not always, admittedly, to beneficial effect, as the melamine poisoning scandals demonstrate. Yet Deng’s policy change successfully turned China into the second-largest national economy in the world today.

Just what cultural values are associated with economic development? Some valuable insights have been gained through the World Values Survey (WVS). WVS has been conducted by the World Values Survey Organization Association every five years, beginning in 1981. To date, the association has conducted five surveys, the last in 2005-2008. As many as 87 societies, totaling more than 256,000 interviews, have been covered by WVS.

Among the key findings of WVSis that societies undergo values transformation as they progress in economic development. When societies transition from the pre-industrial to industrial phase of development, they adopt values that are less traditional and more secular and rational. Then when societies become more prosperous as a result of industrialization, so that they transition from the industrial to the post-industrial phase, they develop values that are less concerned with survival and place more emphasis on self-expression.

Contrast in values

Traditional values are associated with religious values. Deference to authority and a nationalistic outlook also tend to be important.

Secular and rational values, on the other hand, manifest greater interest in “this world,” saeculum (hence “secular”), so that interest in the “other world,” the world of the spirit, and in religion, diminishes. When secular and rational values become more important, society engages “this world” in a more rational, less religious way. Secular and rational values are by definition materialistic.

Not surprisingly, secular and rational values are associated with economic development. Developed countries are, materialistically speaking, more advanced. They are wealthier.

Survival is less of a concern in developed than in less developed countries. Developed societies tend to place less emphasis on survival than on self-expression, subjective well-being, and quality of life.

Confucian versus Western societies

WVS data shows that Confucian societies—notably, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Singapore—hold strong secular and rational values. Moreover, as Confucian societies, they are more communitarian, less individualistic than Western societies, so that Confucian societies tend to score in the middle range with respect to self-expression values.

Western societies, particularly historically Protestant societies, tend to hold strong self-expression values. They also tend to rank high on development measures.

Because both Confucian and Western societies tend to rank high on development measures, it should be apparent that it is not a single constellation of values that advances economic development.

Latin American societies, which tend to score higher than Confucian societies on self-expression values, definitely score lower than Confucian societies on development measures. In terms of cultural values, Philippine society has more in common with Latin American than with Confucian societies.

Philippine development and values change

The Philippines is still a mainstay of traditional values, although it is changing, no doubt as a result of rising wealth, increasing materialism, and the influence of global media, which promote the secular and rational outlook, and self-expression values of the developed world.

Can a culturally conservative society like the Philippines advance in economic development without necessarily rejecting or weakening traditional values? Evidently, there is more than one path to development. Developed countries of Catholic Europe, for example, tend to score in the middle range of secular, rational, and self-expression values, demonstrating that development is not equivalent to the rejection of religion.

Political transformational leadership

What kind of political transformational leadership is associated with development? At least one type is that which is focused on advancingdemocracy and market economy. This type of political transformational leadership is investigated by the Bertelsmann Management Index of Bertelsmann Foundation (Stiftung), which has been surveying developing countries since 2003.

The Management Index evaluates the reform activities of political decision makers according to four criteria: steering capability; resource efficiency; consensus-building; and international cooperation. The four criteria are each further subdivided into several more criteria. Steering capability, for example, asks, “How effective is the government in implementing reform policy?” Consensus-building asks, “To what extent can the reformers exclude or co-opt anti-democratic veto actors?”

The Management Index introduces an important innovation by taking into account structural constraints on political management, “level of difficulty.” Serious ethnic, religious and social conflicts increase level of difficulty, for example. Traditions of civil society, such as the existence of a stable party system to channel and articulate diverse representative political interests, reduce level of difficulty. The higher the level of difficulty, the higher is the Management Index score.

Higher Management Index scores are moderately associated with higher levels of economic development. Thus political transformational management in the direction of democracy and market economy is unmistakably associated with economic development.

This type of political transformational managementis also moderately associated with values change in the direction of secular and rational.

Change the culture, develop the country

The story of development is not just that of political transformational leadership or of a populace impelled by cultural values conducive to economic transformation. It is also the story of how political leadership and cultural values are related to each other, so that political leadership has the capacity to change the way a society believes, thinks, and feels, pushing a nation in the direction of development.

When political leaders make efforts to put good governance in place, for example, pursuing an anti-corruption agenda, going after past offenders, and bolstering the practice of clean government, such aggressive institutional reforms strengthen democracy and market economy. Filipinos are drawn into the process of ongoing social and cultural transformation that includes values change.

P-Noy and all political leaders vitally involved in the development of the country would do well to heed a message of hope: change the culture, develop the country. Your transformational leadership makes a big difference!

Gonzales is management and professional research consultant. He is a lecturer at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business and a research and communication consultant at Technikos Consulting, Inc. You can contact him at: j.i.b.gonzales@technikosconsulting.com.