ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors examine interpersonal and intergroup relationships, since it is in this area that cultural determinants are apparently easiest to discover. They discuss authority relationships and the general fear of face-to-face relationships, and eventually present a first general hypothesis covering the French features of their model. The authors describe that the problem of change, and try to understand, in cultural terms, the paradox which they have emphasized: the weakness of the omnipotent power at the top of the bureaucratic pyramid. They provide some comparable models for the different dysfunctions and rigidities that can develop in different cultural environments. The authors show the importance of the cultural dimension in analyzing the specific advantages that members of an organization derive from the existence of a bureaucratic system of organization. They discuss two other possible models of bureaucratic dysfunctions. The first corresponds to the Russian system of organization and the second, to the American one.
