Comparing Management Styles Between Two Countries, My Home Country Of The Usa And Switzerland

I’ve chosen to compare management styles between two countries, my home country of the USA and Switzerland.

The USA is the wealthiest nation when GDP is considered, but ranks third per capita for wealth. It only ranks 13th in happiness despite an enviable rank for wealth. Because happiness is so valuable, I’ve searched for a happy nation that also has wealth in order to consider adopting management practices of that nation.

Switzerland is the wealthiest nation per capita, and is the 2nd happiest nation in the world. With such high rank in both wealth and happiness, the nation is well worth the effort to learn from their management practices.

Managers in Switzerland tend to be lower key in their personalities compared to the USA, and also more often specialists in the area they manage. Conversely, the USA’s common practice is to hire generalists for management positions. Swiss management choices typically involve group discussions, peer review, and agreement among the majority before any decisive action is taken more often than in the US. In the USA, one powerful person making decisive choices without consulting peers or people below their own rank is standard. Taking into consideration that an idea needs to be accepted by the majority to really take hold in an organization, the slower process of decision implementation is understandably offset by the grip a decision made has in the Swiss community. In contrast, while managers in the US may be able to make large decisions with little consideration for the input of others and without hearing any objections others may have, the decisions made are not as likely to be implemented. As a result of people in the US workforce more often disagreeing with decisions of management, the dec...

... middle of paper ...

...n salaries of managers in the US may in part explain the lower life satisfaction since greater distances in wealth are a correlation found in nations with lower levels of happiness.

The differences in management styles of Switzerland compared to the United States is admittedly not irrefutable evidence to explain the difference in levels of happiness, and doesn’t necessarily entirely account for the higher per capita wealth in Switzerland. Though the evidence is circumstantial, it is worth taking into consideration. I believe the more cooperative management style, shorter work hours, optional flexibility of part-time employment, slower changes to organization practices, and smaller salary discrepancies of Switzerland’s employees in management all indicate that management styles in Switzerland is responsible in large part for the country’s greater wealth and happiness.