Usamah Shawan, School of Finance and Management, Hebron University, PO Box 40, West Bank, Palestine.

The study aims to investigate the relationship between ''power-distance" and perfor­ mance of employees in the workplace. Power distance is one of the five value dimensions of Geer Hofstede 's framework for assessing cultures. Values in this framework are perceived to act as independent variables that affect organizational behavior including performance or productivity. Power distance is defined by Hofstede as ''the degree to whichpeople in a country accept that power in institutions and organizations is distrib­ uted unequally". The impact of this cultural value on performance has not received adequate attention by researchers and thisresearch is designed to fill thegap. A quantita­ tive approach employing a survey method  was used. A structured questionnaire was distributed to ten international NGOs working inPalestine from whichasample compris­ ing 50 employees representing 7different nationalities filled out the questionnaire which included forty close-ended questions that covered the two variables of productivity and power-distance. The answers were ranked using Likert five-category scale. International NGOs have been selected for  the study because they provide  the appropriate settings where cross-cultural interactions takeplace and where cultural interface that takesplace daily can influence performance.

Thefindings reveal a moderately significant positive correlation between power-distance and performance on the job based on matching each respondent's attitude regarding power- distance with his/ her evaluation of his/ her performance. A critical analysis of the sample members' responses and the differences found among individuals in the same cultural group confirms one of the researcher's hypotheses that the concept of power­ distance is not a cultural attribute that can begeneralized to include a whole culture but rather an individual attitude.

An important implication resulting from thefindings is that the value of power- distance can be used as apredictor of job performance especially in multi-national organizations where cultural variations among employees can act as barriers togood performance.

Keywords: power distance, performance, culture, multi-national organizations

Suggested citation: Shawan, U. (2016). Relationship between “power distance” and employee performance in multinational organizations. Skyline Business Journal, Volime 12, No 1,pp 48-54.

Shawan, U. (2016). Relationship between “power distance” and employee performance in multinational organizations. Skyline Business Journal, Volime 12, No 1,pp 48-54.