Administrative Attitudes of Elite Officials in a Buddhist Polity

Abstract

A Q sort on administrative attitudes is given to Thai bureaucrats in a test of Riggs’ (1961) thesis concerning the importance of Buddhist philosophy in operating premises. The Q sample included issues of authority, values, decision making, recruitment, placement-transfer-promotion, superior-subordinate relations, worker performance, accountability, and group orientation. The resulting four factors largely contradict previous assumptions, and lead to the conclusion that origins of preferences for efficiency and clear-cut operating rules over inefficiency and corruption are human rather than Western-cultural.