1According to Williamson (1985, pp. 47- 48) opportunism is “self-interest seeking with guile” at the expense of others. It concerns the dissemination of incomplete or distorted information, and involves deceit and treachery. In the economic field, opportunism often processes by the manipulation of information and creates conditions of information asymmetry which are responsible for many problems of economic organizations as well as for economic agents’ transactions, reducing trust and cooperation and thus increasing the cost of the transactions. It has been reported that nearly half of strategic alliances fail (Dyer, Kale, & Singh, 2001; Park & Russo, 1996) often because of the opportunistic behaviour of one or both partners. The transaction cost economics (TCE) paradigm (Williamson, 1985) focuses on the assumption of opportunism as a part of human nature and argues that the assumption of opportunism is necessary.

2However, the assumption of opportunism as a part of human nature has been criticized by many researchers (Conner & Prahalad, 1996; Ghoshal & Moran, 1996; Granovetter, 1985). Besides that all individuals are not opportunist all the time, the assumption of a perfectly rational and maximizer homo economicus issued from the neoclassical economic model, is perhaps a scholastic fallacy (Bourdieu, 2000). Maximization of profit and egoism are not the unique motivations of individuals in economic matters. Economic agents are also social subjects who think and act according to learned predispositions and habits (Bourdieu, 2000) and to social values, norms and conventions that determine their motivations, decisions and actions (Sakalaki, 2002).

3Therefore, the generalization of opportunism seems to be abusive. A more realistic approach suggests to consider a multistrategy perspective in which individuals adopt various cooperative or defecting strategies that depend on personality traits, like machiavellianism (Sakalaki, Richardson, & Thépaut, 2007), on situational factors, like information asymmetry (Akerlof, 1970; Sakalaki, 2002) or like close relationships and recurrent, mutual exchanges that increase the chances to prefer cooperative strategies (Axelrod, 1984), and on prior conditioning by cultural factors (Chen, Chen, & Meindl, 1998). Ghoshal and Moran (1996) greatly contributed to the conceptual clarification of opportunism by differentiating opportunistic attitude or propensity from opportunistic behavior which affect and are affected by each other. They also defined determinants of opportunistic attitudes and behaviors, like prior conditioning and thus opened up new fields for exploring the cultural and normative determinants of opportunism. An interesting topic concerning the normative determinants of opportunism refers to differentiations inducted by the individualism versus collectivism construct.

Relationality differentiations due to the individualism-collectivism construct

4Already in the 18^th century Burke (1790/1973) argued that individualism may have a negative influence on the welfare of the community, since individualism is antagonistic to the community and the collective. Emile Durkheim (1887/1933) also differentiated the temporary relations interwoven between individuals (organic solidarity proper to the individualistic focus) and the traditional relationships among individuals who belong to the same community and have similar values and norms (mechanic solidarity proper to the collectivist focus). Max Weber (1930) and Tönnies (1887/1957) differentiate collective relationships that characterize small rural or ecclesiastic communities and individualistic, associative relationships developed within urban societies. More recently Hofstede (1980) sustained that for individualists involvement with collective structures is calculative, whereas for collectivists it is moral. Discussing this last point, Schwartz (1990) argued that individualistic societies are based on the concept of contract which regulates obligations of social groups, while collectivist societies base the distribution and legitimacy of mutual obligations and expectations on predetermined social structures.

5Recent studies underlined the normative constraints which determine individualism and collectivism. Miller (1999) focused on the norm of self-interest which, in western cultures, is a powerful predictor of behaviour and leads individuals to act as if their self-interest was very important. Dubois and Beauvois (2005) showed that three features of individualism, that is self sufficiency, individual anchoring and internality, are normative while the primacy of individualistic goals seems to be rather counter-normative. McAuliffe, Jetten, Hornsey, and Hogg (2003) study showed the necessity for individualism not to be inconsistent with group’s ideas and norms, “going your own way” being tolerated only if group endorses individualism.

6The examination of culture according to the values of individualism versus collectivism has shown various reliable differentiations in what regards self-concept, relationality, well-being, or attribution style, which refer to the degree that a culture encourages the individual wishes, goals and needs against those of the collective (Matsumoto, Weissman, Preston, Brown, & Kupperbusch, 1997; Triandis, 1995). Although sometimes seen as simple opposites, it is more accurate to consider individualism and collectivism as worldviews that can coexist in individuals (Singelis, 1994), although they often lay emphasis on different prominent elements (Kagitcibasi, 1997) which permit to distinguish between subjects who are more or less individualists.

7Interdependence, sociability, family integrity, security, good social relationships, in-group harmony, and personalized relationships seem to be some of the values that collectivists care about (Triandis, McCusker, & Hui, 1990). Collectivists put aside the individual goals in order to accomplish those of the collective and feel emotionally dependent on others. Thus interaction with in-group members is high and privacy is low (Hui 1984, 1988; Hui & Triandis, 1986). They have fewer skills than individualists in dealing with new groups and strangers (Cohen, 1991), compete more vigorously and exploit out-groups more than do individualists (Espinoza & Garza, 1985). They are more likely to keep important information to themselves and consider lying to be a rather acceptable behavior if it benefits the in-group (Triandis, 1995). Individualism promotes values such as freedom, equality and equity, competition, participation, self-reliance, trust of others, competence, utilitarian pursuits, independence and separation from family, loneliness, self-improvement, desire to be distinguished. In individualistic cultures individuals pay more attention to themselves, to their own goals, and to their privacy and have strong ability to withstand social pressures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). They do their duty mainly when their computation of the advantages and disadvantages suggest they would derive a clear benefit (Triandis, 1995) and may pursue their self-interest, regardless of its implications for the collective.

8In regard to social relationships and to group membership, concepts that closely apply to a strategy like opportunism, the individualistic focus faces a contradiction: although individuals need group membership and social bounds to promote their goals and interests, the safeguarding of social relationships is a costly enterprise for individualists (Kagitcibasi, 1997). An assumption deduced from this contradiction is that the individualistic focus, in balancing group membership benefits and costs, coheres with vulnerable and temporary alliances (Kim, 1994). On the contrary, collectivist’s significant group membership and clear delimitations of in-groups and out-groups are rather stable and resistant to change (Kim, 1994; Triandis, 1995).

The Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT): a theoretical framework for the relationships between Individualism- Collectivism and Opportunism

9Evolutionary game theorists like Axelrod (1984, 2000) elaborated a cooperation theory which contributed to widely challenge the rationality assumption of traditional game theory. By giving emphasis on adaptive actors who module their behaviour according to situations, and evolutionary processes which determine the chances of strategies to become evolutionary stable, the Evolutionary Game Theory’s (EGT) cooperation approach offered considerable renewal in studying cooperation. This approach examines cooperative or defecting strategies focusing rather on practical and situational variables. It shows that cooperation and trust become evolutionary stable strategies in contexts of multiple exchanges which encourage individuals to cooperate with partners with whom they will play many times again in the future (Axelrod, 1984). Individuals also cooperate in clustered societies, where the social control and the proximity of members enhance the probability of domination of cooperative strategies (Dupuy & Torre, 1998). Recent works in line with the EGT have shown that social networks of interaction which favor information sharing that allows reputations to be established also provide incentives to cooperate (Axelrod, 2000). We inferred from the EGT the following hypotheses:

10H1. As close social bounds, recurrent exchanges, proximity and information sharing between individuals are more collectivist oriented, collectivists must have a higher propensity to choose cooperative strategies.

11H2. In the contrary, we can hypothesize that the individualistic focus, which cohere with vulnerable and temporary group alliances (Kim, 1994) and with ego-focused needs and aims, must favor the preference for defecting strategies and thus individualists should be more opportunistic than collectivists. Indeed, inspired by a different theoretical framework, Utz (2004a, 2004b) showed that subjects primed with independence, i.e., individualists, behave less cooperatively due to their social value orientation.

12The present study aims to explore these hypotheses in a cultural context where collectivist and individualist elements coexist. It refers to value differences within the same culture, rather than cultural differences. Thus, collectivist elements, including showing concern and self-sacrifice for the in-group, close relation with the extended family, less importance attributed to the concept of self, submission to in-group authorities (Triandis & Vassiliou, 1972), less trust to out-group members and to government (Sakalaki, 2001, 2002; Sakalaki, Richardson, & Bastounis, 2005) and more rich and positive attitudes and representations concerning collectivity than those concerning individuality (Sakalaki, Bastounis, & Ferentinos, 2005), are still present in Southern European cultures. Nevertheless, these cultures shift toward the integration of individualistic, urban values (Triandis, 1995) and thus present a more differentiated cultural texture that refers to both collectivist and individualist values and norms.

Method

Instruments

14Participants first completed a 10-item scale (see Table 1, items 1-10 with the prefix “opp”) designed to measure economic opportunism. Six of the items (items 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8) were derived from Sakalaki et al. (2007) Economic Opportunism scale (e.g., “When someone is applying for health insurance, it is not bad if he/she neglects to mention some of his/her medical conditions so as to keep the premium down”). Four items were also added in the present version (items 3, 7, 9, and 10), in order to enhance the scale’s reliability (e.g., “In order to maintain the economic interests of the group or the country in which they belong, people are entitled to violate the moral rules of economic life”). Participants then completed the greek translation of Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, and Lucca’s (1988) Individualism-Collectivism scale (see Table 1, items 1-27 with the prefix “ind”). Triandis et al.’s original scale included 29 items but two of them were excluded because of their ambiguous meaning in Greek after translation. This scale usually loads on three factors, that is self-reliance with competition (e.g., “To be superior a man must stand alone”), concern for in-group (e.g., I like to live close to my friends”), and distance from in-group (e.g., My parents’ opinions are not important in my choice of a spouse”). Self-reliance with competition and distance from in-group refer to individualism, whereas concern for in-group refers to collectivism. For both Opportunism and Individualism-Collectivism scales, ratings were made on a 7-point scale (from 1: strongly agree to 7: strongly disagree).

Table 1

1. Self-Reliance withcompetition 2. Opportunism 3. Concern for ingroup 4. Distance fromingroup Opp 1. It is natural for someone who is seeking a job to show his/ .363 her qualifications and hide his/her weaknesses Opp 2. In economic concerns, people should take care of their .421 own interests above all Opp 3. In order to maintain the economic interests of the group .555 or the country in which they belong, people are entitled to violate the moral rules of economic life Opp 4. Someone who wants to sell his used car, is not obliged to .501 inform a potential buyer about his car’s defects Opp 5. When someone is applying for health insurance, it is not .586 bad if he/she neglects to mention some of his / her medical condi- tions so as to keep the premium down Opp 6. It is natural for producers and traders to promote the quali- .597 ties and neglect to mention the defects of their merchandise Opp 7. It is natural that people, in economic matters, are more .563 honourable with their countrymen and with people they know than they are with foreigners or strangers Opp*8. Management in business presupposes honesty and inte grity .432 Opp*9. It is unacceptable for someone to resort to deceit in order .424 to achieve economic interests, even if it concerns his / her family’s welfare Opp 10. It is natural that people are more honourable in their .493 economic transactions with relatives than they are with strangers Ind 1. If the group is slowing me down, it is better to leave it and .494 work alone Ind 2. To be superior a man must stand alone .637 Ind 3. Winning is everything .610 Ind 4. Only those who depend on themselves get ahead in life .678 Ind 5. If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it your- .607 self Ind 6. What happens to me is my own doing .442 Ind 7. I feel winning is important in both work and games .431 Ind 8. Success is the most important thing in life .585 Ind 9. It annoys me when other people perform better than /I do .366 Ind 10. Doing your best isn’t enough; it is important to win .521 Ind 11. In most cases, to cooperate with someone whose ability is .488 lower than oneself is not as desirable as doing the thing on one’s own Ind 12. In the long run the only person you can count on is your- .563 self Col 13. It is foolish to try to preserve resources for future generations- .218 Col 14. People should not be expected to do anything for the .376 community unless they are paid for it Col 15. Even if a child won the Nobel Prize the parents should not .461 feel honoured in any way Col 16. I would not let my parents use my car (if I had one), no .452 matter whether they are good drivers or not Col *17. I would help within my means if a relative told me that .327 (s)he is in financial difficulty Col *18. I like to live close to my friends .372 Col *19. When my colleagues tell me personal things about them- .444 selves, we are drawn closer together Col 20. I would not share my ideas and newly acquired knowledge .439 with my parents Col 21. Children should not feel honoured even if the father were .493 highly praised and given an award by the government official for his contributions and service to the community Ind 22. I am not to blame if one of my family members fails .482 Ind 23. My happiness is unrelated to the well – being of my co- .505 workers Ind 24. My parents’ opinions are not important in my choice of a .600 spouse Ind 25. I am not to blame when one of my close friend fails .423 Ind 26. My co-workers’ opinions are not important in my choice of .444 a spouse Ind 27. When a close friend of mine is successful, it does not really .436 make me look better Note. Scores of items with asterisk were reversed

Factor analysis on the Opportunism and the Individualism / Collectivism Questionnaire.

Results

Correlation between Opportunism and Individualism vs. Collectivism

19As mentioned above, by applying a Factor Analysis with Promax Rotation, we postulated that the four factors are correlated. Still, the exact magnitude and the direction of correlations is of importance. Thus, we first proceeded with the calculation of a composite score for each factor. The composite scores were computed using, when necessary, the reversed scores of the items, so that, in all composite scores -1- would refer to low opportunism, individualism, and collectivism and -7- would refer to high opportunism, individualism, and collectivism. We remind that in line with E.G. T.: H1) collectivism should be negatively related to opportunism and H2) individualism should be positively correlated to opportunism.

20Results of Pearson Correlation Analysis on the four scales (Table 2) fully confirmed our hypothesis. The two individualism scales, Self-Reliance with Competition and Distance from In-group, although they did not correlate significantly with each other (r=.018, p=.721, N=397), they both correlated significantly and positively with the Opportunism scale (r=.337, p<.001, N=397, and r=.189, p<.001, N=397, respectively). In other words, although Individualism and Opportunism are different constructs, it seems that there is a relation between them, with people endorsing simultaneously both opportunistic and individualistic attitudes.

Table 2

1 2 3 4 1. Opportunism 1.000 2. Self- reliance with competition .337** 1.000 (Individualism) 3. Distance from ingroup (Individualism) .189** .018 1.000 4. Concern for ingroup (Collectivism) -.249** -.161** -.245** 1.000 ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Correlations between Opportunism and Individualism / Collectivism.

21Also confirming our hypothesis, the Concern for In-group showed significant negative correlation with all other scales (with Opportunism: r=-.249, p<.001, N=397 with Self-Reliance with Competition: r=-.161, p<.002, N=397, and with Distance from In-group: r=-.245, p<.001, N=397). In other words, scoring high on Opportunism and Individualism was related to scoring low on Collectivism, and vice versa.

Conclusion – Discussion

22This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the Individualism vs. Collectivism construct and opportunistic propensity. As shown above, individualists’ opportunistic propensity seems to be higher than collectivists’. Although non-cooperative strategies like machiavellianism or opportunism are well known in all type of societies (Chen et al., 1998; Chen, Peng, & Saparito, 2002; Christie & Geis, 1970), especially when there is a lack of social control mechanisms which facilitate cooperation and trust and insure retaliation on the defectors (Axelrod & Cohen, 1999), economic opportunism seems to cohere with individualism rather than with collectivism.

23Consequently, the results are in accordance with the predictions inferred from the EGT which, in order to study cooperation, focuses mainly on practical, situational, relational and spatial independent variables, like proximity, recurrent and stable exchanges, good experience of others, information sharing. It seems that, in economic matters, the choice of a cooperative or a defecting strategy depends mainly on practices and habits concerning the quality, frequency and duration of social relationships.

24Is economic behavior more dependent on “practical reason” and concrete, situational factors than social behavior which is more frequently determined by ideological constrains? This question requires further investigation. The fragile and temporary group alliances of individualists (Kim, 1994), joined to their ego-focused needs and goals, their social independence and loneliness, may be some of the factors that encourage their opportunistic propensity in economic matters. Further studies must also investigate the socio-cognitive, communicational, technical, economic, situational specificities of individualistic cultures that encourage the economic opportunism, especially in post-modern individualistic societies, where information and new information technologies come to dominate the socio-economic system. Given that information is a paradoxical good with uncertain quality and value (Sakalaki & Kazi, 2007; Sakalaki &Thépaut, 2005), which furthermore can be easily manipulated, distorted, dissimulated in one’s own interest, it is probable that, in this type of societies, strategies based on the manipulation of information, like opportunism, will be proved to have an increasing importance with crucial consequences for social bounds, trust and cooperation.

25These limited findings were based on a correlation study between individualism and economic cooperation. It would be interesting to test experimentally opportunistic propensity and behavior towards in-groups and out-groups. Indeed, according to Chen et al. (2002) individualists should have a higher opportunistic propensity than collectivists towards in-groups, while collectivists should be more opportunists than individualists towards out-groups. Future research should also investigate the relationships between individualism and economic cooperation, no more under pencil-and-paper conditions, but in field and laboratory experiments, taking into account a wider spectrum of variables and of cultural contexts, in order to define the extent to which these preliminary findings may be generalized.