A Case Study of Multicultural Organizational Leadership

in Hong Kong

ANGEL S.H.WONG

A Project

Submitted in Partial Fullfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts in Communication

Supervisor: Dr. Xiao Xiao Siu

School of Communication

Hong Kong Baptist University

Hong Kong August 2005

04408373 Acknowledgement

For sure that this year is a fruitful and memorable year for me, though it took a

great courage for me to give up my job and return back to school. I am really proud of being the BUHK’s fist year full-time M.A in Communication student. In here I have tried many “my life first time”, like read thousands of articles in a week, living in hostel with all mainland classmates, write a 10000 words graduation paper, ect. All this small parts my study year add to my internal strength and growth, also add colors to my life. I will never forget.

Sincerely, I wish to send my best wishes to all my professors, Dr. Leonard Chu, Dr. Chen Ling, Dr. Chen Ni, Dr. Steve Guo, Dr. Flora Hung, Dr.Xiao, Dr. Ringo Ma, Dr. Kara Chan and I appreciate all of yours lectures.

Especially, thank you for Dr. Xiao’s patience and hard work in guiding me and supporting me in the preparation of this project. He is one of the motivations that I strive for my best in this paper.

Also, many thanks for the five business leaders to take their valuable time for my interviews. As according to some of the leaders, want to keep anonymous, so I cannot name out one by one. Anyway, all their valuable opinion means a lot to my paper. Besides, I take this chance to thank you for BUHK’ library, in there I can borrow all my reference books. Thank you very much.

(Signature) M.A. in Communication

School of Communication Hong Kong Baptist University

June 27, 2005

M.A. Communication 044083473 ANGEL WONG SIU HA email: 04408373@hkbu.edu.hk Graduation Project

A Case Study of Multicultural Organizational Leadership

in Hong Kong

Globalization creates many business opportunities in Hong Kong, it also creates complex challenge for

the global leaders. Managing people and organization from other parts of the world is more complex than

managing domestic operations due to different cultural values(Hofstede 2001). In a recent survey of human

resource managers responsible for executive development in 108 Fortune 500 Firms, the respondents were

asked to identity the relative importance of various resources towards the success of the firm. Having

competent global leaders was rated as the most important factor in business success among the others.

The issue of the universality of leadership attributes across different cultures is thus important to researchers

and global mangers. Based on the viewpoint of this, this paper will explore in detail the role that

communication must play in operationalizing five multinational organizational operations that set their roots

in Hong Kong. In doing so, we want to find out the cultural variation on leadership style and how the leaders

adapt to different cultural environment.

This paper reports a five case study of five multinational companies in Hong Kong .The companies that

I contacted all involve at lease one of the features that Shuter (1989)mentioned "intercultural organizational

communication" and defined it as communication which took place within or between organizations that

possessed one or more of these features: regular communication across national borders, staff coming from

more than one national culture, and locating geographically in one culture but under the control of a parent

company in a different national culture.

Since the paper aims to find out the cultural variation on leadership style with more than one ethnic

group of workers and how the leader adapts to different cultural environment, leaders that come from the

management level are interviewed and their adjustment of leadership under a diverse cultural environment

are explored. The data were mainly collected through face to face in-depth interviews and later follow-up

phone interviews. Also document analysis of company website, brochures and press released about them

were necessary.

Key words:

Leadership, multinational organization, Hong Kong, subordinates.

HKBU M.A.in Communication 044083473 ANGEL WONG SIU HA 04408373@hkbu.edu.hk Graduation Project

A Case Study of Multicultural Organizational Leadership in Hong Kong

Table of content Page 1. Introduction 1 1. Literature Review 3 2. Research Methodology 11 6. Finding 16 3. Discussion/Conclusion 37

Table Index

Tables Page

Table 1-leadership style 6

Table 2 -Hofstede(1980) Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values

8

Table 3-Profile of the Companies 12 Table 4- Basic Statistic about companies and leaders 16 Table 5- Key Results 18 Table 6-Coping strategies of leaders in a multicultural environment 36 Table7-Characteristics of a success Global leader 37 Attachment at back: Interview Script

1

M.A. Communication 044083473 ANGEL WONG SIU HA Email: 04408373@hkbu.edu.hk Graduation Project

A Case Study of Multicultural Organizational Leadership in Hong Kong

Introduction

21 century is the age of globalization, with the help of revolution of communication technologies.

Establishing overseas offices, trans-national partnership and joint ventures, expanding world-wide market

and recruiting multinational labour force are emphasized as parts of globalization. Under such circumstances,

corporate communication also turns into global and intercultural. Within the same enterprise, we can find a

diversity of people that are of different ethnic groups. Hong Kong, an international metropolis is of no

exception where a blend of ethnic groups scattered within the same company.

Hong Kong offers an unusual stable and efficient business environment with the modern

infrastructure and telecommunications that could be expected of the world's 9th largest economy as the

government's policy is strictly non-interventionist.

Also, Hong Kong has no compulsory union membership, and copyright laws essentially follow those

of the United Kingdom, with Hong Kong being a party to the Paris Convention.

Moreover, bankers, accountants, lawyers, and other professionals who serve multinational firms have

thrived in a community of local firms that has become increasingly transnational since the opening of the

Mainland to foreign trade and investment in the late 1970s. This deep-rooted local familiarity with the needs

of international business makes Hong Kong an easy place in which to find joint-venture partners and to find

expatriate professionals.

Hong Kong is unsurpassed in the extent to which it brings local and overseas firms together into a

single business community. The constant interaction between thousands of overseas firms and local

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businesses in a supercharged business environment generates growth opportunities for both sides in setting

up international networks, entering new lines of business, finding new sources of supply and new markets

and linking up with business partners from Hong Kong, China and elsewhere. As one local business

executive observed, 'For multinational firms which seek out and thrive from interaction with the local

environment and local firms, Hong Kong is the Asian location without par.'

With reference to this globalization process, Shuter (1989) introduced a new term, "intercultural

organizational communication" and defined it as communication which took place within or between

organizations that possessed one or more of these features: regular communication across national borders,

staff coming from more than one national culture, and locating geographically in one culture but under the

control of a parent company in a different national culture.

We can see that globalization creates many business opportunities in Hong Kong, and it also creates

complex challenge for the global leaders. Managing people and organization from other parts of the world is

more complex than managing domestic operations due to different cultural values (Hofstede 2001). In a

recent survey of human resource managers responsible for executive development in 108 Fortune 500 Firms,

the respondents were asked to identity the relative importance of various resources towards the success of the

firm. Having competent global leaders was rated as the most important factor in business success among the

others.

Based on the viewpoint of this, this paper will explore in detail the role that communication must play

in operationalizing five multinational organizational operations that set their roots in Hong Kong. In doing so,

we want to find out the cultural variation on leadership style and how the leader adapts to different cultural

environment.

3

Literature Review

There are thousands of studies about leadership but not much of them are specifically about

multinational companies within Hong Kong’s business environment. Here I will firstly focus on the

definition of leadership, leadership styles comparison. Then some cultural dimensions, like Hofstede study

on "Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values will be discussed.

It is generally agreed that good leadership is a good thing, a positive thing. Leadership also tends to

be a bit of a ‘pop’ topic, and people like to discuss what makes someone a great leader. What makes people

follow, or what motivates them to follow. Actually leadership is easy to know but hard to define as there is

not a standard definition for it. Shaw (1981) states that although there are numerous definitions, "all have in

common, explicitly or implicitly, the notion that leadership is an influence process which is directed toward

goal achievement" (317).

Another definition by Gouran and Geonetta (1977): the person in the group who has most "influenced

the group's overall progress toward achieving its objective" (49) also has the similar meaning as that

suggested by Shaw. They also suggested that leadership is a perception of the group members

Leadership Style

Only some of the leadership studies will be mentioned here since they are more applicable for my

study and suitable for Hong Kong’s business environment, especially the leadership approaches mentioned

later on.

According to Howe (1971), leadership style functions best if it can help subordinates’ to achieve their

goal, whereas Vroom and Yetton (1973) argue that leadership style should be consistent with the types of

decisions being made.

4

Instead, Hersey and Blanchard (1982) note that "there is no best leadership style or stimulus. Any

leadership style can be effective or ineffective depending on the response that style gets in a particular

situation leadership style.”

As (Sarros, 1992; Wittenberg Cox, 1991) suggested, certain leadership traits are effective worldwide,

such as flexibility, sense of human, patience, resourcefulness, and positive regard for others.

Actually, Hofstede (1980) also reminds us that leaders cannot choose their leadership style at will; it

is only greatly dependent on the nature of subordinates or followers upon which leaders depend.

There are about five major approaches for the study of leadership. The Trait approach suggests that

leaders are born with personal characteristics that make them leaders (Fisher and Ellis 1990); they also may

have acquired them environmentally (Napier and Gershenfeld, 1989). The view that leaders possess special

traits that set them apart from others and that these traits are responsible for their assuming positions of

power and authority. However, Stogdill (1948) argues that there no consistent set of traits differentiated

leaders from non-leaders across a variety of situations as n individual who was a leader in one situation might

not be a leader in another situation.

And then there is the introduction of the Style Approach carried out by Bass and Valenzi (1974).

This theory considered task and relationship-oriented approaches to leadership, three styles of leadership:

autocratic, democratic, and laissez faire are being emphasized. Authoritarian (autocratic) leadership is

used when employees are told by the leaders what is to be done and how they want it done. No input or

advice is sought.

Participative (democratic) leadership would involve one or more employees together with the

leader in determining what to do and how to do it. The manager maintains his authority by making the final

decision, but seeks the input of the fellow employees that are involved. Using this style is not a weakness,

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and can be a sign of strength and gain respect. Participative leadership is best used when the leader has some

of the information and fellow workers have some of the information. Teaming their knowledge and expertise

allows for a better decision and implementation process.

Delegative (lais sez faire) leadership allows the employees to make the decision thought the final

decision is made by the leader. When the workers are competent enough to analyze the problem and able to

make decisions, delegative leadership is adopted so as to allocate the workload to different people .A leader

sets priorities and then delegates certain tasks to other workers.

The focus of study shifts from the innate characteristics of leaders to learnable behaviors and to the

interaction between leaders and followers. The behavior of the leader is being examined in the way they

handle things, including what they do and the way they do. (Northouse, 1997). Northouse also further points

out that the style approach only classifies their behavior but not intend to guide leaders how to act like a

leader.

The third one the Situation Approach was developed by (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969) which states

that “Different situations require different kinds of leadership. The type of task (problem-solving, social, and

so on), the membership of the group (group motivation, personalities, levels of expertise) and the leader

(personality, commitment, competence) are all related to the situation. Here the one external factor, the

organizational environment is taken into account for the leader effectiveness.Being an effective leader

requires that an individual adapt her/his style to the demands of different situations

The life-cycle approach suggests that "a leader's role is determined by the maturity of the followers"

(Lumsden and Lumsden 272) and the relationship between leader and followers is emphasized. Groups with

lower maturity need more directive leaders and vice versa.

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Finally, the functional approach, emphasizes the roles that members play in the group rather than

emphasizing the person in the leadership role such as the leadership role. Four kinds of roles: "task roles,

maintenance roles, organizational roles, and leadership roles" (110) are distinguished by Crable(1980) Each

role has different functions that define it. For example, the group member who assumes a task role might be

an initiator, a person who "focuses upon new ideas for the group": an information or opinion giver, a clarifier,

a coordinator, or an evaluator (Crable 110-11). The leader can play any of the roles in the group. In general,

the leader motivates the group to get the job done and performs the various roles as they are needed and

when they are needed. In some ways, no one leader exists, but rather, a person (or perhaps several people)

assumes certain roles or performs certain functions and is perceived as the leader by other members of the

group.

Apart from the above leadership style, some other researchers also divided the leadership into

different categories, some of them are depicted in the following table:

Table 1—leadership style Activities & Competencies Personal Characteristics

III Charismatic- Transformational

All of Level II +... Personal Charisma

All of Level II +... Self-Confident Knows Him/Herself Eloquent Free of Internal Conflict Expressive Emotionally

II Transformational

All of Level I +... Frames Holistic Issues Sets New Goals & Direction Creates Meaning Manages Creative Conflict Promotes Organizational Learning Creates A Context for Dialogue Manages Paradigms Creates Commitment Through Shared Values

Assertive Seizes Opportunities Tolerates Risk Uses Systems Thinking

I Relational

Creates Commitment Through Participation Motivates Intrinsically Promotes Teamwork Manages Politics Works Within Existing System

Participative & Consultative

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Start from the table top, Charismatic- Transformational leadership in which charismatic leaders

have a deep self-confidence that derives from self-knowledge. They have thought things through and have

little inner conflict or doubt. Followers believe in the leader, his/her values and goals, primarily on an

emotional basis. Bass (1985; 1990) and Bass and Avolio (1994) develop the concept of transformational

leadership to include charisma, inspiration, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation.

Rationality takes a back seat.

Leader here has all of the qualities of the Transformational Leader with the added qualities of the

Charismatic Leader. Weber's (1978) defines Charisma is a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an

individual influence or authority over large numbers of people.

Black and Porter (2000, p. 432) define transformational leadership as: "leadership that motivates

followers to ignore self-interests and work for the larger good of the organization to achieve significant

accomplishments; emphasis is on articulating a vision that will convince subordinates to make major

changes." These leaders have a profound effect on their followers’ beliefs regarding what the organization

should become and also on their subordinates’ values. They also provide their followers with guidance so

that they are able to achieve their goals. Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Michael Dell of Dell

Computer Corporation, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com are considered as transformational leaders

Transformational Leaders are assertive risk-takers who seize opportunities. They are also systems

thinkers who understand the interactions of people, technology and culture. (Weber, 1952; 1978), (Bass &

Avolio, 1993)

Also, they are visionary, inspiring and daring. These are the people that revive failing companies.

They lead other firms into a future that is very different than their past.

Transformational Leaders have lofty goals and high ideals. They are seen as people of high integrity.

8

Relational Leaders (Walter 2000) gain commitment through participative problem-solving.

Transformational Leaders creates even greater commitment through shared values in addition to participation.

Commitment through participation in work and problem-solving processes are created by relational leaders.

Teams and teamwork play a key role for the Relational Leader. Relational leaders are usually personable.

They welcome participation and consultation and will tolerate opposing views. Belonging to a team is

powerful motivation for most people. In addition, teams are better at solving difficult, unclear and non-

technical problems.

Above mentioned are some leadership styles that are free from the cultural factors but if there is a

diverse ethnicity of workers, then the leadership do need some adjustments.

How does culture variation affect the leadership?

According to (Hofstede, 1989), a cultural dimension is an aspect of culture that can be measured

relative to other cultures

In 1980, Hofstede published his seminal study on "Culture’s Consequences: International Differences

in Work-Related Values." Based on the analysis of about 72,000 survey answers from IBM employees from

40 countries, Hofstede proposed four dimensions along which to distinguish countries regarding the values

that the majority of their people hold at work and concluded that the societies can be classified on the basis of

four value dimensions: Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism-Collectivism, and

Masculinity-Femininity.

Table 2 Hofstede (1980) Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values

1. Power Distance. This indicates the extent to which a society accepts the fact that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. Citizens of the Philippines, Mexico, Venezuela, India and Singapore ranked highest in power distance; residents of New Zealand,

2. Uncertainty Avoidance. This indicates the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid these situations by providing greater career stability, establishing more formal rules, not tolerating deviant ideas and behaviors, and believing in the attainment of expertise.

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Denmark, Israel and Austria the lowest.

Citizens of Greece, Portugal, Belgium and Japan reported the highest uncertainty-avoidance ratings; residents of Singapore, Denmark and Hong Kong the lowest.

3. Individualism-Collectivism. Individualism implies a loosely knit social framework in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and of their immediate families only, while collectivism is characterized by a tight social framework in which people distinguish between in-groups and out-groups; they expect their in-group (relatives, clan, organizations) to look after them, and in exchange for that, they give absolute loyalty to it. Moreover, individualistic cultures emphasize that the needs and goals of the individual and his or her immediate family are most important. The United States ranked as the most individualistic culture in Hofstede’s sample, followed by Australia, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Venezuela, Columbia, Pakistan were the most collectivistic.

4. Masculinity-Femininity. Measurements in terms of this dimension express the extent to which the dominant values in society are "masculine" – that is, assertiveness, the acquisition of money and things, and not caring for others, the quality of life, or people. Japan, Austria, Venezuela and Italy were the most masculine cultures surveyed, while Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark were the most feminine.

Another study Devereaux and Johansen (1994) depicts five cultural lenses or variables that people

from different culture vary during their work as followings:

1. Language: different countries got different languages which are different in the grammar, structure,

meaning of vocabulary and oral presentation, or even the jargons adopted by subcultures.

2. Context: the way to handle information overload. There is low context communication to high

context communication. In scale of low context communication (LCC), people hold information in

the single message and the most information is expressed explicitly and directly (Hall, 1976) but in

High Context communication (HCC), most information is expressed implicit and indirectly. People

expect you know the meaning behind the message even everything is not manifestly included.

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3. Time: Different culture has different value and meaning of time, they can generally see as

monochromic (one event at a time) or polychromic (many events at once). Poly-chronic time is a state

of being while mono-chronic is a resources to be measured and managed. Past, present and future are

the concept of time that differs in different cultures.

4. Equality/Power: arises when there is difference in status, authority between people and groups.

5. Information flow: concern with how the information or message flow between people and levels in

organizations, and how actions chains move toward communication or task completion. The patterns

can be sequenced or looped.

About the concept of time, Wallach and Metcalf (1995) points out that the Americans and Asians hold

different views of time in many way To Americans, time is a scarcity and they are always shortage of it. The

scarcity and importance of time can be expressed in some English phases like” spending time’, ‘losing time’,

etc. However, Asians do not view time very scarce and their time arrangement of activities is distinct, one

follows another and like a cycle, like the planting season, the harvesting season, ect.

1. American like to take one task at one time, projects, meetings, appointments are scheduled and well

planned as they want to use time effectively. Asians like to involve many things at one time.

2. Time commitments are seriously taken by Americans as they think time is money and being punctual

is very important for them but not that for Asians.

3. Americans value timelines and deadlines very important but Asians only view a deadline or schedule

as an intention or best estimate of what you will be able to achieve.

4. Americans like to look at the futures but typical Asian’s like to share their affection for the past.

Americans believe one should look towards the future and changes are needed from time to time,

instead of dwell on the past.

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Actually the culture can impact leadership in several ways. As cultural values and norms are

internalized as managers grow up in their cultures, the managers’ behaviors and attitudes over time in explicit

and implicit ways(Fu, Yukl.2000) are shaped by programming their mind(Hofstede 1980).

Also, leadership is “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be

done and how it can be done effectively, and the process of facilitating individuals and collectives efforts to

accomplish the shared objectives’ (Yukl 2002,p.7)

Therefore, leaders tend to conform to social norms in their relationships with others since it will increase the

chance of success and being deviated from culture norms can diminish their respect and effectiveness (House

et al. 1999, Yukl 2002). So the actions, norms and deeds of the leaders are limited and narrowed down

(Swidler, 1986)

Research Methodology

Since this is a research and analytic paper, and Hong Kong is an international financial hub where

multinational enterprises proliferate, in order to keep in abreast with the fast paced and ever-changing

business world, getting into touch with the business leaders is one of the best way to explore more about this

topic.

As the paper is about the multinational organizational leadership, and the analysis unit is the leader

from management level in Hong Kong enterprises, I need to collect data regarding my research question.

The data was mainly collected through face to face in-depth interviews and later follow-up phone

interviews. There are some open-ended interview questions and some closed- end questions. The closed-end

questions are included in the last part Leadership Style. Leaders’ social control, emotional expressivity, and

emotional control skill, emotional communication skills were measured using Likert-type scales ranging

from 1(not at all like me) to 5(exactly like me) from an abbreviated version of Riggio’s(1989) Social Skills

Inventory.

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Also documentary analysis of company website, brochures and press released about the leaders were

necessary. I aimed to get at least 5 interviews since I want to be more focusing on depth rather than quantity

of interviews. I tried my best to contact the company leaders through the email, the phone. Finally I got 7

feedbacks from the leaders that I had contacted. However, two of them finally turned down my

interview .One of them explained that he was too busy, another one, a Japanese Managing Director from a

Japanese company, claimed that his company policy did not allow him to do that. Lucky I still got five

interviews and I thought it was good enough as I intended to get some in-depth qualify data rather than

emphasized on quantity.

The companies that I contacted all involve what Shuter (1989) mentions "intercultural organizational

communication" as there is communication that takes place within or between organizations. All of them

possess at least one or more of these features: regular communication across national borders, staff coming

from more than one national culture, and locating geographically in one culture but under the control of a

parent company in a different national culture. So the analysis units here are the leaders that come from the

multinational enterprises management level, within the same national cultural.

Thought all the business leaders were very busy on tons of company affairs and therefore hard for

them to spare some time for me, I finally interviewed them at their offices, or restaurants or coffee shops. In-

depth interviews are adopted for the data collection process in hoping for more integrity, reliability of data

since the interviewees are more easily get touched if there are some resonances that recall their related

experiences.

Let’s take a look at the Profiles of the interviewed companies.

Table 3 Profile of the Companies

Company S is a recognized leader in the international logistics market where they

provide customized and integrated solutions for supply chain management, warehousing

and distribution - as well as value added services, ocean freight, and air

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freight transportation.

S operates in more than 70 countries and employs over 4,500 people with specialist

knowledge of their local markets. The company is part of the #### group, which has

more than 60,000 employees in over 125 countries around the world. It is a truly global

logistics provider

FD was founded in Hong Kong in 1969. Headquartered in Hong Kong, o has an

extensive office network in the Greater China region to support their business operations

and strategies.

With over HK$25 billion of client's assets under custody and HK$5 billion of

shareholders funds. FD is the one of the leading local financial institutions in Hong Kong.

One of the first approved non-mainland brokers and underwriters in China; they also own

the most trading rights among all HKEx participants.

To meet the diverse financial needs of its broad base of retail, high net worth and

institutional clients, FD offers a broad range of financial products. Teamed with over 800

dedicated professionals,

In 1979, there are lists of events happened that make FD a globalized enterprise:

• Assurances Générales de France became a shareholder of Sun Hung Kai Insurance

Co. Ltd

• Established O (China) Limited

• FD Co. Limited listed on the stock market

• Paribas increased its shareholding in FD Co. Limited

• Established a China Trade Department and established an office in Beijing,

becoming one of the pioneer companies in Hong Kong to set up offices in the

mainland PRC

FH is one of the leading financial service group in the euro zone. Its business mix is

structured around three core businesses: Retail Banking, Asset Management and Private

Banking, and Corporate and Investment Banking.

FH is the corporate and investment banking arm of the SS Group, serves corporate clients

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and investors in 45 countries. It is recognized by its clients for its innovation and

execution capabilities. Thanks to these qualities, F now ranks among the top ten financial

institutions on the euro capital markets and remains the global leader in derivatives.

Present on the European, US and Asian markets,

FH got many offices globally in the following countries: Argentina, Mexico, Brazil,

Panama, Canada, United States, Chile and Venezuela.

The Department of Economics and Finance(E) provides solid training in both the theory

and application of economics and finance. The Department aims to train graduates with

cutting-edge knowledge in modern economics and finance and to provide Hong Kong

with the young financial executives, economists, and business analysts it needs. The

mission of the Department is to be a center of excellence in research and teaching, using

economics and finance for business as well as public sector decision-making in Hong

Kong, Mainland China, and other Asia-Pacific economies.

The Department has over thirty regular and visiting faculty members, who are actively

engaged in research and teaching. Several faculty members have been honored as

exemplary teachers. Many of them have compiled outstanding research publication

records, with their publications appearing regularly in reputable international refereed

journals. In particular, the faculty members teaching postgraduate programs are

internationally recognized scholars in their fields. Based on research publications, the

Department is ranked by published studies in the top tier among all universities in the

Asia-Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand.

B is one of France’s largest retail banking networks with 6,600,000 clients and 2,692

branches.

It currently occupies some first-class positions in all its client groups – personal, small

business, corporate and institutional clients – as a result of rapid business development

achieved through steady organic growth and targeted acquisitions. As a cooperative

organization built on strong shared values, the Group strives for a harmonious balance

between robust financial performance and concern for the collective interest.

Some facts about B:

- 3,000 people hired in 2004 and 6,000 new jobs created in five years

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- leading banker to business start-ups and main investor in SMEs

- provider of the broadest range of export-support solutions available to the business

community.

These positions, in areas of global importance, are a tangible illustration of the Group’s

ongoing commitment to economic and social development at both national and regional

level.

It also got its global presence on Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania, etc.

Interview Structure

Before coming to the part of finding, I would like to point out the main parts of my interview.

It is divided into several parts which included Background Information of the company/leader, and

then the daily interaction between the leaders and their subordinates are being noted according to the

following: the general situation ,specific situation: e.g. goal setting, meeting time, task distribution, informal

activities and the leader’s leadership style.

The interviewed companies are all Multinational companies. According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_company, “A multinational corporation (MNC) or multinational

enterprise (MNE) or transnational corporation (TNC) is one that spans multiple nations; these corporations

are often very large. Such companies have offices, factories or branch plants in different countries. They

usually have a centralized head office where they coordinate global management.” So the selected five

companies are all multinationals according to the above definition.

Interview Procedures

The five interviews, except with the two foreign leaders, all were conducted in Cantonese. Another

two were conducted in English or English with some French (The French leader is not very fluent English

Speaker), as one of the business leader come from France. Each interview was lasted for 80 minutes to 120

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minutes, and took place either in the leader’s office, or in the private conference room or coffee shop. Two

interviews, the one with the American Leader and the one with the Hong Kong Vice President in Financial

Industry were conducted after working hours while all others all within office hours.

The interview schedule consisted of both structured questions and open ended questions which can be

catalogued according to the following three aspects:

1. Background information of Leader/Company including age, gender, educational background, length

of employment, and current job description, etc.

2. Communication interaction patterns between the leaders and their subordinates both at work and

outside the workplace under different situations: the general situation ,specific situation: e.g. goal

setting, meeting time, task distribution, informal activities

3. The leader’s leadership style –Leaders’ social, emotional, interpersonal and communication skills

using Likert-type scale ranged from 1-5 to measure.

Main Questions:

Based on the interview, we are going to explore in detail the role that communication must play in

operationalizing five multinational organizational operations that set their roots in Hong Kong. Cultural

variations on leadership style are going to be explored, and see how the leaders adapt to different cultural

environments.

Finding

Table 4. Basic Statistic about companies and leaders

Company Symbol

S FD FH E B

Industries Shipping/ Logistic

Financial Financial Educational (University)

Banking

Parent company

Denmark Hong Kong France Hong Kong France

Gender/ Male/ Male/ Male/ Male/ Male/

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Ethnic Hong Kong American Hong Kong Hong Kong French Job title Director Chief Executive

Officer(CEO) Vice President/ Head of China Operation

Department Head

Vice President/ (HK Branch)

Years of experience in the company

30 7 25 17 12

Subordinates under jurisdiction

35 60 35 15 10

Race of subordinates

HK, Mainland Chinese, Denmark

HK, Mainland Chinese, American, Japanese

English, French, Indian, Singapore, HK, Mainland Chinese Japanese

Italian, HK, Mainland Chinese, Taiwan, Korea Indian, Austria, Japanese,

HK, Mainland Chinese, French

As can be seen from the Table above, the interview samples have generally different demographics.

The three Hong Kong managers generally had longer years of experience in the same company that they are

servicing now. The selection of the interviewees was determined on the basis that they had more than one

ethnic of subordinates under their jurisdiction so the cultural factors should be taken into account for their

leadership.

Also, all of the interviewees come from multinational organizations, which implied that they should

have a more broad and international view on their leadership as they needed to communicate with their

working people globally.

All of the interviewees have been working in the same company for a period ranging from 7 years to

30 years, with the averaging term of employment being 18.2 years. They are all males so the gender attribute

is certainly not a consideration here. Their ages are ranged from around 43 to 60 and held positions in middle

and upper management levels within the company, and all of them at least have a master degree.

Result Analysis Part 1

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Question 1

What kinds of leaders are them when there are no cultural factors for consideration?

Measures:

Leader social, emotional, interpersonal and communication kills.

Leader social control, emotional expressivity, and emotional control skill were measured using scales

from an abbreviated version of Riggio’s(1989) Social Skills Inventory, which assesses an individual’s social,

emotional communication skills. On a Likert-type scale ranging from 1(not at all like me) to 5(exactly like

me), leaders were asked to provide a self-report of their social, emotional, interpersonal and communication

kills. They leader participants were instructed to rate a series of statements that may or may not be

characteristics or descriptive of you’(Riggio, 1989).Here are some sample items:’ I can easily adjust to being

in just about any social situation,’ “ My facial expression is generally neutral’,” I am rarely able to hide a

strong emotion’, “How easy do you find it to make contact with new people? “ What do you think is the

impact on others of your

current international and working style?”

Table 5 Key Results

Company Symbol

S FD FH E B

Parent company

Denmark Hong Kong France Hong Kong France

Gender/ Ethnic

Male/ Hong Kong

Male/ American

Male/Hong Kong

Male/Hong Kong

Male/ French

Company or Department hierarchy

Decentralized mostly

Centralized Centralized Decentralized

Decentralized

Leadership style

Democratic, Delegative Autocratic democratic Democratic

Power distance between Leaders and subordinates

Low Medium to high Medium to high

Low Low

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The five interviewees showed similarities on leadership style as three of them can be described

generally as democratic leaders from the decision making perspective as at least one employee was involved

in the decision making process(Bass and Valenzi,1974).

From the table, we can see that actually the leadership style is related to the company’s

hierarchy. The leader in a decentralized decision making company tended to be more democratic and vice

versa. This is coincident with Hofstede(1980)’s study of power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede

(1980) pointed out “In cultures where power distance is high (centralized decision making), power is the

most important factor in maintaining the organization and protecting it from uncertainty. (So leader FH was

an autocratic leader). However, if power distance is low(decentralized decision making), there maybe two

possibilities. Where people value adherence to rules (high uncertainty avoidance) a framework of clearly

articulated rules can provide cohesion. In culture where rules are not specially salient (low uncertainty

avoidance) the organization relies more on ad hoc negotiation, which requires a larger tolerance for

uncertainty.”

In company FD, though the company decision making was centralized as it was quite a complicated

company hierarchy, also the power distance was medium to high, the American leader did not follow the

parent company’s culture as the company was a Hong Kong company. He thought that when the workers

were competent enough to analyze the problem and able to make decisions, he was very willing to allocate

the workload to different people .He sets priorities and then delegates certain tasks to other workers. (Bass

and Valenzi, 1974).

Actually, his leadership style was directly affected by his national culture, the American style, which

was more democratic and liberal. Fairness and equality was emphasized by him. Therefore the workers were

rewarded according to their performance, according to the pre-determined company reward system. The

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input of the fellow employees was needed and respected though the leader maintained their authority by

making the final decision. Here the leaders and the subordinates both participated in decision making as both

parties got some useful information.

Question 2 Which type of leadership?

Refer to table 1 about the leadership types and the results from the part “Leader social, emotional,

interpersonal and communication kills” that measured on Likert-type scale, it indicates that the most obvious

similarity between the four firms is that each has a strong, articulate leader who can communicate a clear

vision in a systematic and credible manner. This is highly related to the international business environment of

Hong Kong which equips with them a broad and international sense of leadership. Also, their high education

levels greatly contributed to their effective communication skills.

Three of them both have the following characteristics:

1. They are normally courage, outspoken, communicative and expressive.

2. They have belief in people. They have an empathy with people even though they themselves are powerful.

They try their best to empower others.

3. They are value driven and consistent in their articulation of core values and act according to these values.

4. They are life-long learners, learning from mistakes and successes.

5. They can deal with complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty, able to cope with socio-cultural and political

and technical issues of the organization.

6. They are visionary and can create a dream that let their subordinates to follow.

We can see three of them (leaders S, FD, FH) are transformational leaders who are assertive risk-

takers and opportunities seekers. They are also systematic thinkers who understand the interactions of people,

technology and culture. (Weber, 1952; 1978), (Bass & Avolio, 1993).

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Two leaders (leaders E, B) are relational Leaders (Walter 2000) who gain commitment through

participative problem-solving. As leader E claimed that they were more like partners as all of them are

professors. It was not appropriate to maintain the kind of superior-subordinates relationship as the profit

making companies.

Leader B believed that teams and teamwork play a key role for a leader. Leaders and workers commit

each other through participation in work and problem-solving processes. Sense of belonging to a team is a

powerful motivation for most people. In addition, teams are better at solving difficult, unclear and non-

technical problems. Establishing relationship was also very important in business communication in France.

The relational leader manages politics within his/her own team and also with the outside world. This further

promotes team effectiveness.

The emphasis of teamwork may be the result of French culture’s relationship-orientated in business.

Normally the French businessmen keep a long term business relationship with the clients, when compared

with the Americans.

Result Analysis Part 2-Impact of culture on leadership

(a) No one will doubt that there should be culturally specific leadership attributes that are unique to

each interviewee and that’s why I do my research. Now we are going to analyze one by one and find out the

impact of culture on leadership and how the leaders adapt to different cultural environment.

Among the five leaders, three of them are Hong Kong people(S, FH, E) and for the other two (FD, B),

one is American, one is French. National culture is also one of the factors that affect the leadership. Firstly,

Hong Kong leaders and foreign leaders, like French leaders and American leaders should show some

difference in terms of the impact from their national culture. For example, with a greater degree of

“intercultural exposure, interdependence, and learning”(Tse et al. 1988), managers from Hong Kong and

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Taiwan are subscribed to a culture at the interception between the Chinese and Western worlds. While

sharing the same cultural heritage with the mainland Chinese, people in Hong Kong have long been in

contact with the West and their value system, and therefore should represent a blend of both traditional

Chinese culture and Western culture(Tse et al. 1988, Ralston et al. 1993). Origin of leaders also influences

their behavior when working as expatriates. Shackleton and Ali (1990) found that managers of Pakistani

origin working in England exhibited a substantial effect of origin not shared by British managers.

As one of the Hong Kong leaders (FH) told me, the type of behavior required to achieve success may

differ from culture to culture. He mentioned about his own experience of being fair and transparent works

well in Hong Kong, but in his old days in China, he could not do that. Since at the 60’s of China, bribery was

still prevailing and the human networking and relationship was emphasized. In order to get contracts, he had

sent lots of expensive gifts for the related officials, as well as business contractors. But all those things

should all be under-table as it was illegal. He further emphasized if you did not do that, you certainly could

not win the contract, just end up as a big loser in business. However, after he returned Hong Kong to be the

leader again, everything was resumed to be more equal, and transparent. Here corporate governance was an

important issue for the company conduct. Nearly all the company rules clearly gave a clear guidance for all

the staff and the leaders were also keen on operate the company according to it. So people feel more fair and

comfortable.

According to the American Leader, many Americans believed that the American was the best, if not

the only way to do business. In part, this comes from America’s History in this century, or economic and

political success. It also come from America’s past and present experience, with people from all over the

world wanting to settle in America. The logic went something like this: “If so many people want to come to

America, this must be the best place in the world.” So the Americans have a belief that the American way of

doing things must be the best. The result was that many Americans tend to expect that Asians and other non-

Americans working with them would adapt to “the American Way”.

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The French manager also pointed out that establishing relationship was very important in business

communication in France. He said that French people was more relationship oriented than the Americans

generally. He gave his own example that most of his friends were known from the business, and they kept a

long and close relationship even it had been a long time there was no business engagement between them.

Of course they would find each other first if there was business, and not willing to give business to

someone new. So the business relationship, or the employees were expected to stay longer with the company,

compared to the USA or the UK, according to the French Manager.

As from the above, we can see that the national culture will affect the leadership, but to what extend.

When the leaders need to lead a global team, which consists of different race of staff or when they are

assigned to another country for the company management (work as expatriates), how can they adapt to the

different culture environment? It is not an easy task as everyone got an inertia, which means getting used to

something and unwilling to change. Especially like the American and French leaders, they have to adapt to a

new business environment-Hong Kong externally, and internally they have to adapt a new corporate culture

in which mostly are Hong Kong or Chinese subordinates. So how do they become so competent in leading an

international team and how they overcome the difficulties? The below research questions are going to

explore one by one.

(b) How do the cultural dimensions, like power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-

collectivism, also masculinity-femininity affect the way the leaders interact with their subordinates?

Since this part is the core part of my paper, so most of my interview questions are actually focus on

this and aim to find out how those cultural dimensions affect the leaders’ leadership

Related Interview questions 1

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Is there any rules for the position distribution such as normally the front line person/marketing person

are usually some local people and back office people e.g technical /IT persons are normally come from home

countries or other countries?

Here the cultural dimension, uncertainty avoidance affects leaders’ decision in arrangement of duty

according to one of the cultural dimensions- low context communication v.s. high context communication

that is mentioned by (Hall, 1976). In scale of low context communication (LCC), people hold information in

the single message and the most information is expressed explicitly and directly (Hall, 1976). But in High

Context communication (HCC), most information is expressed implicitly and indirectly. Since front line

people need to deal with clients, and represent company, they need to familiar with the existing Hong Kong

business environment. Also they need to know Hong Kong people well, so as to easily communicate within

Hong Kong environment. Except the educational department in the university (where all of them are actually

front line professors), the other four companies, no matter which countries they come from, all pointed out

that all the front line people in Hong Kong are mostly local Hong Kong people (deal with Hong Kong market)

or some are mainland Chinese, so as to avoid the risk of uncertainty.

But the French Banking VP pointed out that apart from the front line teams, like marketing and sales

people, the human resources (back-office team) also prefer to have local staff instead of expatriates.

It is because human resources work also needs to deal with people, and familiar with the local rules,

customs, principles or even laws. Expatriates cannot easily know about this if they are not brought up here.

He further gave me an example why the HR people better to be the local people is that before he tried

to use a mainland Chinese to be one of the HR official. From time to time the HK mainland Chinese was

responsible in recruiting new staff for the company, especially in the early stage of selection. However, what

amazed the VP was that the HK official asked all the job interviewees to leave down their I.D. card copy, as

25

well as their bank statement copy even for the first time interview as everything had not yet come to that

stage. He did not aware this was violating one of the employment laws. Also, as he could not speak and

understand Cantonese, and the HK staff mostly could not speak Mandarin, there was only poor

communication between them.

I think what the French VP ‘s opinion is correct as the local people should be more familiar with the

local areas business environment. Also, they are familiar with some local slang, customs and therefore can

have some cultural resonance with the local customers. Also, Devereaux & Johansen (1994) figure out the

following point about the context of profession :

High/Low Context by Profession.

High Context

Human Resources Marketing / Sales

Manufacturing products R & D

Technical Information Systems

Engineers Finance

Low Context

As from the above figure, we can see that the Human Resources, marketing/sales are near the end of

high Context in which people tend to rely on their history, their status, their relationships, and a plethora of

other information, including, religion, to assign meaning to an event. The marketing culture is driven by

rapport-driving practices that have high values to relationships. The best marketing people are good at

understanding, accepting, and blending with the views of their customers. The totality of all this information,

implicit, explicit, guides their response to the event.

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Low-context cultures exclude many of those stimuli and focus more intensely on the objective

communication event, whether it is a word, a sentence, or a physical gesture. Thus in high-context cultures,

verbal messages have little meaning without the surrounding context, which includes the overall relationship

between all the people engaged in communication. In low-context cultures, the message itself means

everything (Devereaux & Johansen,1994).

Since the financier, engineers are mostly need to deal with figures and computer commands, which

are all explicit code or language. Therefore it can be handled by expatriates even they are not familiar with

the local practices, laws, culture Therefore there was no significant difference observed in preference for this

uncertainty avoidance dimension as all leaders tend to avoid uncertainty in order to adapt to Hong Kong’s

cultural environment.

Related Interview Questions-Set 2

1. Will you adopt the same leadership style towards subordinates who come from different countries?

2. If same leadership, then why does it still works neglecting there are more than one ethnicity of

people? (use of money award…?)

3. If different, in what ways are different?

4. Is your leadership style now different from the beginning you worked for your company? (or

change from time to time, from situation to situation?) Why need to change?

All five leaders responded that as there was clearly stated company police or rules that were set by the

central office, fairness and equality were being emphasized. They generally adopted the same leadership

style for most of the situations. Leader E stated that Hong Kong was an international financial centre, racial

discrimination cannot be tolerated, and therefore cannot explicitly treat the subordinates differently. However,

all of them pointed out that since there was more than one race of subordinates under their leadership, there

were some adjustments to their leadership in dealing with different nationality of subordinates. So as to

enhance the working efficiency and staff’s sense of belonging. They both concluded that different leadership

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approaches may be effective depends on culture requirements, like the definition of managerial success,

which varies from culture to culture. You need to consider which type of leadership that would be

appropriate in strongly individualistic and strongly collectivistic environment respectively. You need to

understand that leadership, which is conductive to success in one culture may lead to failure in another,

according to the leaders.

Actually there are many researches about managers in multicultural organizations. They both pointed

out that the managers should be aware of culturally divergent subordinates’ communications needs.

Darling(1986) noted that successful leadership in multinational organizations depends on managers having a

flexible superior-subordinate communication style.

According to the American CEO (FD), ‘The Chinese managers see leadership and management differ

in important aspects from the Western perspective. The Chinese have to act according to the dominant social

system in order to effectively and efficiently manage the organization. Therefore for leading a Chinese

company or Chinese subordinates, directive leadership seems to be more appropriate. However, as I was the

leaders in American company or mostly my subordinates were western people, we all expect the employees

actively engage in finding solutions to further the organization’s need for efficient workflows. We did argue

a lot during our meetings but finally we can get the best solution either by compromise or vote. Anyway the

Japanese and Chinese used to keep silent whenever we need a sharing of opinions. Therefore my leadership

needs to adjust to the different cultural environment, like the western or Chinese. Also, if there is more than

one nationality of workers, I need to find the balance or adjustment as there is language barrier, difference in

value, working attitude, ect. For example, Japanese workers are generally weaker in English oral and writing

so I need to slow down my speed of speak or making use of more email or other written document t o

enhance the mutual understanding; Also, some mainland Chinese tend to make use of human network to get

their work done, e.g. send some gift to customers or superiors, but is not allowed in our company. I need to

give proper training or guidance about this .But I also need to do it very conservatively as Chinese perceives

“face keeping” is very important. Anyway, this was not my concern when I was working in America.”

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Instead, the HK director(S) for the shipping industry pointed out that his leadership style changed

from situation to situation, but varies a little with different cultural environment. The situation he referred to

was the company policies. As he pointed out that actually the company polices are set by the parent company,

and have embedded the cultural factors inside. Complying with the company policies also means adjusting to

different cultural environment. For example, accepting gifts or red pockets from clients are allowed in

Chinese company he worked before but not for the current Denmark Company.

The VP for the French Financial company(FH) also stressed that the leadership needed to change

from time to time as the working force background change, like the Chinese workers at early days were not

familiar with trademark but nowadays they are much familiar with it. So in leading the Chinese in the past,

more directive leadership should be used in his company but not now.

Another VP (B) for a French bank got the same view that the leadership need to change from

situation to situation, like according to job nature, or workers cultural background. He gave me an example

that the Japanese company he worked before got a more systematic, hierarchy and rigid company structure.

There were clearly stated company polices or rules for nearly everything .The Japanese were used to comply

with the rules. Then not much adjustment in leadership was need, he claimed. Just following the company

rules everything was going fine. However, for French companies, the leadership style was a lot difference.

There should be more freedom, flexibility and creation in dealing with the workers when compared with the

Japanese company. So he had to be more democratic and flexible in leading the existing company.

But according to the Department head (E) for the HK University, “For university departments, there

is a great diversity of race of professors here and our relationship is more like co-subordinates. Also, all of

them received a high level of education at western countries, therefore it is just like being assimilated.

Leadership should be consistent, fair, transparent and accountable. Trust and respect are important elements

here.”

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We can note that actually the four leaders, neglecting the variable of national culture, neglecting they

are expatriate leaders or local leaders, all pointed out one important finding : their leadership styles need to

be adjusted from time to time or from situation to situation to situation. Here the meaning of time and

situation may vary, according to their own definition, such as work force background, company policies, all

can be defined as their situation. It seems that adjustment of leadership style is not related to the type of

leaders they are, no matter democratic, autocratic or delegative. They will adjust or change their leadership if

need. Maybe being situational and culturally flexible is one of the important determinants of a leader.

Actually there is quite a lot of research to examine how different situations require different

leadership behavior. Rodrigues (1990) even argued that the situation in which leadership is displayed may be

more important than culture in influencing leaders’ behaviour. For example, when a task is structured it

requires directive leadership but when it is unstructured participative leadership is more suitable. Of course

Rodrigues allows culture to have some influence but it seems that he underestimates its potential effect.

Because culture may also affect the definition of the situation through the organization structure, and the way

in which the individuals understand the problems they face.

Later we will discuss the adjustment of their leadership one by one.

How the leaders deal with the workers under different cultural dimensions?

Language and Communication Behavior (verbal /nonverbal)

According to the leaders, various challenges in communication are encountered by them as there are

much differences in languages (verbal) and nonverbal communication behaviors. This is one of the most

salient issues in the minds of the four interviewees. They concluded that misunderstanding and low

efficiency of work will be resulted if they cannot come up with optimum solutions.

Language: differences in Language appear to be a quite serious source of the difficulties in their

everyday interaction. Indeed, nearly 4 out of 5 of them stressed this point, especially during meeting as

30

meetings are feature of organizational life. There are four communication patterns in the intercultural

meetings; namely, (a) Communication initiated by leader without feedback requests, (b) Communication

initiated by leaders with requested feedback, (c) Interactive communication between leaders and subordinates.

The language and cultural factors interact with each other and constituent the main communication patterns

of a meeting.

As agreed by the leaders, as the Chinese managers, subordinates in these organizations generally

possessed higher English language skills as compared to the expatriates’ spoken Chinese or Cantonese; thus,

English was chosen as the meeting language(except for side conversations among the Chinese or the

Westerners.) Though they could have a common language for communication, there was still

misunderstanding of terminology, poor pronunciation, and inadequate English grammar, especially with the

Japanese workers, according to the leaders. The same problem did exists between the leaders and the

Mainland Chinese as not all the leaders can have a good command of Mandarin and they communicate to

each other with English though both are Chinese.

Three of the interviewees pointed out that generally the Japanese and the Mainland China workers

tended to be more ambiguous and indirect when compared with the western workers, who tended to be much

more explicit and straightforward in both verbal and nonverbal behavior. But all of them agreed that when

compared the Hong Kong workers with the Mainland Chinese, the Hong Kong people were generally more

explicit, more direct than the Mainland Chinese.

One leader said,” I have to spend quite a lot of energy in reading the Japanese mind since they often

do not say what they mean. Especially during the meeting times, when there is disagreement and

confrontations, the foreign workers tend to be assertive, ask more questions, and involve themselves in more

heated debates. However, the Japanese or the Chinese tend to avoid confrontations. I hardly can know their

mind and often results in misinterpretations and cannot discuss the opposing viewpoints freely.”

Coping Strategies:

31

In order to solve this problem, different leader got different ways to deal with it:

Some common methods adopted by the leaders was motivating the silent groups, like Japanese and

Mainland Chinese to speak out and constantly asked for their opinion, especially during meeting time. Also it

needed to take efforts to divert the Americans to one focus point and let the other silent group to have a

chance of expression.

Also, one of the leaders said that he would make use a well organized agenda with some degree of

flexibility to enhance mutual understand. The workers were encouraged to drop down their opinion about the

discussing issue and required to express one by one during meeting time. Also, making use of email or other

forms or written communication to enhance a more clear and conscience communication was vitally

important.

According to the American Leader (FD), “I need to adapt and modify my communications. I need to

adjust the language complexity to a level that is appropriate for second-language listeners. I need to speak in

simple English to accommodate the Japanese or the Mainland Chinese or even Indian staff. Also, I write key

phrases on the board to emphasize the important points and issues at meetings. Some presentation aid, like

video, computer are all frequently used, and handout will be prepared before the meeting. I speak in almost

broken English to make sure the Japanese workers fully understand my meaning. Especially during meeting

time, since there is more than one nationality of workers, we make better use of the agenda setting before the

meeting, to make sure the accuracy delivery of meeting content. And for the process of education to be

successful, I have to understand the background of the workers well.”

The Hong Kong leader(S), the director for the shipping company also claimed that confronted with a

diverse work force is not an easy task. He pointed out that the immigrants should adapt to the culture of the

host country but learnt the language may be unrealistic. Instead, he believed that making use of effective

written communication could improve the situation. He further clarified his point by giving an example was

that people come from different cultures organize information differently. People from East Asian cultures

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organize material based on relationships of elements rather than the linear progression typical of Western

thinking. Canadian, like to have recommendations at the beginning of a report. Others, like use headings, use

correct titles and are careful with numbers, etc all trivial but important things that one needs to be extremely

careful when dealing with a diverse force.

Another leader also murmured that,’ I try to understand my Japanese workers by imagination and

guessing what they are saying. Sometimes it’s much better to rely on written communication. During meeting,

apart from the agenda, we make use of the overhead projector to write our discussion down to make sure

everyone understands. It seems a little bit complicate but we have the experience that some of the workers

don’t understand what the meeting is going on and keep on silent for the whole meeting. So this way can

solve or ease the communication problem, though it seems takes some more time. Also, avoid slang and

colloquial expressions when communicate with a diverse working force.”

The big difference in the communication style is because for Asians, communication is meant to

facilitate good interpersonal relationship, therefore promote and maintain harmony. But for Americans, or

some Westerners, communication is a tool to get something done. The words carry most of the message and

the meaning.

Regarding the language competency and communication, actually Hamzah-Sendut (1989) provides

evidence that the effectiveness of communication relies on interlocutors’ in the language used. Speakers with

low second language proficiency communicate fewer ideas and provide less detailed descriptions in meetings

than do native speakers or individuals with high second-language proficiency. The dynamics of the

communication process in such situation is different from those meetings in which all meeting participants

can use their native language to communicate.

Also, Hofstded’s classic study (1980, 1991) differentiated between individualistic and collectivistic

cultures (refer to table 2). Hall (1976) also developed a comparative model that is directly related to

interpersonal communication. According to Hall, individuals with different societies and cultures

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communicate differently; Also did Hofstede’s study, there is two contrasting polar dimensions, low context

versus high-context style of communication. In low-context communication, the major meaning of the

transmitted information is vested explicitly in the verbal part of the message; In contrast, in high-context

communication, more of the information lies either within the context or within the shared culture of the

counterparts who are parts of the interaction. People from collective cultures tend to use high context

language and high-context communicators, and are sensitive to their surroundings or environments; Instead,

subordinates from more individualistic cultures (Hofstede) prefer low context language (Hall). In the current

study, it can be noted that Japan, China and some East Asia countries are with collectivistic culture and their

languages (e.g. Japanese, Mandarin) are high context languages, whereas countries(e.g. America, France)

from which the expatriates emanate are classified as individualistic, and therefore low-context language is

used. So it is understandable that a great diversity of subordinates who from different cultures with different

value orientation should need different way to cope with.

The reason that in collectivistic culture people tend keep silent can be explained by face and

communication. “Face” behavior is the dominant social dynamics in the high-context Chinese culture.

Though all cultures give importance to” saving and giving-face’, Hse(1971) points out that the possibility of

losing face has a potentially significantly higher detrimental effect on Chinese than on Western individuals.

He states that losing face poses a threat to all the Chinese and therefore should taking care of their language

and message sending out. The Chinese individuals are likely to wait to respond in meetings, and to delay

reporting until projects are completed or results are certain (Du-Babcock & Babcock, 1987). Also, they

would prefer to keep a harmony and face-saving for themselves and others. In order to avoid conflict, no

replying is adopted by most of the collectivistic people.

Work Style/Orientation

Four of the leaders generally agreed that there were some difference between the different workers

that come from different countries. Generally the Western people, like the Americans, Australian and the

34

French, or others got a more deterministic and clear-cut working style than the Asians like the Koreans,

Japanese and Chinese. Especially the Japanese tend to focus on company philosophies or concepts rather

than specific and clear-cut task and job instructions. All this can be seen from their goal setting, valuation of

deadline, task distribution and decision making process. All of them pinpointed that normally the western

workers valued the agenda setting, meeting deadline and systematic distribution of task more important.

They are more direct, explicit and clear-cut in working style and therefore value this kind of official

instrument important.

However, the Asians, especially the Japanese were very loyal to the company as they did things as the

“company way”, they can be early in the office and stay the latest in office after working hours to complete

the task. However, the Western workers could not do that as they claimed for individual freedom and liberty

to enjoy their life.

One of the leader that come from Hong Kong recalled his memory,” At times of critical moment, like

over time work at some special festivals that people want to go early after work, generally the Asians would

say nothing and accept the reality to stay late if there is a need. Even it’s big festivals like Chinese New Year,

suddenly we got problems in delivery of goods to our clients. No one will like this kind of ad hoc accident

since the whole company need to stay late to fix everything. The Asians, especially the Japanese and the

Koreans, are eager to stay late and say nothing. However, the Western workers, especially the Americans,

will have lots of excuse to avoid this kind of ad hoc accident and shifting the responsibility to someone else.

Even they stay with the company, they feel unhappy, from their face can see. However, you cannot find any

trace of unhappiness from the Japanese face.”

But one of the leaders, the department head claimed that since it was an educational institution, all his

subordinates were actually graduated from overseas University and thereforehad an assimilation effect on all

the staff. Also, he further pointed out that all the staff here was actually front line staff (professors) and they

are quite independent from each other, (except some co-teaching), therefore there were not much difference

35

in their working style. However, he also carried out the point that generally the Japanese and Koreans were

more willing on listening to people or power but the Western staff tended to had more of their own ideas.

When asked about how to deal with such kind of difference in working style/ orientation, two leaders

said that they provided some cross-cultural training to workers and also some sharing session between the

different workers. Information about the new business environment, the value, the culture of the company

and the value of different countries workers were introduced during training session. And the staff was

encouraged to know each others value orientation during training session. So they could understand each

other well, so as to reduce the working conflicts and misunderstanding rose from culture difference.

Another two leaders did agree that the leader took an important role in guiding the subordinates,

being flexible and credible were important and they thought leaders influence the subordinates a lot in

working style. So instead of asking the subordinates to adapt to the changing cultural environment, they try to

influence the subordinates .So constantly making everyone understand what you stand for over time and

continuously reinforce and linking the stand with changing business goals and operational task were valued

as very important by the two leaders. One of the leaders from time to time would publish his leadership

aspiration and his past management experience, trying the influence strategy to influence the subordinates.

The other leader mentioned that he would choose to influence the subordinates after working hours

rather than during the official hours. The reason was that some cultures, like the Japanese and the Chinese,

face conservation was very important. It would worsen the superior-subordinate relationship if the leader

tried influencing, persuading or directly pointing out subordinates mistakes. But after working hours, like

going bar, they treated each other as friends and it seems easier for the leader to voice out the truth and the

subordinates more willing to accept.

There was also a pattern from the interview that generally the Western leaders or the leaders who

brought up in foreign countries, they generally had a lower power distance between themselves and the

subordinates. Of course the company culture does have an effect on this but not much. The French leader, the

36

American leader as well as one Hong Kong leader who brought up in foreign countries tended to separate

their working hours from their off-working hours. They would quite often have informal activities after

working hours with the working staff but the two Hong Kong leaders refused to do that. They would like to

keep the same distance with the subordinates after working hours as they thought that it was too tiring to do

that. For the three leaders who went out with subordinates for fun, sometimes they would choose who to go

out with but for some company functions, like farewell party it was just like everyone’s party.

The Japanese loyalty to company can be explained by the cultural dimension of individualistic and

collectivistic. Since Japanese are used to the collectivistic and high power distance management system, they

are proud of being a team or a group and respect power very much.

Therefore according to Hofstede’s concept of power distance, we can see that in large Power distance

cultures, authoritarian styles of leadership are more applicable, such as in France, Belgium(of course when

compared with China and Japan it is different). But for medium power distance culture, such as USA,

Hosftede (1980) points out that the leaders is assumed to initiate the subordinate to participate. In small

power distance countries such as Norway, the reverse happens as the subordinates take the initiative.

Actually the coping strategies of leaders for the above mentioned two aspects can be generalized in to

three aspects in the following table:

Table 6. Coping strategies of leaders in a multicultural environment

I Cognitively:

Learn/ understand cultural differences II Affectively

Patient/open minded/adaptable/flexible/willing to compromise/diplomatic sensitive to situations/keep a sense of humor/forget the previous bad experiences

III Behaviorally Accommodation:

listen attentively/discuss problems together/use simple words or sentences/speak slowly/enunciate clearly/repeat messages/use written forms of communication/minimize communication distractions/adjust own work styles

37

Discussion/Conclusion

It is no doubt that having a competent global leader is a critical factor for the company success,

especially for multinational organizations. After review the interview results, we can see that actually the

leadership style of the leaders for a diverse workforce can be adjusted according to Hofstede(1989) value

system, namely power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and Masculinity . In order to adapt to a

diverse cultural environment, leaders who come from different countries need to be flexible and adaptable in

dealing with a diverse workforce who has different value orientation as there is a great difference in the

cultural dimensions. General calls for managers in multicultural organizations to be aware of culturally

divergent subordinates’ communication needs have been made by a number of authors (e.g. Stull, 1985).

Darling (1986) noted that successful leadership in multinational organizations depends on managers have

flexible superior-subordinate communication style.

And the leaders’ coping strategies with a multicultural working force can be summarized in table 6.

There are three main aspects of the strategies, namely cognitively, affectively and behaviorally. Cognitively,

both interviewees agreed that more intercultural experience (amount of interaction with the subordinates over

time and other previous intercultural experience in other countries) they gain, the better they become in

dealing with intercultural challenges. Affectively, adaptability and flexibility are the agreed coping strategies

between the leaders. Listening, face-to- face discussion and written form of communication are the consent

points for the behaviorally accommodation of the coping strategies.

From the interview result and further analysis of leaders coping strategies in dealing with a diverse

workforce, some characteristics of a success Global leader can be summarized in the following table:

Table 7.Characteristics of a success Global leader

Personal Work-Related Social

38

Patient/persistent Emotionally stable Able to live with

failure Open-minded Eager to learn Sense of human Ease with risk and

uncertainty Multi-language

competency

Can make decision even the situation is ambiguous

Able to read cross-cultural business cues

Able to adapt management style

Technically competent

Easily to form personal relationship and built rapport

Knowledgeable about historical and current social developments

Sensitive to the value of every person

Motivated to work cross-culturally

Therefore apart from being flexible, a global competent leader also needs to appreciate the fact that

there is more than one good way of doing things. Also, since cultural shock, embarrassment, frustration and

failure are easily found among interaction of a diverse ethnicity of workers, sense of human is an important

buffer for the leaders dealing with subordinates.

To highlight some important characteristics that are vitally important, I would say that the two work-

related characteristics- able to read cross-cultural business cues and able to adapt management style. All

those help the leader to mediate culture difference. Multi-language and technically competent are also

essential parts of a competent global leader, otherwise they will find it difficult to communicate with a

diverse workforce.

Using Hofstadter’s value research as a base, Smith and Tayeb(1988) points out a single effective

leadership style is usually found in persons from collectivistic cultures such as Japan, India but a variety of

leadership styles are effective in individualistic cultures.

Zhurvlev and Shorokhova (1984) find out that effective leaders suit their styles to situational demands

by examining some selected individualistic societies in Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Also, Stewart (1985) also notes that a technical and logical decision making style is employed in

individualistic cultures such as the U.S. and Britain, and a social-collective style is employed in group-

oriented cultures such as Japan.

39

All this further support the view that the leaders really need to be adaptive and flexible to different

cultural environment in order to handle a diverse workforce.

Limitation and implication of the study

Methodologically, a qualitative analytic process is described and enabled us to ascertain and elaborate

on the feelings and views of the global leaders. However, the small sample size of this study, together with

fact that only the leaders were being interviewed, not included their subordinates, so there are limitations in

the generalizability and comprehensiveness of the findings. One more limitation was that the ethnicity of

leaders and subordinates were so diverse here and hard to analyze and compare one by one. So the

comparison is only grossly between two dimensions as Western and Eastern (Asian). Yet, it was an

encouraging fact that our interviewees have provided a rich and quite intense intercultural experience in

leadership, allowing me to develop an in-depth understanding about this issue.

Future Study

In my point of view, a successful leadership style has no double varies with the culture differences,

but some other factors should also be taken into consideration apart from the general leadership traits that

mentioned above.

Firstly the role of gender and the equality of gender which varies from countries to countries should

be an important factor that may also interact with cultural values and norms to influence the definition of a

successful leader.

A study conduct by Gibson (1995) sought to illustrate these concepts using four different countries

and was assessed in terms of leadership behavior, gender differences, and style preferences, though here the

interaction effect of the gender and country on leadership effectiveness cannot be found.

Also, as women become more and more prevalent in leadership roles, research respective to gender

differences in leadership behaviors becomes more important (Carless, 1998)

40

Secondly the size of the company, the complexity of the hierarchy of the corporation all matter the

leadership style to function well. For example, in a small Chinese organization the directive leadership is

more suitable while in bigger enterprises social management is required. And in terms of Masculinity-

Femininity, I would think that generally the western business people are more masculinity than the Chinese

since according to Burns(1998), Chinese business consider relationship matters most than the business but

the western people contrasts. Moreover, Guanxi also can be seen as an alternative to state power (Yang

1994). Therefore in some femininity countries such as China, I think the leadership style to some extend

should be more human, more relationship oriented, otherwise you cannot communicate with your subordinate,

as well as the society. But in contrast, in a more masculinity society such as America, the leadership style can

be more task-oriented and clearly directions can be easily given as there is no need of relationship building.

All the above mentioned can be good research platform for future study about leadership.

End

iM.A. Communication 044083473 ANGEL WONG SIU HA

Graduation Project Interview

Interview Objective: Find out the leaders’ leadership style in company/department. Also, the Cultural effects on leadership style and see how the leaders adapt to different cultural environment if there is more than one ethnic group of workers. Background Information of Company

1. How many years have you been working in this company/department? 2. How many subordinates are under your jurisdiction? Totally how many people in your

company/department? 3. How many ethnicity or race of staff in your company/department? 4. What is your company’s hierarchy? Decision making is centralized or decentralized? 5. Is there any rules for the position distribution such as normally the front line person/marketing

person are usually some local people and back office people e.g. technical /IT persons are normally come from home countries or other countries?

In General situation

1. Will you adopt the same leadership style towards subordinates who come from different

countries?(if same, please jump to question 2, if different, please jump to question 3) 2. If same leadership, then why does it still works neglecting there are more than one ethnicity of

people? (use of money award…?) 3. If different, in what ways are different? 4. Is your leadership style now different from the beginning you worked for your company? (or

change from time to time, from situation to situation?) Why need to change?

Specific Situation Goal Setting; For team’s goals and objectives, normally they are set by yourself or with Subordinates participations? If subordinates can participate, how much can they get involved and normally does the ethnicity of them matter their enthusiasm to participate or not?

Meeting 1. To what extend should agenda be structured? What kind of subordinate values agenda setting

important before meeting ? 2. Generally who is the meeting leader? The subordinates are encourages to give their opinion or not? 3. Does it appear that the input of some members is being ignored? Who listen to whom normally? 4. What is the meeting language? Who decides? 5. In opinion giving, normally what kind of subordinate (ethnicity) tends to give their opinions more

explicitly? Who tend to keep silent throughout the meeting? 6. What type of communication technology can be used for meeting? (projector, computer) Does

different meeting with different staff involve different equipments?

7. How should be the meeting time be managed? 8. How should be the decision be made? By vote? By consensus? By compromise? 9. Who is expected to make the decision? The leader versus team?

Task Distribution

1. How will work be divided? Then integrated? 2. How important are the deadlines to you and to your different staff? 3. What happens if deadlines are not met? Will you be use the same attitude or way to treat different

staff? Informal activities: 1. Do you go out with your subordinates after working hour? (if Yes, Please answer 2, if no, please

answer 3) 2. Do you choose to go out of any kind of subordinates or any preference? 3. Why don’t you go out with your subordinates after working hour? 4. What kind of informal activities do you and your subordinates normally engage in?

( e.g Drinking in Bar for western staff / Restaurant dinning for Asian staff?) 5 For some special occasions, like your subordinates birthday, will you send them gifts or hanging out

with them to celebrate their birthday?

What is your leadership style? Answer the question and rate each statement with numbers 1-5. Give the number that represents how strongly the statement is describing you using the following scoring system: ranging from 1(not at all like me) to 5(exactly like me),

1. I would rather spend time by yourself. 2. I can easily adjust to being in just about any social situation 3. My facial expression is generally neutral 4. I am rarely able to hide a strong emotion 5. I find easy to make contact with new people 6. I find easy to be empathic and understand others. 7. I have confidence and trust in subordinates. 8. I show supportive behavior to others. 9. I try to get subordinates’ ideas and opinions in problem solving and decision making, making

constructive use of them.

10. How would you describe your interpersonal style? Are you assertive, quiet, and dominant? 11. What is your management style? How easy is it for you to adapt your style? 12. Are you autocratic/directive or more team oriented and democratic? 13. What do you think is the impact on others of your current interpersonal and working style? 14. How do you and your subordinates greet each other? Any difference if staff from different

countries?

Thank you

1

044083473 ANGEL WONG SIU HA Email: 04408373@hkbu.edu.hk

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