Cross-Culture - Literature review Example

? Cross culture literature review Contents Contents 2 Literature Review 3 Introduction to Leadership 3 Leadership and Globalization 3 Intercultural leadership contingency model 4 Leadership Styles in Japanese Companies 6 Leadership Styles in Japanese Companies 6 Leadership Styles in US Companies 7 Adapting to different cultures 8 References 9 Literature Review Introduction to Leadership Leadership can be defined as the art of influencing the followers. The main characteristics of a leader are the functions of situation and time and tend to be different across different countries and cultures. Therefore the managers of different international organizations should obtain knowledge about such cultural characteristics and differences to execute leadership and decision making tasks with the utmost efficiency and versatility (Bass, 2000, pp. 19-40). Leadership and Globalization Globalization can be described as the process where a company looks to enter the international market. It looks to make its products available to the international customers. The modern day businesses have become quite complex. However, even amidst all such changes one principle for success remain the same, i.e. the leadership skills of the mangers. Leadership styles and management methods across the world are quite diverse and get heavily influenced by particulars dominant in the environment. Various studies in different countries have focused on the compliance of the leadership styles in terms of the conditions of success. The relationship among the culture and the managers is quite different. Managers tend to be people that get things done and the corporate culture happens to be the mechanism that is used by the managers to understand the way they should communicate with the team members. One of the most important characteristics of the leaders is to have an insight to the key happenings within a group in an organization. Such insights provide the much required energy to work (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p. 221). Intercultural leadership contingency model Combining the direction goal developed by Robert House and the dividing culture dimension studies conducted by Geert Hofstede a new model off cross cultural leadership was developed. The leadership model developed has been categorized into four categories such as directional leadership, supportive leadership, participatory leadership and success oriented leadership. In case of directional leadership the leader prepares guides for the staff regarding what the staffs should do and how to perform the tasks along with the functional standards. In case of supportive leadership the main focus in on welfare of the staffs and the needs and requirements of the employees (Maylor and Blackmon, 2005, p. 209). In case of participatory leadership the leaders looks to consult with the staffs during the decision making process. Leaders provide equal importance to the needs of the staffs as well as the organizational objectives. Success oriented leadership encourages the staffs to perform work at the highest level. However, very little focus is provided to the personal needs of the staffs. Here it needs to be mentioned that, this model has some degree of similarity to the managerial grid model which also reflects various leadership styles (Buelens, Sinding, Waldstrom, Krietner and Kinicki, 2011, p.223). Studies related to the management and leadership styles have been conducted substantially in various countries. Such survey reflects the various leadership and management styles followed by managers belonging to different countries and cultures. During the course of the course of the present study the main focus happens to be on China, USA and Japan (Simons, 2011, p.275). China has been selected because it is one of the most emerging economies in the world. However, China has had a reputation of being autocratic in nature. On the other hand USA is a developed economy. The management and leadership style of USA is quite different from China. The last country chosen happens to be Japan. Japan is a developed country and is the pioneer of various management principles. In this way the study would provide a three sixty degree approach to the various aspects of the cross cultural leadership. The model would also show how managers working in an international organization needs to adapt to different cultures to be a successful leader (Mullins, 2010, p. 331). Leadership Styles in Japanese Companies China is among the few developed countries in Asia. As it has been mentioned above Japan has been responsible for the development of various management theories. When it comes to organizational culture Japanese workers are not vulnerable to frequent job changes as the level of commitment towards the employers happens to be more than the work. For the point of view of the organizations, in case of any discrepancies related to knowledge or skills, the workers are thoroughly trained. Workforce development is one of the most important aspects of the Japanese companies (Boxall and Purcell, 2007, p. 131). The Japanese companies believe that, the human resource is the biggest of the organization. Sony is one example of a company that has been very successful on the global stage through innovation and manpower training. The Japanese leaders are quite compassionate about the followers and that is one of the reasons for which they are highly respected. The relationship between the Japanese leaders and the co workers is more like a father Son relationship. The Japanese leaders as compared to the leaders of other societies tend to have less power of control as compared to leaders belonging to other cultures. Other major characteristics of the Japanese management system include collective decision making, team work, job rotations and most importantly long term employment due to the emotional relationship between the employers and employees. Overall the Japanese Leaders follow the participatory leadership model (Redman and Wilkinson, 2006, p. 131). Leadership Styles in Japanese Companies As compared to Japan, leadership in China is more about influencing the team members to work on pre defined terms and conditions. The authority to make critical decisions is heavily centralized. The communication structure is strictly top down approach. The Chinese leaders tend to be quite efficient in control management. The employees look to attain more power by developing better relationship with the superiors. Simply because, the due to the dominance of the strict hierarchical relationship, the promotion and the progress of the people totally depend on the relationship with he higher level management, rather than the individual functions. The lower level management is expected to stay under work pressure and make very little voices about the concerns. Most of the decisions are made keeping the benefits of the decision makers in mind. Over the major characteristics of the Chinese leadership style include centralized decision making structure; limited partnership; the dominance of the secondary groups and special attitude to time. Overall the Chinese leaders primarily follow the directional leadership (Sekaran and Bougie, 2009, p.121). Leadership Styles in US Companies The American CEOs or the leaders look to use one of the five leadership models such as the directive, participative, charismatic and empowering. There happens to be very less liberty of actions for the executives and the board members of an American organization as compared to a Japanese company. USA does not have any congruent culture. However, groups of general tendencies can be seen. The American leaders believe that the human beings are either bad or good. In USA the government has imposed various laws to regulate the behaviour of the people. In this context Hofstede has identified that most of the people and the leaders so to speak in USA tend to be individualists. The leaders tend to enjoy the personal successes and needs a lot more as compared to a Japanese organization that follow a collectivist approach. In such societies the leaders or the managers tend to rely on the fidelity of the staffs. But in USA things are a lot more different. In USA the employment of friends of family members is not treated as a good act. The leaders of USA tend to put value on work and put a lot of emphasis on planning as to decide what to do and when to do. The managers feel that the work environment can be controlled by them. Overall the major features of the American leadership includes classifying human being as good or bad; non compulsory thought process; dominance in nature; functionalism; individualism; and focus on present and future as opposed to past. However, in contrast to the Japanese organizations the Americans do not tend to develop emotional relationships with the employers (Boselie, 2010, p. 299). Adapting to different cultures Globalization is the buzz word of the modern day business. Companies are going global and a result the manpower of the companies has also become cross cultural in nature. Hence there could be a possibility that a Chinese company decided to enter the Japanese market. In such scenarios the Chinese managers may have to manage Japanese staffs. As it has been discussed both Chinese and Japanese cultures and organizations are different in nature. If the Chinese leadership looks to operate the Japanese subsidiaries in the same way, there would be occurrence of conflict (Henry, 2008, p. 89). Therefore the best way to handle the situation would be understand the Japanese culture and the mindset of the people and develop a communication system accordingly. In the same way the company may decide to enter the USA market. Hence the same approach should be adopted by the managers. In case of the Japanese subsidiary the managers may have to focus on developing emotional relationship with the employees; whereas since the people of USA focus a lot more individual glories, it may be appropriate for the Chinese leaders to focus a lot more on rewards and incentives to ensure employee satisfaction and morale (Bhattacharya, 2009, p. 201). References Bass, B.M., 2000. The future of leadership in learning organizations. The Journal of Leadership Studies. Vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 19-40. Bhattacharya, D. 2009. Human Resource Planning. London: McGraw Hill. Boselie, P. 2010. Strategic human resource management: a balanced approach. London: McGraw Hill. Boxall, P. and Purcell, J. 2007. Strategy and human resource management, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition. Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. 2010. Organizational Behaviour. Harlow: Pearson. Buelens, M., Sinding, K., Waldstrom, C., Krietner, R. and Kinicki, A. 2011. Organisational Behaviour. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education. Henry, A. 2008. Understanding Strategic Management. UK: Oxford University Press. Maylor, H. and Blackmon, K. 2005. Researching in Business and Management. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mullins, L.J. 2010. Management and Organisational Behaviour (9thedn). Harlow: Pearson. Redman, T and Wilkinson, A. 2006. Contemporary Human Resource Management: Text and Cases (2nd ed.), Harlow: FT/Prentice Hall. Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R. (2009) Research Methods for Business: a skill building approach, 5th ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Simons, R., 2011. Human Resource Management: Issues, Challenges and opportunities. Florida: CRC Press. Read More