Due to situating Thailand as the context for this study and gaining a better understanding of how Thai cultural/religious context as an enabler of a particular form of spirituality, and how spirituality might be evidenced in Thai attitudes/behaviour, the researcher will offer a perspective from Thailand context on the issue of spirituality in
the workplace/spirit at work. More specifically, the researcher will offer how Thai culture such matters and is different from Western country cultures where most researches in this field were conducted. The aim is to offer a brief overview of Thailand and Thai culture intended to contribute to the discussion on how best to go about this issue.
Overview of Thailand:
Thailand is a country located in the heart of Southeast Asia. The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths. Thailand is the world's 51st largest country in terms of total area, with an area of approximately 513,000 km2 (198,000 mi2), and is the 20th-most- populous country, with around 66 million people (The National Statistical Office, 2011). The capital and largest city is Bangkok, which is Thailand's political, commercial, industrial and cultural hub.
About 75% of the population is ethnically Thai, 14% is of Chinese origin, and 3% is ethnically Malay; the rest belong to minority groups including Mons, Khmers and various hill tribes. The country's official language is Thai. The primary religion is Buddhism, which is practiced by around 95% of the population. Muslims are the second largest religious group in Thailand at 4.2%. Christians represent 0.7% of the population and the remaining around 0.1% includes Sikhs, Hindus, and Jewish (The National Statistical Office, 2011). Thailand experienced rapid economic growth between 1985 and 1995, and is presently a newly industrialised country and a major
exporter. Tourism also contributes significantly to the Thai economy, as the country is home to a number of well-known tourist destinations, including Phuket, Krabi, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Pattaya, Hua Hin and Ko Samui. There are approximately 5.2 million legal and illegal migrants in Thailand, and the country has also attracted a number of expatriates from developed countries (The National Statistical Office, 2011).
Thai Culture and Spirit at Work:
In general, our understanding of culture is referred to the accepted norms among a group of people that affects how they behave, how they present themselves, how they communicate, how they express feelings and emotions, what they value, how they solve problems, how they see themselves and how they see the world. Within the literature, culture has been difined in many ways, a well-known anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn defined as a consensus of anthropological definitions “Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts” (Kluckhohn, 1962, p.73). However, the most famous and most commonly cited definition of culture especially in cross-cultural study of work-related values is the one carried out by the work of Geert Hofstede. According to Hofstede (1997), he defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (p.5).
As a result of his extensive study, Hofstede (1980) identifies four dimensions to classify the way people in different countries (over 50 countries and 3 regions) interpret their cultural environment. The four dimensions are: power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and uncertainty avoidance.
Apparently, the Hofstede’s (1980) findings demonstrated that comparing to Western cultures, Thais are likely to have high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, femininity, and collectivism whereas Americans and British have low power distance, low uncertainty avoidance, masculine, and individualism. Since this thesis conducted solely in Thailand, one should be aware of the results in term of generalisability to other cultural contexts. The following discussions of the four dimensions are a summarisation of Hofstede’s work about Thai culture and how each dimension may influence on spirit at work construct.
Power distance is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede, 1991, p.28). We can simply say that power distance refers to the perceived level of dominance of one group over another, for example teacher over student. A society has high power distance when it emphasises the gap between junior and superior. If this gap is de-emphasised, then the society has low power distance and tends to be less hierarchic. Hofstede (1991) suggested that Thai society has high power distance, suggesting that Thais accept wide differences in power in their organisations. In Thai society there are a myriad of relationships that centre on relative seniority. Superior-inferior relationships are clearly defined by acceptance and implicit recognition of age, birth, title, rank, status, position or achievement. Thai culture accepts that power relations are implicitly constructed in all organisations and at levels of Thai society. It is often said that the way to succeed in business in Thailand is to observe the rules of hierarchy. Understanding the social status of people and the vertical structure of a company is essential for doing business with Thais.
According to Holmes and Tangtongtavy (1995), every Thai understands that he/she has a particular place in the cultural hierarchy and generally accepts that they should be content with that place. Thai people have a very high sense of hierarchy; they are very submissive and respectful. Thai people will show great respect towards those who have gained a high level in society. Consequently, Thai organisational participants, of whatever rank, both respect and even prefer there to be significant hierarchical gaps between the various levels of management. Thai workers show great respect for their managers, work hard and often sacrifice their days to satisfy the needs of the boss, accepting his/her power without questioning it. From high power distance perspective, leaders in Thai organisation undoubtedly can play a key role to foster spirit at work. Leaders can promote or stifle spirit at work by their behaviour since employees tend to view them as role models.
Collectivism versus Individualism: collectivism pertains to “societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty” (Hofstede, 1991, p. 51). In contrast, nations such as the United States, England, and Australia are highly individualistic; “the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family” (Hofstede, 1991, p. 51). Thailand is a highly collectivist culture.
Thai people have a long history of being members of extended families. As an agricultural culture, collective work is common and expected. Consequently, Thais work hard to build and maintain relationships among a wide and complex network of people (Holmes & Tangtongtavy, 1995). Thai culture encourages interdependence
instead of independence and a “We” consciousness prevails rather than an “I” consciousness. As can be seen, a sense of community in spirit at work constructs is naturally presented in Thai culture. Therefore, collectivism dimension of culture and spirit at work are correlated to some extent.
Masculinity versus Femininity: Hofstede (1991) defines this dimension as follows: “masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct (i.e., men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life); femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap (i.e., both men and women are supposed be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life)” (p. 82-83).
Hofstede (1991) suggested that Thailand is a society with less assertiveness and competitiveness, as compared to one where these values are considered more important and significant. This situation also reinforces more traditional male and female roles within the population. This dimension also highlights the value people place on social relations versus productivity. Within a highly masculine culture, performance outcomes and productivity represent the top priorities. As a more feminine culture, Thais place great value on maintaining harmonious social relations, even at the expense of accountability and productivity in the workplace. From this point of view, Thai people exhibit many feminine qualities – politeness, quietness, caring for others, to name but a few. Moreover, most Thais (95% of the population) are Buddihists and followers of this religion are fundamentally encouraged to progress from becoming more compassionate, generous, focused mentally on spiritual wisdom and purity. So, these qualities are
highly related to spiritual inclination characteristics. According to Kinjerski and Skrypnek (2006c), they assert that spiritual inclination is the key personality dimension responsible for fostering people experience spirit at work.
Uncertainty avoidance, last dimension, 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 behaviours, and believing in absolute truths and the attainment of expertise” (Hofstede, 1980, p. 45). Thailand ranks high on uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (1991) suggested that in order to minimise or reduce this level of uncertainty, strict rules, laws, policies, and regulations are adopted and implemented. The ultimate goal of this population is to control everything in order to eliminate or avoid the unexpected. As a result of this high uncertainty avoidance characteristic, the society does not readily accept change and is very risk adverse. Change has to be seen for the greater good of the in-group. For organisational level of a society with high uncertainty avoidance, employees believe that company rules should not be broken even when it is shown to be in the company's best interest and look forward to continue working with the firm until they retire. In this respect, people high uncertainty avoidance characteristic may be less experience spirit at work because they tend not to feel passionate about their job. Furthermore, they may be difficult to get in touch with the deeper meaning/purpose underlying their work, and learn how to appreciate him/her-self and others at work.