TITULAR DE AUDITORÍA PARA DESARROLLO Y MEJORA DE LA GESTIÓN PÚBLICA

Every organization creates and exists in an environment (Boyatzis, 1982). Organizational culture acts as a social control mechanism (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1996). Organizational culture refers to shared normative beliefs and shared behavioural expectations (Cooke & Szumal, 2000). Despite a number of definitions of organizational culture, the most widely accepted ones seem similar and cover many of the same aspects. Schein (1985) defines organizational culture as a pattern of basic assumptions shared by the members of an organization. Organizational culture also has been described as relatively stable beliefs, attitudes, and values that are held in common among organizational members (Williams et al., 1993). Similarly, it is characterized as a set of strongly held values, beliefs, norms, habits, and symbols according to which the members of an organization operate (Deshpande & Webster, 1989; Hofstede, 1998; Morris et al., 1993).

Organizational culture can be explained under two dimensional continua: organic structure and mechanistic structure, and can be classified into four categories: hierarchy, clan, adhocracy, and market (Deshpande & Webster, 1993). Table 2.5 gives a summary of the main characteristics of these four ideal types of organizational culture. Although there are four distinctive culture categories, in reality, organizations are unlikely to reflect only one culture category. In order to be effective, the adoption of some elements of each of the four cultural ideal category is necessary (Cameron & Quinn, 1998). However, Cooke and Lafferty’s (1989) Organizational Culture Inventory comprising 12 different sets of normative beliefs and behavioural expectations is used to measure employees’ perceptions of their organizational culture. These 12 styles are divided into three general clusters or styles of organizational culture labelled constructive (including achievement, self-actualizing, humanistic- encouraging, and affiliative styles), passive/defensive (comprising approval, conventional, dependent, and avoidance styles), and aggressive/defensive (consisting of oppositional, power, competitive, and perfectionistic styles) (Cooke & Rousseau, 1988; Rousseau, 1990).

Content dimension Hierarchy Clan Adhocracy Market The organization is Controlled and structured

with formal procedures

A personal place, an extended and sharing family

A dynamic and entrepreneurial place

Very results oriented, people are competitive

The leadership is Focused on coordinating

and efficiency

Mentoring, facilitating and nurturing

Entrepreneurial, innovative and risk-taking

Aggressive, result-oriented and no- nonsense

Employee management is characterized by

Security of employment and conformity

Teamwork, consensus and participation

Individual risk-taking, uniqueness and innovative

Hard-driving competitiveness and achievement

Organization is held together by

Formal rules and policies Loyalty, mutual trust, personal commitment

Commitment to innovation and development

Emphasis on goal accomplishment and achievement

The strategic emphases are Permanency, stability and efficiency

Openness, human development, high trust and participation

Acquisition of new resources and creating new things

Competitive actions and achievement

Criteria of success is Operational efficiency Development of human resources

Having the most unique or newest product

Winning in the market and outpacing the competition

Sources: Cameron and Quinn (1998); Denison and Spreitzer (1991); Yong and Pheng (2008); Zammuto et al. (2000).

The study results have demonstrated that an organization gains sustained competitive advantages and high performance if there is a strong organizational culture in it (Barney, 1986; Ohmae, 1999). Organizations with strong cultures and clear values increase their possibilities of success and longevity (Heskett & Schlesinger, 1996). More specifically, the type of constructive culture cluster has been shown to result in both high satisfaction and high productivity in the workplace (Cooke & Szumal, 2000). Catherine and Cheryl (2004) also suggest that the constructive cluster of organizational culture styles positively predicted perception of leadership effectiveness; in contrast, aggressive/defensive cluster of organizational culture styles significantly and negatively predicted leadership effectiveness perception within a wide variety of organizations in the US. Furthermore, the constructive styles were found to be positively related to personal effectiveness, and the passive/defensive was unrelated; whilst, aggressive/defensive styles were negatively related to perceptions of personal effectiveness (except the US) in six areas including Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and the US (Kwantes & Boglarsky, 2007). These studies, therefore, provided strong support for the idea of organizational culture’s influence on leadership effectiveness and personal effectiveness.

2.2.2.5 Problems and undeveloped issues

It has been argued that national culture and organizational culture influence leadership and management concepts, styles and practices, and specific cultural traditions and norms are bound to differentiate leadership styles (Hofstede, 2001; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997). National culture, however, is rather complex. As we have reviewed in the literature, national culture of mainland China has been a complex combination of a number of elements, such as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, ancient strategies, centralized governance, and family concept and guanxi, etc. Hence whether or not the approach of culture differences that uses survey to identify the bi- polar construct of cultural differences can comprehensively represent the profile of national culture and organizational culture should be doubted.

McSweeney (2002) has argued that Hofstede’s model of national culture does not uncover the secrets of entire national cultures. Hofstede focuses on cultural values, attitudes, structures and relationships both at national and organizational level within

a single multinational corporation, and the national culture comparisons were largely limited to responses from marketing-plus-sales employees (McSweeney, 2002). However, subcultures in nations, and industrial and professional influences on the identification of cultural dimensions could be largely ignored. Moreover, the average number of respondents per country was small, that for some countries it was minuscule; for instance, the only surveys in Hong Kong, Tai Wan and Singapore were of 88, 71 and 58 respondents respectively (McSweeney, 2002). For Hofstede’s Confucian dynamic comprising long-term orientation and short-term orientation, it also remains ambiguous on why the four relatively important Chinese values are explained as long-term orientation, and why the four relatively unimportant ones are described as short-term orientation.

Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997) posited that no single best way for organizing cultural differences exists. However, Hofstede (1996) has argued that Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s theory of cultural dimensions was not supported by the database, and the evident lack of content validity of the instrument used remained a major concern. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner confused conceptual categories with dimensions, and a number of nine countries were statistically insufficient to develop a multidimensional model (Hofstede, 1996). Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s database cover 30,000 respondents, of which 75% belong to management, and others were employees from 30 companies in 50 different countries; nonetheless, compared to Hofstede’s research, their database seem small. It should be doubted that whether or not the management’s concepts, values and attitudes, as well as the small number of respondents can reflect the entire picture of national culture and can differentiate the levels of national culture, organizational culture, and professional culture. Furthermore, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997) have categorized nations as either preferring task-oriented or relationship-oriented leadership style (Fiedler, 1967). However, either task-oriented leadership or relationship-oriented leadership should be used to match situational requirements regarding the organizational environment and followers’ readiness (Jacob, 2007). It, therefore, seems ineffective and pointless to generate the leadership styles in certain countries. Additionally, there are also some contradictions between Hofstede’s and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s data. For instance, Pakistan was rated as one of the highest long-term orientation in Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s research; by

contrast, that Pakistan had almost the lowest score among nations was found in Hofstede’s study (Jacob, 2007). Hence both Hofstede and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner attempted to reveal the cultural differences with their cultural dimensions; nevertheless, these cultural dimensions appear to be superficial to represent and explain the cultural complexity.

Time has been prioritized as the key to understand other cultures, and there are differences in time perspectives between cultures (Schein, 1992). In Confucian Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, and China, the subordinates usually leave after their bosses leave, and they come to work earlier than their bosses. This custom significantly represents organizational hierarchy, but is contrasted with a Western one in which private time of low-status workers may be more institutionally protected than that of professionals (Zerubavel, 1981). Moreover, diligence and taking care of employees’ personal lives may be perceived as the virtues of an admired leader in Confucian Asian countries. Conversely, as getting involved into employees’ personal lives could be seen as an invasion of privacy, Western employers usually respect employees’ traditional views on privacy and the separation between standard labour time (or organizational space) and free time (or domestic space) (Karsten & Leopold, 2003). However, there is a shift from a time-based to a results-based orientation in Western countries with the practices of flexible working time and home-based telework, and thus the boundaries between the spaces of work (organization) and life (domestic) may become blurred (Karsten & Leopold, 2003). To react to such change, teleworkers need to engage in the enactment of regulatory and self-regulatory acts for questions of identity and ethical considerations (Tietze, 2005). In addition, with social and organizational practices, leaders’ self-identities are shaped through the discourses of self time, interaction time and cyclic time which are embedded within one anther and stratified in terms of their interconnections (Turnbull, 2004). Lee and Lee (2008) also argue that the temporal autonomy is not meant simply to change the working hours but to fundamentally change people and the value systems regarding work and time. In this sense, hence, the dynamic relation between leadership style and time perspective needs to be examined further.

The interaction between organizational culture’s impact on leadership style and leadership style’s influence on organizational culture also remains ambiguous. Some

claim that transactional leaders working within their organizational cultures follow the existing rules, procedures, and norms; in contrast, transformational leaders change the organizational culture by first understanding it and then realigning it with a new vision and a revision of its shared assumptions, values, and norms (Bass, 1997; Bass & Avolio, 1993b). However, there is considerable scope for variations in leadership styles depending upon organizational context (Bond & Hwang, 1986; Wang & Heller, 1993). Some argue that organizational culture and industrial culture affect managerial practices and behavioural patterns (House et al., 2004; Schein, 1992; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997). Organizations with different cultures have their own preferred leadership styles, and the stronger a company’s own culture is, the more likely it will shape employees’ behaviour (Schein, 1992). Effective leadership behaviours are not dependent solely on cultural issues, but are driven by an interaction between culture and the logics of each organization’s commercial and political environment (Smith & Wang, 1996).

Some studies have revealed that there are different organizational cultures in different foreign direct investments in Northern China (Child, 1994; Child et al., 1990; Child & Xu, 1991). The findings demonstrate that typical difficulties follow attempts by the US companies to implement systems of selection, appraisal, dismissal, or promotion which local employees saw as culturally inappropriate. European partners, however, were somewhat more willing to adjust systems to local conditions, and ventures with Hong Kong partners experienced the least difficulties. Moreover, the Chinese managers from state-owned enterprises relied mostly upon their own experience and training, formal rules, and their superior’s opinion in decision making; while joint- venture Chinese managers relied significantly more on their own experience and training than did those in state-owned enterprises (Wang, 1992). In this sense, therefore, in order to match the organizational cultures, managers working for different types of organizations are more likely to adopt the leadership styles preferred by the organizations. In addition, transformational leaders might somewhat influence the organizational culture; however, different levels of leaders might have different degrees of impact on the organizational culture. Thus the relationship between level of leaders and degree of influence on organizational culture needs to be examined, and further exploration of the relationship between transactional-transformational leadership and organizational culture is also necessary.

Culture is often difficult to change, and if it is changed at all, it does very slowly (Hofstede, 1980a). Nonetheless, for almost a hundred years, along with the end of feudal society, the revolution of 1911, the World War II, the establishment of the PRC, and current economic reforms, China has been undergoing tremendous social transformations. As a consequence of Mao’s closed door policy and a central- planning economy, from 1949 until the late 1970s, there was no foreign direct investment (FDI) permitted in the country. However, as China has attempted the transition from a socialist to an open market economy, it has simultaneously been transforming itself from a rural and agricultural to an urban and industrialized country (Child & Lu, 1996). By the mid-1990s, in the wake of both economic reforms and political development, China had to face the emerging challenge of restructuring or closing its state-owned enterprises and of generally improving its leadership and managerial skills and knowledge. China’s transformation would not have been possible without active learning from the West. Empirical findings have suggested that formal regulations of Western-style management were enforced in the Chinese family business (Hwang, 1990). Chinese companies have started making use of Western consultancy expertise to improve management and performance (Fernandez & Underwood, 2006). The number of Chinese who have pursued studies in foreign institutions of higher learning during 1977-2006 had exceeded 1 million, and more and more Chinese universities and business schools are setting up joint programs with foreign counterparts (People’s Daily, 2007). Globalization, FDI and the internet are linking China with the world and providing more opportunities for Chinese people to learn from Western concepts, values and lifestyles. Nonetheless, the legacy of fifty years of Communist rule with its highly centralized command structure is still very much in evidence in mainland China.

It still remains a question that whether or not the traditional Chinese culture and values are beginning to be reshaped with contingent impact upon individual values and expectations. Yang (1996) suggests that Chinese social-orientated character is composed of four major modalities of social psychological functioning: the familistic orientation, relationship orientation, authoritarian orientation, as well as other orientation. In contrast, Chinese individual-oriented character consists of self orientation, independent (autonomous) orientation, competitive orientation, and

egalitarian orientation. As a result of social modernization, the major aspects of Chinese social-oriented character are decreased; nonetheless, the major ones of Chinese individual-oriented character are increased (Yang, 1996). Leung (1996) also claims that in contrast to traditional collectivism, a modern neo-Confucian value system may gradually be emerging in mainland China. Chinese people now compete directly for personal wealth and status, apparently with little regard for traditional Confucian values such as avoiding conflict from competition in order to maintain social harmony (Leung, 1996). The importance of guanxi may be also gradually changed and could vary with different types of organizations in mainland China. Therefore, with today’s increasingly common technological imperatives, industrial logic, and the global institutions, there could be more and more similarities in leadership concepts and practices between Chinese and American managers, particularly for those working for American companies in mainland China.

However, Leung (2008) argues that materialistic achievement may be more relevant for economic behaviour, whereas the social behaviour of Chinese is still guided by traditional values and beliefs. Dynamic and successful international management practice in China still requires a high level of cultural awareness, communication knowledge and expatriate motivation to operate effectively within China (Chapel, 1998). Though the impact of China’s modernization during the past three decades on the changes of Chinese behaviours is salient, China seems to have never given up its single most important cultural characteristic – the ability to manage paradoxes (Yin Yang approach) (Faure & Fang, 2008). Contradictory value orientations indeed coexist in today’s China, such as guanxi vs. professionalism; importance of face vs. self-expression and directness; thrift vs. materialism and ostentatious consumption; family and group orientation vs. individuation; aversion to law vs. respect for legal practices; respect for etiquette, age and hierarchy vs. respect for simplicity, creativity and competence; long-term orientation vs. short-term orientation; traditional creeds vs. modern approaches (Faure & Fang, 2008). In this sense, thus, there still might be certain distinctive features of Chinese leadership and management.

2.2.3 Interaction between leaders and followers