Birmingham City University: Cross-Cultural Management Essay

This essay examines the intricacies of cross-cultural management, focusing on leadership styles and their impact on team performance within diverse cultural contexts. The study draws upon the author's experiences with a team comprising Chinese members, contrasting their behaviors with the author's Indian background. It delves into the influence of culture, values, norms, and beliefs on leadership behaviors, highlighting the importance of understanding these elements for effective team coordination and task completion. The essay reviews existing literature on leadership styles in China and India, exploring transactional versus transformational approaches and the role of culture in decision-making processes. The research highlights that cultural differences do not necessarily impede team performance; rather, mutual respect and understanding among team members can facilitate successful outcomes. It also examines how cultural factors influence the adaptability and decision-making styles of leaders in both countries, with considerations for the evolving demands of technology and globalization.

Running Head: Cross-Cultural Management
Cross Cultural Management
Essay
System04104
7/19/2018

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Introduction
Culture, values, norms and beliefs of the people are the key considerations to complete any
task or work when there are numbers of people working with you from different places
having different attributes. The culture of a person determines the way he behaves, acts or
thinks. Even culture plays an important role in any organisation that determines the way of
progress and growth. My all team members belong to China, and I am fortunate that they are
my good friends as well as they belong to my neighbour country. Both China and India are
neighbour countries and even there are some similarities in their culture. In my current study,
I found that the cultural diversity does not necessarily impact the team performance even
though we belong to different places, speaking different languages and different lifestyle. In
my study, I found that my Chinese teammates are more energetic and helpful in nature when
we assign a role to each person to complete the task. However, it is not easy to maintain the
coordination among the people even having some cultural similarity. Because People from
different cultures, having different thinking styles and attitudes about a particular thing.
However, my all team members belong to China and there was a very good coordination
among our team to complete the task. However, I find out some cultural similarity and
dissimilarities during leading and motivating these peoples.
As per my study, I found that cultural difference does not necessarily have a negative impact
on team performance. If there is an understanding among the team members and they respect
and awareness about other's culture and norms, a difficult task can easily be completed in an
effective manner. People always think that the group of people who belongs to same culture
and background think in the same way and can perform the task in better ways in comparing
to a group of those peoples who belongs to different culture and norms. But in my study, I
found that there is no adverse effect on the team performance of a diverse team group.
Review of Literature

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The review of literature includes the different styles of leadership in China and India and the
characteristics of leaders in these two neighbour countries. This review of literature also
focuses on the different leadership skills and leadership ethics practised by the Indian and
Chinese managers in the organisation. This literature shows a study on the cross-cultural
relationship between India and China and their leadership styles.
Anderson (2013), mentioned in his book ‘Principle-Based Leadership', an effective leader
influences its followers in the desired manner and helps them to achieve the target of the
organisation in the effective and efficient way. Leadership is a social influence process in
which a leader pursues the voluntary participation of its subordinates to achieve the
organisation objective and goals. Today’s the business organisation needs effective leaders
who understand the intricacies of the rapidly changing business environment. If the leader has
a good relationship with employees then its increase the productivity of the employees and a
highly structured task can easily complete by the employees. In Asian countries like China
and India, the manager plays a role as a boss in the organisation and his/her subordinates
follow his order by a certain amount of differential behaviour.
Role of Culture in Leadership Styles and Behaviour
According to Rahman (2014), culture and leadership are main aspects of organisational
issues. Culture has a great impact on leadership behaviours. The culture of a nation influences
the management practices in different societies. Culture is a belief and value system of people
that influence what people believed to be acceptable and not acceptable. People from the
same culture can interpret things in the same way and naturally share common values and
belief, while people from different cultures usually interpret things in different ways.
Daft (2014), describes in his book ‘The Leadership Experience’, the Indian leaders have a
habit of thinking more strategically and entrepreneurship, where Chinese leaders tend to good
at bringing people together. This helps Chinese leaders to execute their plan and strategy is
concerned with their subordinates that successfully meets the objective of the organisation.
The Indian leaders are normally like to look at the bigger picture in determining the talent
required to grow in the future. On the other hand, the Indian leaders not performing well on
the competencies criteria as compared to Chinese leaders. The Chinese leaders do not believe
in strategic decision-making, building organisational talent or entrepreneurship like India
(Cappelli, Singh and Useem, 2015). Chinese leaders are self-confident such as Indian leaders

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and accept leadership roles without too competitive. Indian leadership are more flexible in
their nature where Chinese leaders are open to the ideas of others but are very slow to
implement.
In the words of Everhart, D. (2010), former head of Korn/Ferry International’s Leadership
Development Solution, Indian leaders are more commanding and hierarchical in compare to
the Western leaders and less anxious about appearing open to the input of others and building
consensus. This approach of leadership effective in Indian leadership context but such
leadership style can be less effective in the context of international management teams who
may need to feel a stronger sense of empowerment to stay productive and motivated
(Mitchell, Ray and Sutcliffe, 2014). Indian leaders are more proactive and participative in
accessing the information related to their complex decision making which is required for the
business.
According to Alexander (2014), leadership style is a more focus on "what leaders do" rather
than a leader’s identity which focuses on "who leaders are". The different leadership style
like autocratic leadership style and liaises-fair style of leadership style all have their own
importance in different environmental and global business conditions.
Lynch (2013) describes in his book ‘One leadership style does not fit all’ there are different
definitions and meanings of leadership for people, like democracy, love, and peace. Every
people define the leadership in their own words and define its meaning according to their
point of view. A leader without followers may be just like a car without petrol. Leadership is
a successful process to inspire and motivate others to achieve the objective of a business
organisation. Leadership can define as the ability of an individual to inspire and influence a
group of individuals.
Bourke (2010), describes in his article ‘Chinese and Western leadership models’, the
Confucianism, introduced by Kong Zi (551-479BC), established the basic root of Chinese
culture. Then it was developed and promoted by Meng Zi, and highly publicised by the
dynasties. A great emphasis is given by people on Confucianism but other ancient schools of
thoughts like Buddhism (introduced from India) and traditional Taoism absolutely ignored in
that era. Confucianism continuously influences Chinese society and individuals up to the
present time.

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Transactional Vs. Transformational Leadership
According to Bealer and Bhanugopan (2013), before the 1980s, the Indian leaders mostly
preferred transformational leadership style that focuses on how a leader inspires and
motivates its followers to accomplish objective beyond of expectations of people. Unlike trait
theories, believe that leaders are born, the transformational leadership approach beliefs that
leaders can create through training and learning so that leaders can perform as charismatic
leaders at all level. In the Indian context, people more believe in trait theories where it is
perceived by people that leaders are born rather than created by training and learning.
Bird and Mendenhall (2016) describe the transformational leadership theory needs to
understand the motives and needs of followers in order to initiate, develop, and carry out
changes in the organisation. These types of leaders known as a change agent in the
organisation and follower treat them as their role model. On the other hand, transactional
leadership promotes the relationship on the exchange of facilities between leaders and
followers for expected performance or outcome. In the transactional leadership style, the
manager's main responsibility is to ensure compliance and stability in the work by proper
planning, controlling, and rewarding the employees for their work (Mittal, 2015). The Indian
leaders are known for transactional leadership style where the works of employees rewarded
in order to the work performed.
Decision-making in Leadership
According to Sharma & Sharma (2010), decision-making is an important aspect of
management in any organisation and play an important role in the success or failure. The
decision-making power of a leader or manager in the organisation depends on the available
information. The decision-making is nothing but a course of action from the different
available course of action. The decision-making process also involves qualitative and
quantitative analysis, which depends upon the managerial style of decision-making. Countries
like China and India, the managerial decision-making process more influenced by their
culture, beliefs and values of people (David, 2015). In India, there is a huge gap between the
different managerial levels in term of education level. Even the gap is too wide between
manager and ordinary workers in the organisation. The gender inequality, caste system,
reservation system and a highly heterogeneous culture provide more power for the decision-

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making process to the superior people in the organisation. Thus, the participative
management approach generally ignored by the authoritarian people of the organisation. In
India, the organisation level culture shows a close relationship with the national culture.
Therefore, a little change in the base level of the organisational cause a change in the overall
culture of the whole organisation and that may cause a change in national culture (Khanna,
2009). In India, managers make their decisions based on input received by the subordinates.
Thus, the Indian managers feel the responsibility towards their subordinate work
performance. In China, the managerial decision of managers influenced by their culture,
which based on Confucian philosophy. The Confucian philosophy more focuses on the social
obligation of people, honesty, loyalty, harmony on relations, and risk avoidance. These
factors of Confucian philosophy show the collectivist nature of leadership style rather than
individualism style of leadership for managerial decision-making (Tsai, 2011).
Stout-Rostron (2014), describes in his book ‘Leadership Coaching for Results: Cutting-edge
practices for coach and client’ knowledge of nature influences helps the manager to make
effective decisions in dealing with their partners, colleagues and subordinates. It also helps
the manager to analyse the influencing macro-factors of external environments. The
awareness about the organisation culture also helps in integrating the various operations of
the organisation through strategic alliances and mergers/acquisition. Both Chinese and Indian
leaders are excellent with their subordinates because these are cultural based countries. Every
country has their own adaptability and management styles with respect to their cultures.
Adaptability shoes the employee’s confidence to fight with a tough situation and potential to
face the job and roles. Employees past experiences, behaviour, roles, nature and social
persuasion influence the adaptability of employees (Warner, 2014). Indian has a wide
diversity of culture, different people with different languages, their different living style and
high level of politics in the country determines the thinking and decision-making process of
the managers. Due to such diversity and the democratic nature, Indian leaders generally used
the autocratic style of leadership. Therefore, the adaptability in India is medium. China has
also the medium type of adaptability because China is a cultural country and Chinese leaders
do not go against their culture.
Stephan and Pathak (2016) describe in his article ‘Beyond cultural values? Cultural
leadership ideas and entrepreneurship’, in the era of fast growing organisation and
companies, the leaders need to face challenges from advanced technology and globalisation.

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This fast-growing change in technology and globalisation require continuous skills and
knowledge development in global leadership, training about their work, and understanding of
the ethics and culture. India is now in these days more focusing on digitalization, thus the
expected role and performance of a leader is continuous demands for more to achieve the
organisational goals and objective. With good strategic leadership plan and applying various
leadership styles the Indian organisations enhance the skills of leaders that help them to face
the future issues and challenges (Northouse, 2013). In compare to Indian leadership, the
Chinese leaders' use western management approaches within the workplace by integrating
methods adopted from western management style. The Chinese leaders are more focusing on
‘scientific' approach (such as standardisation and focusing on efficiency) to manage things in
the organisation.
My Own Experience in Leadership
If there is a trust, commitment, cooperation, motivation, and coordination present in the team,
no target can be impossible and unachievable for people even if they belong to different
culture or society (Moore, 2010). These are the essential factors for success. These factors are
the key foundation for collaboration and cooperation within a team. In my opinion, I found
that motivation plays an important role to enhance the performance of a person even though
the dissimilarity in culture. In my experience of managing the team, I found that the diversity
does not necessarily have any impact on the team performance.
In my team, all members are from China and for the successful completion of the project, I
divide the work among them. For increasing the effectiveness of the team and its
productivity, it is essential that every team member feel satisfied and motivated in what they
are doing. When I was managing and leading this team I found that positive feedback and
motivation plays a crucial role to create a positive environment in the team and it also helps
in establishing strong relationships among the team members. The positive feedback and
motivation charged my colleagues to do their level best in completing this assignment.
Furthermore, the satisfaction of team member results in positive feedback for others that also
boost the effectiveness of multicultural teams. Even though, the Chinese people follow the
collective approach of leading and managing the team and capable of listening to others and
provide proper suggestions for the particular problem. It strengthening my job and provide

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helps to complete the task on time. The problem I faced during managing these people is their
language and communication styles. I faced challenges when I lead these groups in form of
direct and indirect communication, accent and fluency, and attitude towards the hierarchy and
authority. The person having different norms regarding their decision-making causes
problems for the team performance. In fact, apart from these challenges, I feel that managing
a diverse team is very easy if you have knowledge about their culture and norms. The cultural
awareness about these people helps me to make a strong coordination among the team
members.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that there is the significant impact of culture in leadership
style of a leader and his/her way of decision-making. Although, Indian and Chinese leaders
share the common culture and thinking style thus there is almost similarity in their leadership
style and approach. The modern managers and leaders of both the countries mostly focus on
collectivism approach of leadership style where the focus is on the success of the
organisation. The leaders of both the countries are well-educated and considerably less risk-
taking in compare to other western countries. Because of common culture and thinking style,
they more prioritize the organisational success and effectiveness rather than their individual
interest. The Indian and the Chinese leaders have a different approach regarding the
acceptance of power distance than the more traditional segment of society and hold a lower
power distance attitude in comparison to other western countries. The Indian and Chinese
leaders are more performance oriented and they give equal importance to the organisation
people. These Asian leaders believe in a collective approach where they mutually solve the
issues of their subordinates and involved them to make decisions regarding the organisational
success. The similarity in culture and thinking style helps me a lot to complete this
assignment and I feel that cultural dissimilarity and norms do not matter in any team
performance or in any organisation. Therefore we can say that diversity does not have
predictable negative effects on the team performance.

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References
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