A Tentative Study On The Influence Of Power Distance On Managers' Managerial Behaviors In Chinese SOEs

Management is an important and indispensable part of a company. Different cultural settings have different impact on the managerial behaviors of managers. Thus, management must concern itself more with developing appropriate management methods relevant to the national culture. Managerial behaviors of managers are very important in that they are closely related to the effectiveness and the success of a company. However, managerial behaviors are different owing to different managers'cultural work values. Hofstede proposed in his research that China belongs to high power distance country, which leads to the four hypotheses in this dissertation about what kind of managerial behaviors tend to be behaved by managers in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Then an empirical research is made in SOEs in Chongqing to see whether and to what extent their managerial behaviors are influenced by power distance, and to verify whether the saying of Hofstede is tenable. The dissertation analyzes the influence of power distance on the four aspects of managerial behaviors including decision-making, relationship building, communicating, and motivating behaviors. The results show that power distance, as one of the dimensions of cultural work values, has influenced the behaviors of managers in Chinese SOEs in a sense. On decision-making behaviors, half of the managers in SOEs in Chongqing tend to engage in participatory behaviors. On communicating behaviors, the managers tend to engage in a lot of informing, clarifying and monitoring behaviors. Both aspects show managers'management behavior typical in a low power distance context. On relationship-building and motivating behaviors, their managerial behaivors indicate a high power distance work environment in Chinese SOEs. This means the work environment of Chinese SOEs is not a high power distance context completely. Though the research is carried out only in the SOEs in Chongqing, the results, in a sense, still prove that with the globalization of world economy, more than two decades of reform and development and the entry into WTO, China with a high power distance culture is changing.