A Comparative Study Of Employees' Attitudes Toward Effective Leadership In Foreign-and State-Owned Enterprises In China

The purpose of this empirical study was to compare Chinese non-managerialemployees' attitudes toward effective leadership in foreign-owned enterprises(labeled as FOEs) and state-owned enterprises (labeled as SOEs) located inmainland China, and reveal the effects of cultural forces on these attitudes. Aquestionnaire survey was conducted to 97 Chinese salespersons working in fourlarge and influential American- and state-owned companies.Built upon Hofstede's culture-value dimensional theory and a westernscholar Mockaitis's descriptive leadership theory, this study explored the culturaleffects on the 97 respondents' attitudes toward and perceptions of six leadershipvariables: view toward authority, control, supervision, commitment, decision typeand taking initiative.Analysis of Variance F-test and Mann-Whitney U-test were employed as thestatistic methods to analyze all 97 responses. Then Analysis of Covariance wasconducted to test the main effect of culture on certain leadership variables,controlling for selected context variables (covariates) such as gender, age, level ofeducation and time of serving the organization.Statistical results from ANOVA and Mann-Whitney tests showed thatsignificant differences were found on three leadership variables (view towardauthority, supervision and commitment) but not found on the remaining variables(control, decision type and initiative). However, results from Analysis ofCovariance showed that no cultural main effect was found on the variablecommitment after the control for context variables (covariates), and the culturaldifference observed on compared means was mainly caused by respondents' agediscrepancy.The findings suggested that Chinese salespersons in FOEs tend to be more individualistic and prefer smaller power distance than salespersons in SOEs interms of view toward authority and supervision. It seemed that FOE group tendsto value a more consultative/participative leadership style while SOE group tendsto rely more on people in authority and prefer an authoritarian leadership style.Nevertheless, salespersons in American-owned companies displayed culturalvalues in line with the characteristics of Chinese national culture on theirpreference for control, commitment and intuitive decision. It was also found thatSOE salespersons maintain most characteristics of Chinese national culture whichis characterized by relatively low individualism, large power distance andmoderately high uncertainty avoidance. However, they displayed, as theircounterparts in American-owned companies also did, high individualism in theirpreference for leadership encouraging employees' initiative.The present study identifies with claims of most researchers that culture is adynamic system, in which deep-rooted cultural values are relatively stable toresist changes. Additionally, it provides valuable insights for cross-culturalleadership in foreign-owned enterprises in China as well as management practicein domestic state-owned enterprises. Through this study, managers andsupervisors in both forms of organizations may take into account of preferredleadership style among Chinese salespersons in order to motivate them moreeffectively.