Cultural based Chinese leadership styles in a globalised market

Abstract

A major premise of this paper is that any kind of ‘etic’ approach towards global leadership only partially explains contemporary leadership in China. Rather an ‘emic’ perspective has to be complemented. This study deals with the leadership behaviour of Chinese managers. Unfamiliar with the Chinese culture and their ways of doing business foreign managers will encounter differences. The objectives are to examine the fundamentals of Chinese culture with respect to leadership, identify the most popular leadership mechanisms and outline basic business implications. A questionnaire was designed for testing which leadership style can be identified in China.