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A comparative study of leadership behavior and style cross culture between China and Australia

Cultural conflict in business cooperation is a universal phenomenon with the development of global economic integration, especially for the two main cultures, Eastern and Western culture. This thesis aims to create new knowledge of leadership behavior and cross cultural style via surveying the literature and analysing data collected through interviews and a survey. / Results reveal differences in behaviour and style between Chinese and Australian managers. Leaders' self-ratings differ significantly between the Chinese and Australian samples for most scales, except for Management-by Exception (MEA) and Laissez-faire, and the overall Transactional Leadership scale. Part of the differences which existed were due to Australian leaders rating themselves higher than the Chinese leaders. The differences are greatest for the variables Idealized Influence (Attributed), Effectiveness and Inspirational Motivation. / There are cultural differences in that leadership in China shows that extra effort will be most affected by intellectual stimulation. This suggests that leaders in China who invite participation and critical focus on common problems are likely to get extra effort from associates; whereas in Australia, the same outcome is more likely to result from attributed idealized influence, manifested in the degree of charisma, conviction and integrity in a leader. Both Chinese and Australian leaders see extra effort arising from transformational qualities. The findings of interviews with several senior Chinese leaders extend these findings in a variety of ways and support most of these perspectives. / A summary discusses the findings relating to Western literature, ancient Chinese concepts of management, modern Chinese literature, and the results of the survey, and interviews (quantitative and qualitative respectively). Limitations of the research and suggestions for further research complete this thesis. / Thesis (PhDBusinessAdministration)--University of South Australia, 2006

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/284300
Date January 2006
CreatorsMa, Jinhua
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Rightscopyright under review

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