Thoma Moltke Meets Confucius

The Possibility of Mission Command in China
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-3-8288-6419-1
Verlag: Tectum
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 158 Seiten

The global business environment is becoming more complex and business activities are increasing in speed. In this volatile environment, companies will need to adjust their approach to strategy, their organizational setup and leadership model in order to be sustainably successful. In military history, armies have gone through the same development. Since the 19th century the concept of Mission Command (Auftragstaktik) has been proven to offer superior performance and competitive advantages through systematic empowerment of employees, decentralised decision-making and allowing (calculated) risk-taking under the severest and most demanding situation: war. In the first part of this book, the historical development of Mission Command is reconstructed and key elements derived. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the concept of Mission Command, in what situations its application is beneficial, and what is needed for its successful implementation. In the second part, the potential as well as the limitations of Mission Command in China are analysed by contrasting the requirements with findings on Chinese national culture and leadership. This is particularly useful for Chinese and Western leaders of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) working in cross-cultural environments and will enable them to apply an appropriate leadership style when setting up, expanding, or reorganising their operations in China.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thoma, Dominik

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Theorie der Kriegsführung und Militärwissenschaft
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Entscheidungsfindung

Leseproben

3National Culture, Leadership and Education in China In the beginning of this chapter the National Culture of China will be described in using the following definition of national culture: “[Culture is defined as; D.T.] shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common experiences of members of collectives that are transmitted across generations” (House, et al. 2004, 15). The ultimate goal of this chapter is to define Chinese national culture (and its implications for behaviour), Chinese leadership characteristics and the underlying ideals and outcomes of the Chinese educational system in order to evaluate in Chapter 1 whether the requirements of Mission Command (as identified in Chapter ) can be met. In order to describe Chinese culture on a generic level, cultural studies will be taken as a basis. This is quite problematic, because there are several approaches in the field, which partly contradict each other. An example is the Hofstede-GLOBE debate (Tung and Verbeke 2010, 1270, Hofstede 2006). Tung and Verbeke’s argument (2010, 1270) will be followed, that including both Hofstede-based and GLOBE-based measures into empirical work is inappropriate. Therefore this thesis will be primarily based on the findings of the GLOBE (GLOBE is an acronym for Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness) project (House, et al. 2004). Other theoretical frameworks will be mentioned if necessary in order to provide supplementary information. These are the Cultural Dimension Theory of Hofstede (2010), the Lewis Model of Cross-Cultural Communication (2006), the outcome of the studies of the Chinese Culture Connection (1987), and the research results of Hall (1976). The GLOBE project is assumed to be the most appropriate research basis for this thesis because of the following reasons: —The GLOBE project builds to a certain extent on other prominent theories such as the Hofstede research. —The examined group was composed of middle managers out of different industries. This fits this thesis due to the fact that it primarily deals with the leadership aspect of national culture. —GLOBE collected - other than the Hofstede research (2010) - data only from local (non-multinational) companies. —Whereas Hofstede in general focuses on cultural values, GLOBE adds the perspective of actual practices (Venaik, Zhu and Brewer, Looking into the future: Hofstede long term orientation versus GLOBE future orientation 2013, 377). —GLOBE focused on building a model of leadership model linked to its cultural dimensions (Leung, et al. 2005, 374). —Compared to the initial Hofstede study, GLOBE data was collected later. 3.1National Culture of China Derived from Cultural Research The GLOBE project is a programmatic research program, which aims to explore the effects of culture on leadership, organizational effectiveness, the economic competitiveness of societies, and condition of the members of these societies (House, et al. 2004, 10). Data was gathered on a societal as well as organisational level. The dimensions discovered are displayed in Table 3.1: GLOBE Cultural dimensions. Table 3.1: GLOBE Cultural dimensions GLOBE Dimension Dimension explanation Power Distance (PD) Degree to which members of an organisation or society expect and agree that power should be stratified and concentrated at higher levels of an organisation or government. In-Group Collectivism (IGC) Degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organisations or families. Institutional Collectivism (IC) Degree to which organisational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action. Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) Extent to which members of an organisation or society strive to avoid uncertainty by relying on established social norms, rituals, and bureaucratic practices. Those with high uncertainty avoidance seek to decrease the probability of unpredictable future events that could adversely affect the operation of an organisation or society and remedy the success of such adverse effects. Future Orientation (FO) Degree to which individuals in organisations or societies engage in future-oriented behaviours such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying individual or collective gratification. GLOBE Dimension Dimension explanation Gender Egalitarianism (GE) Degree to which an organisation or society minimises gender role differences while promoting gender equality. Assertiveness (AO) Degree to which individuals in organisations or societies are assertive, confronting, and aggressive in social relationships. Humane Orientation (HO) Degree to which individuals in organisations or societies encourage and reward individuals for being fair, altruistic friendly, generous, caring, and kind to others. Performance Orientation (PO) Degree to which an organisation or society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence. Source: Definitions from House, et al. (2004, 12) Uncertainty avoidance, Power Distance and Individualism-Collectivism are direct descendants of Hofstede’s dimensions. The Gender Egalitarianism dimension on the other hand was not intended to reflect the Masculinity dimension of Hofstede (House, et al. 2004, 138). In contrast to Hofstede, GLOBE researchers subdivided the cultural dimensions into values (what should be) and practices (what is (or are)) regarding behaviourism, institutional practices, proscriptions, and prescriptions (House, et al. 2004, 16). This was deemed as necessary because they recognised that idealised values and practices do not always correspondent. In course of the GLOBE project, ten cultural clusters were identified. Even if China was clustered into the Confucian Asia cluster, only data of China will be taken for the purpose of this thesis. An overview of the Chinese results is provided in Table 3.2: GLOBE China and global scores of societal practices and values per cultural dimension II and Figure 3.1: GLOBE China and global scores of societal practices and values per cultural dimension I (House, et al., 2004);. Figure 3.1: GLOBE China and global scores of societal practices and values per cultural dimension I (House, et al., 2004); P = Practices, V = Values. Table 3.2: GLOBE China and global scores of societal practices and values per cultural dimension II   China Score China Band Global Mean Global Min Global Max China Rank Performance Orientation             Practices 4,45 A 4,10 3,20 4,94 13   Values 5,67 C 5,94 4,92 6,58 50 Future Orientation               Practices 3,75 C 3,85 2,88 5,07 34   Values 4,73 C 5,48 4,33 6,20 60 Gender Egalitarianism               Practices 3,05 B 3,37 2,50 4,08 48   Values 3,68 C 4,51 3,18 5,17 58 Assertiveness...