Their cultural orientation being so different from their counterparts from more individualistic societies, planners from collectivistic cultures are likely to wait for a longer period of time before completely assessing a situation. This would imply a greater tolerance for environments that are in flux and are yet in the process of developing definitive patterns. In other words, managers from collectivistic cultures, in order not to preclude and preempt future choices, will avoid quick labeling of a situation (Mukherji and Hurtado, 2001).
Furthermore, as the culture affects the organisation as a whole, these traits affect all top, middle and first-line levels of management. Still, exceptional countries like China may have totally different approaches irrespective of its communal culture. Wang, Lin, Chan and Shi (2005) focuses on such an exception saying that, though from the same Asian culture, the preferred conflict handling styles of managers in countries like Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong differ from China, because of the level of intercultural exposure, legal systems, ownership advantage, and bargaining power. Groschl and Barrows (2003) study shows that British managers are more democratic than the French; they involve their employees to a greater extent in the decision-making, therefore, are much less authoritarian than their French counterparts.
Henry Mintzberg stated that the diverse works of managers can be best described from their roles, and regarded his ten ‘managerial roles’ as successive of Henri Fayol’s managerial functions. These roles are divided into three conceptual categories, informational (managing by information), interpersonal (managing through people) and decisional (managing through action). Informational roles can be further divided into monitor, disseminator and spokesperson, while interpersonal roles divide into figurehead, leader and liaison. Decisional roles subdivide into entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator (Robbins et al., 2003, pp.11-12).
Along the organisational hierarchy a top manager may regularly put more emphasis on the roles of spokesperson, figurehead, and negotiator. However, the emergence of new competitors may require more attention on the monitor role, or a severe decline in the
employee morale may indicate that the CEO has to put more weight on the leader role. A marketing manager may focus on interpersonal roles because of the importance of personal contacts in the marketing process, whereas a financial manager is more likely to emphasis on decisional roles such as resource allocator and negotiator.
Research by Lee, Roehl and Choe (2000), on Japanese and Korean management styles show that Koreans emphasize less on information exchange with their customers than Japanese managers. Japanese’s importance on interpersonal relationships is also supported by Sagara and Kleiner (2001).
There’s a higher chance of conflict occurrence within an organisation in a multicultural or politically unstable environment, making a managers role shift towards more of a disturbance handler and negotiator. Similarly, such attributes are reflected throughout hierarchical levels as well as different cultural organisations which are sometimes even closely associated. Evidence of such can be found:
Perhaps this only shows that the Swedish middle managers are more subject to group norms and group pressure than their Danish counterparts and their own top managers. Maybe it is not that strange, as middle managers have colleagues, co-workers and employees above, next to and under their orders. One might even go so far as to conclude that negotiations between Danish and Swedish managers are most likely to end quickly and successfully if they take place between top managers, while negotiations at the middle management level may easily drag on forever,
because the negotiating people are governed by two very different personal qualities (Havaleschka, 2002).
Next highlight is on the skills required to perform successfully in the complex and multidimensional job of management. Research by Robert L. Katz found that managers need three essential skills: technical, interpersonal and conceptual (Robbins et al., 2003, p.14).
Technical skills incorporate the understanding of and expertise in a certain specialised field, like mastery of the methods, techniques and equipment involved in specific functions such as engineering, manufacturing or finance (Robbins et al., 2003, p.15). These skills are particularly important at lower organisational levels. However, technical skills become less important than human and conceptual skills as managers move up the hierarchy. Technology and economy play a major role in the technical skills expertise of managers in different nations. As employees at each level slumps in proficiency skills due to hindrance in economic growth and technology development, third world countries require less technical skills in a manager when compared against developed western countries that are up-to-date in research and development. In USA, prospective managers are chosen on their skills through experience and education (MBA) while in Japan the human skills like ability to socialise are given emphasis (Wolfe, Arnold, eds. Davis and Schulte, 1997).
Human skills are the manager’s ability to work with and through other people and to work effectively within a group (Robbins et al., 2003, p.15). This skill is demonstrated in the way a manager relates to other people, including the ability to motivate, coordinate,
lead, communicate and resolve conflicts. Present day managers need to be genuinely concerned with emotional needs of their employees. As globalisation, workforce diversity and competition for highly skilled workers increase, good human skills become even more crucial universally, regardless of internal level of management or external factors such as culture, economy, politics or technology. Still, exceptions exist in some extreme cultures or economies, where there would be an extra need of motivational and communication human skills. Employees would need tactful and influential motivation and effective correlations. Examples could be organisations in countries distressed by civil war (e.g. Sri Lanka/Iraq) or economic recession.
Conceptual skill is the perceptive ability to see the organisation as a whole and the relationship among its parts (Robbins et al., 2003, p.15). It involves knowing where department fits in the organisation and how the organisation fits in its industry, society, and the broader business and social environment. In brief, it is the ability to think strategically, to take the broad long-term view. For example, a manager in a US company will be a strong individual with a lot of (internal) knowledge and the company will suffer immensely if he or she is to leave. Whereas in a Japanese company a manager leaving will probably have very little impact, as they are very distributed. Their roles are distributed and duplicated (in some cases) amongst others, requiring less perceptive skills, which reflects the communal culture (Hofstede, eds. Davis and Schulte, 1997).
Conclusion
This article has limitations because it is trying to cover a broad scope of management characteristics in relation to a constantly changing world. In some occasions assumptions have been made, like the company culture is fairly equivalent to country culture, due to scope restraints. Furthermore, as management boundaries overlap and distribute, it gets more complex to isolate theoretical principles accumulated by primal theorists such as Fayol, Mintzberg and Katz.
Nevertheless, following examination of all the points covered, a conclusion can be reached that more in-depth the analysis, the more diversity is reached, resulting in the statement being false. The work, roles and skills of a manager are not alike around the world with variations in intensity and importance. This is mainly due to the fact that no situation or person is similar and requires adjustments accordingly to manage successfully. It couldn’t have been better said than:
“The ability to keep tweaking roles to capitalize on the uniqueness of each person is the essence of great management” (Buckingham, 2005).
References
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Appendix
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