Abstract
This chapter explores the complex relationship between leadership and culture with a particular emphasis on critically discussing some of the cultural stereotypes that exist about leadership in the context of Hong Kong . Drawing on audio- and video-recorded data collected at two workplaces in Hong Kong, this paper challenges some of the predominant stereotypes about leadership in Hong Kong and contrasts them with insights gained through a fine-grained in-depth analysis of leadership discourse that occurred in actual workplace encounters. Findings illustrate that while there is evidence in our data to support some of the cultural stereotypes about leadership in Hong Kong (e.g. that Chinese leaders tend to be autocratic and often assume a ‘father’ role while subordinates are submissive and expect to be told what to do), the everyday practices of leadership of actual people interacting with each other in actual workplaces doing actual things are much more complex and often more contradictory than these stereotypical claims and grand statements suggest. In actual practice, leadership is a highly complex and multifaceted concept and people draw on a wide range of different leadership styles to meet the situational demands.
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Notes
- 1.
All names of people and places in the data are pseudonyms to protect participants’ identities.
- 2.
A similar problem is discussed in Steel and Taras (2010) who maintain that “an elderly Kansas farmer and a young Manhattan lawyer are likely to have very different sets of work-related cultural values, despite both being Americans. Comparatively, the Manhattan lawyer is more likely to have cultural values similar to those of a young Shanghai lawyer, even though they have grown up on different continents” (Steel and Taras 2010, p. 229).
- 3.
Since the main focus of this chapter is on leadership and culture, we will not venture into discussions about the potential role of gender in the leadership performances of Liu and Cheryl. We have, however, explored the topic of leadership and gender in some of our earlier work (e.g. Schnurr 2010; Schnurr and Mak 2011).
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Appendix
Appendix
Transcription conventions:
- (.):
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Untimed brief pause
- (n):
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Timed pause where ‘n’ indicates the interval measured in seconds
- ::
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Lengthened sound
- -:
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Sudden cut off
- =:
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The second utterance is latched onto the first one, i.e. no gap between the two utterances
- .hh:
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Audible inhalations
- >word<:
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Word uttered at a faster pace
- <word>:
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Word uttered at a slower pace
- Word :
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Stressed word
- °word°:
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The word is said softer than the surrounding talk
- (( )):
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Paralinguistic features
- (word):
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Word in doubt
- ( ):
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Inaudible speech
- [:
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The beginning of overlapping
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The end of overlapping
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Schnurr, S., Chan, A., Loew, J., Zayts, O. (2017). Leadership and Culture: When Stereotypes Meet Actual Workplace Practice. In: Ilie, C., Schnurr, S. (eds) Challenging Leadership Stereotypes through Discourse. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4319-2_5
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