comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

1. The relative importance of goals; which goals take precedence; for example
should the individual’s own goals or the group’s goals take precedence in
motivation.
2. The relative desirability of equal vs. hierarchical allocation of resources, roles,
rights, and obligations amongst persons and groups.
3. The relative desirability of assertively using or changing the social environment
and natural environment in the active pursuit of goals vs. maintaining harmony
in relation to these environments.
The first two issues correlate substantially positively with economic development,
whilst the third does not.
Cultural value orientations are important in understanding causal relations amongst
social structural, institutional, and demographic factors that affect human behaviour.
These cultural value orientations may sometimes influence significant aspects of life
even more than socioeconomic factors do. Value orientations order national cultures in
ways that help us understand differences. The orderings of nations obtained with value
dimensions relate meaningfully to such characteristics of nations as socioeconomic
development, political institutions, and population features. Much remains to be done to
determine how much these cultural value orientations add to the insights into individual
and social phenomena that other theories of cultural dimensions provide.
Culturally different groups prefer different ways of being led (Hofstede, 1993; Triandis,
1993). In every culture followers have expectations that their leaders’ characteristics
should fit into the traditional leadership prototypes in their minds. Not conforming to
social norms and values is likely to make followers quickly perceive a leader as
incompetent and not deserving of that position, despite his or her personal abilities and
achievements. When interacting across cultures it is important to understand, appreciate,
and accommodate the expectations of culturally diverse business partners.
PREFERRED LEADER BEHAVIOUR
This discussion assumes some familiarity with history and systems of theories of
leadership. This research project employs a Traits+Contingency typology describing
explicit behaviour, initially developed at Ohio State University in the USA in the 1960s
and 1970s and adding individual cultural values as a contingency.
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