comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW WITH SOME ANALYSES
SUPPORTING SELECTION OF THEORIES
INTRODUCTION
A large and growing number of studies have shown that knowledge of a country’s
culture helps to identify and explain construals of leadership (e.g., Brodbeck et al.,
2000; Chhokar et al., 2007; Dorfman, Hanges, and Brodbeck, 2004; Gerstner and Day,
1994; Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 1999; House et al., 2004; Schmidt and Yeh, 1992;
Shaw, 1990;Wong and Birnbaum-More, 1994), leader behaviour (e.g., Smith, Peterson,
and Misumi, 1994; Smith, Peterson, and Schwartz, 2002); and to explain relationships
between construals of leadership and leader behaviour (e.g., Smith, Misumi, Tayeb,
Peterson, and Bond, 1989); and to explain relationships between leader behaviour and
its consequences (e.g., Hofstede, 2001; Williams, Whyte, and Green, 1966).
The literature review identified a major short-coming in popular theories of cultural
value dimensions as the lack of cross-cultural convergence of the dimensions identified
across multiple studies and theories. The contemporary models of societal culture focus
on different aspects of societal beliefs, norms, or values. Convergence across the models
is limited, and presents challenges both for researchers attempting to advance study of
cultural influences on management and practicing managers trying to understand
different cultural environments. Chen, Leung and Chen (2009) identify at least 88
existing cultural dimensions in the literature; although there is considerable overlap the
overlap is non-identical. Important aspects that are missing from most theories are:
1. How culture is acquired, which has implications for education and training of
people working across cultures?
2. Issues of temporality, how do people in different cultures value and use time.
Dimensions such as Hofstede’s LTO/STO and the GLOBE project’s Future
Orientation are descriptive, providing no insight into how the dimensions are
inculcated in cultures.
3. Similar issues exist for territoriality, proxemics, as in 2. Above.
I see no compelling reason to advocate one model over another as none is
comprehensive; all have important factors to contribute to our understanding of culture
as it relates to management and leadership behaviour and practices. Taking a more
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