comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

value dimensions across countries, but few actually using the dimensions to draw
conclusions about the relationship of value priorities to behaviour in real life situations.
From contacts from students seeking to obtain versions of the SVS I do see a growing
number of Master’s and PhD theses applying the survey to business issues.
I will describe Schwartz’ theory in detail. I provide overviews of societal culture in
Guangzhou City and New Zealand, including results of past studies using the SVS
where available. The behaviour theory of leadership is discussed, followed by the
interrelationships of leadership and culture. A conceptual model of cross-cultural
business relationships will be developed based on preferred managerial leader behaviour
and value priorities, described below.
National Character and National Culture
Clark (1990) reviewed research of national character and offers the following definition,
“national character describes the pattern of enduring personality characteristics found
among the population of nations”. McCrae (2000, 2009) discusses personality, culture,
and national character at length. Though mentioned and discussed occasionally, the
national character approach to defining culture will not be investigated in this research
project, as it represents an approach to measuring dimensions other than the one
selected for the overarching research project established in 1997 (Littrell, 2002).
Cultural Congruence, Leadership Behaviour, and Cultural Values
Cultural congruence theory (House, Wright and Aditya, 1997) suggests that leader
behaviours consistent with follower values will be viewed as more acceptable and be
more effective in eliciting follower response than those representing conflicting values.
House et al. (1997) argued that a violation of cultural norms by leaders could result in
dissatisfaction on the part of followers, and at times lower performance. Leader
behaviour preferences are functions of the interaction between values, including cultural
values, and leader attributes and behaviours. Accordingly, leader attributes and
behaviours that are congruent with followers cultural values will be more accepted than
leader attributes and behaviours that are not congruent with them. In this study, I will
assess which leader behaviour sets are congruent with which individual value sets for
the two samples I have drawn from Guangzhou City, China, and New Zealand. I will
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