Leadership and Change Management: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Citation

Choromides, C. (2018), "Leadership and Change Management: A Cross-Cultural Perspective", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 575-578. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-03-2018-428

Until recently, books on management had failed to truly synthesise the theoretical perspectives of leadership and change management with more practical know-how. Publications have tended to be either more academic publications or more practical case studies. What was needed is a comprehensive text to the analysis and practice of leadership and change management, both for managers as well as for those studying in higher education, a text that brings together more academic know-why research, and more practical how-to-do-it insights.

Researchers agree that a leader’s inability to fully understand what is needed in order to guide their organisation through successful change can be a reason for failure. Proper planning and management of change can reduce the likelihood of failure, promote change effectiveness and increase employee engagement. Yet, the change in organisations must be viewed as a continuous activity that affects both organisational and individual outcomes. If change management can be considered as an event induced by socio-cultural factors, the cultural variable gains greater significance when applied to the quality of the relationship between a leader and their team. Many organisations today are on the verge of internationalisation. It is here that the cultural context can affect behaviours and in the same way, leadership style.

In a stimulating and original book Leadership and Change Management: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Daphne Halkias, Joseph Santora, Nicholas Harkiolakis and Paul Thurman, using compelling case studies, covering a diverse range of industries, from around the world, the editors contends that a leaders’ role in the management of change is a critical issue for successful outcomes of strategic initiatives. Globalisation and economic instability have prompted an increase in organisational changes related to downsizing and restructuring in order to improve financial performance and organisational competitiveness. This accessible and comprehensive edited volume addresses the aforementioned gap and successfully combines theoretical management perspectives with practical how-to-do-it insights into the planning, management and leadership of change.

The editors have succeeded in to synthesise distinctive attributes and diverse theoretical and empirical perspectives of leadership and change management in the global economy, advancing our understanding on the characteristics and patterns of managing and leading organisational change. By providing a story and evidence from a diverge cultural/country contexts from European, North American, Latin American, Middle East, African and Asian viewpoints, the editors illustrate how the cultural, ethnic, regional and religious attributes, forces and underlying influences determine on how leaders manage change within organisations and accordingly develop change strategies aligned with the business objectives of the organisational and the concerned stakeholders.

In many ways, the chapters are complimentary and useful not only to professionals and researchers interested in understanding the various perspectives of leadership and change management but also to non-experts and students who are keen on understanding the relevant academic literature and frameworks to leadership and change management

In Chapter 1, Mary Barret examines the management of change leadership in a cross-cultural context; the impact that different management styles had on the successful management of the family business, the challenges of fitting the two different cultures together and the cultural impediments towards change. Her case demonstrates how effective combination of cultural norms of the business made change a success. In Chapter 2, Emmanouela Mandalaki, Cazi Islam and Filipe Sobral discuss organisational change and leadership, and stressing the importance of considering organisational culture before initiating change. Their analysis stresses the importance of successfully communicating the change before initiating it and of developing a change strategy that it is in line with the organisational culture of the organisation in question. The chapter concludes with a case study illustrating the complexity of driving successful organisational changes as well as the importance of understanding organisational culture beyond mere economistic objectives before designing successful changes.

In Chapter 3, Melquicedec Lozano and Kathy Overbeke explore strategic business processes contextualised in the family experience. By including the family experience of the corporate leader, they were able to discover the influence of culture in the form of values, preferences and beliefs in strategic change management. Their case study offers insights into the importance of leadership and the mechanisms that link cultural attitudes and beliefs with leadership and strategic change process. In Chapter 4, Marcos Komodromos examines how an organisational justice framework can be used to explore the employees’ perception of trust, fairness and the management of change during a period of strategic changes for a media organisation in Cyprus amid the recent economic crisis, and the role of leadership in these change.

In Chapter 5, Mari Kooskora and Marta Piigli explore the case of a young female leader in Estonia. Their case study offers insights on how experienced female managers are able to make more balanced decisions and consider different perspectives in managing change. Female leaders often bring needed collaborative and participative skills to the workplace by assuming a transformational leadership style, while gender and cultural diversity being identified as the key competitive factors. In Chapter 6, Marina Niforos in collaboration with Ariane Cherel compare two French companies, one large multinational with global operations in heavy industry and one small, but rapidly growing company in services that is expanding in new international markets, and through their contrasted experiences, the authors try to shed some light on how best to deal with the challenges of globalisation in adopting and executing uniform strategic objectives and policies across global operations and cultural misalignment.

In Chapter 7, Maria Vakola, Dimitris Bourantas and Marina Karli examine how an organisation capitalising on its founder’s leadership competencies, management style, vision, competence and business decisions can emerge from a six-year recession in Greece not just intact, but also confident of its future. In Chapter 8, Shefali Nandan explores and discusses the profound influence of socio-cultural context on leadership and change management from an Indian perspective. In Chapter 9, Simon Jones addresses how the cross-cultural interactions impact the building of a knowledge-intensive institution and the challenges that expatriate leadership at the Nazarbayev University in Central Asia needs to resolve.

In Chapter 10, Janine Saba Zakka and Renee Sabbagh Ghattas present an overview on the survival of small family-owned manufacturing firm in Lebanon with an emphasis on the role of education, leadership styles and internal culture and change management in achieving positive change that led to the development of the business. In Chapter 11, Franco Vaccarino and Steve Elers focuses on Maori leadership in New Zealand, how globalisation has impacted on contemporary indigenous leadership and how Maori cultural values can effectively embrace the different elements and dynamics of contemporary leadership. In Chapter 12, Andrea Santiago focuses on how culture influence core corporate values, enhances leadership and promotes change in Philippines.

In Chapter 13, Natalia Vinokurova, Vyacheslav Boltrukevich and Alexander Naumov focus on leadership and change management in Russia studying the leadership skills, qualities and style of Sergey Filippov, a successful Russian Practitioner. In Chapter 14, Claire Seaman presenting a case study from Scotland addresses the leadership of incremental change that acknowledge both the importance of tradition and the importance of a fresh strategic direction for the business is not simple, but it is vital to the future success of business in rapidly changing markets.

In Chapter 15, Cecilia Bjursell presents a case study of Swedish leadership and defines this approach as transformative leadership in which the manager’s genuine interest for people is at heart. In Chapter 16, Grant Jewell Rich examines the early life of Barack Obama as a case study with implications for better understanding the influence of early multicultural experience on leadership and change management. In Chapter 17, Joseph Hamlett examines how military prepares for change, the impact that leadership has on embracing constant changes, how it maintains control over change and how change management is accomplished.

The discussion sections clearly demonstrate the contribution, originality and value of the research. There is no doubt that the book will spark the interest and engage the reader, as it offers many contemporary and practical examples that allow the reader to develop a progressive and embedded understanding of the context of leadership and change management.

The explicit choice of approach by the authors noted above, that is, the emphasis on practice and application would appear to be at the heart of both the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Whilst the text is clear, accessible and concise, allowing for a free-flowing discussion and distillation of a wide range of relevant concepts, theories and research findings, from the leadership and change management literature, it lacks in certain chapters the depth of conceptual and theoretical engagement that one might expect of an academic textbook. Although it is my understanding that there was a conscious choice by the authors not to overburden the text with numerous references, I feel that some of the chapters (1, 3, 7, 8, 12 and 13) were short on referencing and weak in their theoretical underpinning. Given the scope of the material and the targeted audience the text is aimed at, this seems not to be a significant weakness.

The strength of this edited volume is the choice made not to avoid the presentation of leadership failures that strengthened and validated the deductions the authors made about the positives. The overall structure of the book and the organisation of material within chapters are well thought out with the editor skilfully blending empirical material from diverse sources into an easily readable holistic account of cross-cultural perspectives in leadership and change management.

The book, however, is weakened by the lack of an introductory chapter authored by the editors, where a summary of the papers would be provided along with a reflective commentary of the concepts that motivated the compilation of the volume. Then the volume abruptly ends without a summary chapter or an epilogue that could have been useful drawing the different chapters and arguments together and in relation to the themes of cross-cultural perspectives in leadership and change management, followed by suggestions for linked policy actions. Since this is an edited volume, we would want to see the editors’ personal opinion and reflection on the chapters and how the content of the book has affected their views on leadership and change management. Still this is by no means a significant weakness.

Taken as a whole, this edited volume is well conceived, written with clarity successfully match its title and objectives. It benefits from the use of a balanced mix of broad theoretical frameworks and original empirical research which are used to develop to the targeted audience of students, researchers and entrepreneurs the necessary mindset needed in order to understand cross-cultural perspectives in leadership and change management in a global world. Each chapter has clear research objectives, updated reference list and ends with a number of critical questions and/or propositions highlighting potential future research. The discussion sections clearly demonstrate the contribution, originality and value of the research, giving emphasis on the applicability of the results. As with most edited volumes, what is lost in coherence and homogeneity is gained in variety and originality. All individual chapters have considerable merit and its heterogeneous nature leads to a contribution on the area leadership that is greater than the sum of its parts.

There is no doubt that the book will spark the interest and engage the reader, as it offers many contemporary and practical examples that allow the reader to develop a progressive and embedded understanding of the cross-cultural perspectives in leadership and change management.