Building the Global Competence of Asian Leaders

Abstract

Recent development shows increasing international trade and across-borders investment as well as growing bilateral and multilateral free-trade agreement among the Asian countries. This is resulting in more and more Asian (and global) organizations facing increasingly culturally diverse groups to manage and to deal with. Hence, it indicates the need for systematic development of intercultural competence and sensitivity for Asian leaders. This study attempts to apply an indigenous approach to deal with the underdeveloped systematic knowledge for non-Western societies and the lack of practices to develop global Asian leaders. A series of 110 interviews with Chinese, Indonesian, and Singaporean international assignees and their local coworkers was conducted in China and Indonesia. More than half of the interviewees were business leaders and senior executives, while the others were mostly at mid-management levels. All interviews were recorded and fully transcribed in their original languages. Grounded Theory analysis was applied to analyze the interview data, supported by the computer-based QDA software Atlas.ti. Our result suggests that Asians are both neighbors and strangers. In spite of our closer physical proximity, many Asians are less prepared to interact with each other than with Westerners. As the number of Asian expats working within Asia grows, there is a need for more applied research to help prepare companies and individuals to overcome the challenges and capitalize on the potential of intra-Asia collaboration.

Citation

Widjaja Tjitra, H., Ramakrishnan, M. and Panggabean, H. (2012), "Building the Global Competence of Asian Leaders", Mobley, W.H., Wang, Y. and Li, M. (Ed.) Advances in Global Leadership (Advances in Global Leadership, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 273-294. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1535-1203(2012)0000007016