Christopher Selvarajah

One nation, three cultures: exploring dimensions that relate to leadership in Malaysia

Purpose – Malaysia is a multicultural country with a distinct mix of three major races; Chinese Indians, and Malays. This paper sets out to explore the contribution of the three main ethnic groups to leadership in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach – Summated scales for the importance of Excellent Leader (EL), Personal Qualities (PQ), Managerial Behaviours (MB), Organisational Demands (OD) and Environmental Influences (EI) were developed using most of the items categorised by Selvarajah et al. and several other items rated highly in the study. A structural model was constructed to explain the relationship in excellence in leadership.Findings – From the three ethnic groups, 512 managers participated in the research. The findings suggest that Malaysian managers maintain distinctive leadership behaviour along ethnic lines and a Malaysian leadership identity is still in its infant stage.Practical implications – Malaysia is a country with three distinct ethnic population groups and is yet to forge a single M...

Cross‐cultural study of Asian and European student perception: The need to understand the changing educational environment in New Zealand

Purpose – The paper seeks to explore educational objectives and attitudes to assessment methods between Chinese and New Zealand European students.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework developed from the literature and feedback from the pilot study, explains the impact of factors on curriculum development in this study. This conceptual framework was designed to give preliminary insights into the subject area and form the basis of the research. Curriculum development and teaching style are seen as the product of cultural impact. The cultural impact is made up of factor inputs from demands made on the educational system. The prime data collection method was a self‐completion questionnaire. The population group was postgraduate management students at the Albany Campus of Massey University in New Zealand.Findings – The responses from 110 postgraduate students in management studies at the Albany Campus of Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, suggest that there is a relationship between cul...

Profiling the Chinese manager: exploring dimensions that relate to leadership

Purpose – This paper explores the leadership profile of managers in China and in so doing identifies demographics factors that shape perceptions of what makes an excellent Chinese leader.Design/methodology/approach – Summated scales for the importance of Excellent Leader (EL), Personal Qualities (PQ), Managerial Behaviour (MB), Organisational Demands (OD) and Environmental Influences (EI) were developed using most of the items categorised by Selvarajah et al. and several other items rated highly in this study. A structural model was constructed to explain the relationship in excellence in leadership.Findings – The structural model confirmed that managerial behaviour was the most important construct determining leadership in China and that even with the changes in the political and social systems in the last 60 years, the Chinese belief in Confucianism is highly valued.Practical implications – China is undergoing dramatic changes and understanding China within a changing cultural context is important to in...

DETERMINANTS OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE IN NEW VENTURES: EVIDENCE FROM SWEDISH LONGITUDINAL DATA

The early years are seen as a crucial period for the survival of ventures and yet only a limited number of studies have focused on successful new ventures when studying capital structure. Furthermore, only a few studies have included longitudinal data, tracking ventures over time, or have elaborated on the difference between short-term and long-term debt ratios when studying capital structure. In this paper, hypotheses are developed, based on capital structure theories and literature on new venture financing, and are tested on longitudinal empirical data. Results of multivariate analysis, through structural equation modeling, reveals that: (1) asset structure assists in explaining the variance in capital structure; (2) explained variance in dependent variables is decreasing for each of the four years studied; and (3) multi-group analysis reveals that the determinants influence short-term and long-term debt differently in the first four years of venture existence. Implications of this study suggest that determinants of capital structure in new ventures require theorizing of its own and demand special attention in entrepreneurial policy-making.

Characteristics of high performing managers in The Netherlands

Purpose – Despite the abundance of literature on management it seems that the quality of management has not improved enough to prevent scandals which have occurred in recent years. It could be that either the results of these studies have not been put to use in practice or that the results were biased because of the rather one‐sided focus on US managers in much of the leadership literature. As national cultures signal different determinants of high performance, there is a need for leadership research into the effectiveness characteristics of managers in non‐US countries. This article aims to develop an empirically validated profile of high performing managers in The Netherlands using a leadership framework developed in Asia.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a sample of 808 Dutch managers and using the cross‐cultural framework of Excellent Leadership by Selvarajah et al., the profile of an excellent Dutch manager was derived.Findings – The paper reveals that this profile can be described by a four‐dim...

Archetypes of the Malaysian manager: exploring ethnicity dimensions that relate to leadership

This paper extends the boundaries of theories in leadership studies to sub-cultures of a country. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between the concept of an excellent leader and ethnicity in a multicultural society while formulating ten underlying dimensions for this concept. Data on leadership behaviour were gathered from 292 managers in Malaysia and were subjected to factor analysis, MANOVA analysis, regression analysis and structural equation modelling. The results suggest that, in Malaysia, strategic orientation acts through operational behaviours, producing excellence in leadership. However, the study demonstrates that there are significant ethnic differences in regard to the dimensions that relate to excellence in leadership. Studies such as this are useful in extending the understanding of the dimensions of leadership in pluralistic societies where the cultural frameworks of workers may not be the same. Most studies have looked at the leader from a mono-cultural perspective and this study addresses this deficit.

Expatriation experiences of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand: factors contributing to adjustment of older immigrants

This seminal research investigates the adaptation experiences of elderly dependent Chinese immigrants who have come to New Zealand under the Family Reunion Category between 1994 and 1998. The study involved a group‐administered questionnaire to measure the various aspects of the adaptation experiences of 105 elderly dependent Chinese from China aged 50 years and over. The data set was subjected to ANOVA, Kruskal‐Wallis and Factor Analysis to analyse and establish relationships between variables. The results confirmed that there were five main factors that influence the living conditions of the elderly dependent Chinese immigrants in New Zealand. These were, in order of severity, communication in the English language, medical care, transportation, cost of living and interestingly relationships with other family members. The study also confirmed that age, length of time in New Zealand, and the need to stay in New Zealand permanently influenced the adaptability of the elderly Chinese immigrants in New Zealand.

Cultural context and its influence on managerial leadership in Thailand

In this paper, we explore excellence in leadership in Thailand, a nation that has strong roots in Theravada Buddhism. Summated scales and a structural model were constructed to explain the relationships between the excellences in leadership constructs. A sample frame of 401 Thai managers employed in organizations in Bangkok, North Thailand, and East Thailand participated in this research. The findings suggest that there are strong cultural factors such as non-confrontation, respect, and deference for authority mediating the perceptions of Thai managers with regards to perceptions of an excellent leader. Age and gender are also demonstrated as key differentiating factors in the perceptions of Thai managers.

Exploring excellence in leadership perceptions amongst South African managers

We apply the excellence in leadership (EIL) framework (Selvarajah, C. T., P. Duignan, C. Suppiah, T. Lane, and C. Nuttman 1995. “In Search of the ASEAN Leader: An Exploratory Study of the Dimensions that Relate to Excellence in Leadership.” Management International Review 35 (1): 29–44) to surface the implicit views on leadership excellence held by South African managers. Our attempt is informed by an understanding of ubuntu, an African world view that draws attention to the symbiotic relationship between individuals and the community they come from. In what is one of the first efforts to empirically test the influence of ubuntu in the workplace, we hypothesize that ubuntu leads South African managers to value inclusivity and impartiality. Further, we posit that managers from the earlier apartheid-era generations, having witnessed all the inequities, would put a greater premium on ubuntu-driven values than will those from the post-apartheid generation. Structural equation modelling of the data obtained through surveying 550 managers from across sectors provided mixed support for our hypotheses. Inclusive communication and impartiality in the workplace were found to be positively associated with excellence-related perceptions. The other findings however raised questions about how ubuntu exerts influence in the workplace. We make a case for more empirical work on ubuntu and discuss the implications of our work for theory and practice as they pertain to managerial development.

The effect of cultural modelling on leadership profiling of the Cambodian manager

Management research has predominantly focused on national studies of large nations, while smaller nations have been largely ignored. In addition, although Confucian Asia has been extensively studied, dharmic Asia and the Mekong region have not. This study, therefore, considers Cambodia, using the conceptual framework of Selvarajah et al. (Selvarajah, C., Duignan, P., Nuttman, C. and Suppiah, C., 1995. In search of the Asian leader: An exploratory study of dimensions that relates to excellence in leadership. Management international review: Journal of international business, 35 (1), 29–34), which has been previously used to understand a variety of eastern and western leadership behaviours. This study on Cambodia, similar to previous studies, has demonstrated the importance of cultural context when considering leadership behaviour. In Cambodia, the influence of religion and its turbulent past make this a particularly interesting study of managerial leadership and the implications to management and theory development are discussed.