Influence of Traditional Chinese Values on the Ethical Behaviour of Managers in China and Singapore - Thesis Example

Generally, the paper "Influence of Traditional Chinese Values on the Ethical Behaviour of Managers in China and Singapore" is a good example of a management thesis. Available literature concurs that Eastern management principles are uniquely crafted and esteemed based on the contextual Eastern cultures. Even on a narrow field of interest the Chinese and Singaporean (Eastern culture) construction industries, there is a resounding relevance of cultural influences in organization management.

Since the Chinese economic reforms of the 1980s, Western project management has become increasingly recognized in China as a management approach with potentially broad application. The recent history of the Chinese construction sector, which had a legacy of poor performance in the international scene, has had significant progress in adopting a global commercial enterprise approach. Part of this globalisation progress has featured the introduction of Western project management concepts and processes. With the deepening of these reforms, it is worth examining the extent to which Western project management ideas have been incorporated into Chinese practices. Yet, even as Chinese construction industries open up to the Western world, some management areas predominantly influenced by traditional Eastern values have remained the same.

Numerous cross-cultural studies have shown that different cultures support different sets of management beliefs and practices, particularly when those cultures reflect fundamentally different conceptions of reality. For instance, Laurent (1983) conducted a controlled study to establish how managers conceived their responsibilities across cultures. The findings revealed significant cultural diversity among managers from 10 European countries in relation to their conceptions of the function of management.

In another related study, Pant et al (1996) found that matrix organizational structures do not work as well in Nepal as they do in the West due to the greater bureaucratic orientation of Nepalese managers. England (1983) explored limits to the applicability in the US context of the Theory Z management norm (1981) that has been successful in Japan. A study by Easterby-Smith et al. (1995) concluded that Chinese concerns for relationships, group harmony and face-to-face communication limit the adoption in China of established aspects of Western human resource management practices.