Multiculturalism—Another Dimension in Organizational Behavior

Tentatively Exploring the Multiculturalism of Singaporeans and Their

Cultural Values in Workplace

Hangzhou, Dec. 26th 2010

Wang Yang & Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Research Purpose

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• In our study, in order to reveal comprehensive and culturally sensitive models of IS (Intercultural Sensitivity), a qualitative method of grounded theory is used to show the cultural specific characteristics in dealing with cultural differences in Singapore-foreign workgroups.

• The preliminary work is focusing on the comparison of Singapore and China. Our research aims at discovering the indigenous intercultural sensitivity of the Singaporean managers working in the international business industry.

Agenda

1 Singapore: A Multicultural and Globalised State-City

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Brief Introduction of Singapore & Its History 5

Multiculturalism of Singapore 7

2 Work-related values & Cultural Influence 7

Cultural Values in Workplace 10

Cultural Diversity & Indigenous Studies of IS

3 Project Info 27

Part I: Singapore: A Multicultural and Globalised State-City

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Brief Introduction of Singapore

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GeographySingapore, officially the Republic of

Singapore, is an island country off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137

kilometers north of the equator, in Southeast Asia

EconomySingapore is the world’s fourth leading

financial centre and a cosmopolitan world city, playing a key role in

international trade and finance. The port of Singapore is one of the five busiest

ports in the world.

DiversitySingapore has a long history of

immigration. It has a diverse population of close to 5 million people made up of

Chinese, Malays, Indians, Asians of various descents, and Caucasians. 42%

of the population in Singapore are foreigners who work and study there.

Globalization

A.T. Kearney named Singapore the most

globalised country in the world in 2006 in its Globalization Index.

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

History of Singapore

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The history of Singapore can be divided into four periods: pre-19th century, British colonial rule, World War II and post –war period, and its independence (since 1965).

The first records of settlement in Singapore are from the 2nd century AD. The island was an outpost of the Sumatran Srivijaya empire and originally had the Javanese name Temasek (“sea town”).

On 28 January 1819, Thomas Stamford Raffles landed on the main island in Singapore. Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah on behalf of the British East India Company on 6 February 1819 to develop the southern part of the Singapore as a British trading post and settlement. It became a British colony on 2 August 1824 .

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Malaya, culminating in the Battle of Singapore. The British were defeated in six days, but repossessed the island on 12 September 1945, a month after the Japanese surrender.

Singapore officially gained sovereignty on 9 August 1965. Yusof bin Ishak was sworn in as President, and Lee Kuan Yew became the first prime minister of the Republic of Singapore.

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Culture of Singapore

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Multiculturism: Due to its diverse population and immigrant background, Singapore culture has often been described as a mix of cultures-British, Malay, Chinese, Indian and Peranakan. Foreigners also make up 42% of the population in Singapore and they play an important role in influencing Singaporean culture.

Singapore is a relentlessly G-rated experience, micromanaged by a state that has the look and feel of a very large corporation. ... There's a certain white-shirted constraint, an absolute humorlessness in the way Singapore Ltd. operates; conformity here is the prime directive, and the fuzzier brands of creativity are in extremely short supply.

—William Gibson, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", Wired Issue 1.04, September 1993.

Language: English is the main language in Singapore. Amongst Singaporeans, English has the largest number of speakers. This is followed by Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

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Confucianism in Singapore---Do the Confucians really know their Confucius?

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•Actually, there is scant evidence of Confucianism in Singapore prior to the government campaign launched in the 1980s (Englehart, Neil A., 2000).•The 75 percent of the population that is Chinese is descended from immigrants. These migrants were mostly Hokkien, Hakka, and Cantonese while native speakers of Mandarin comprise less than one percent of the population.•Even the Confucian Ethics campaign failed because of a lack of resonance in the Chinese community and active hostility from minorities, as well as some Chinese.

The Singaporean Confucian Ethics campaign provides the most well-articulated of the Asian values arguments (Englehart, Neil A., 2000). In addition, Singapore’s former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, is actively trying to promote it to other places in Asia, in particular in PR. China. However, do the Confucians really know their Confucius?

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Policies of Multiculturalism in Singapore

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Multi-lingual Multi-ethnic

Multi-religious Multi-cultural

I “4M“ Principle

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Policies of Multiculturalism in Singapore

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“4M“ Principle

• Chinese (76.8%)

• Malays (13.9%)

• Indians (7.9%)

II

“CMD”

• A composite nation

• “One nation, one nationality, one destiny”

• Singaporean’s Singapore

III “Singaporean”

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Chinese culture values in Singaporeans

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(Bond, 1998) Chinese value cluster-Confucian Work Dynamism characterized by deference to authority an hard work.

Singaporean Chinese Values

(SCV)

Prudence Industry Civic-Harmony

Moral DevelopmentSocial PowerModeration

Self-direction

Universalism

Collectivist

security

conformity(Schwartz and Bardi, 2001)

(Lau, 1992)

When viewed individually

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Western thinking of Singaporeans

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•However, among the Chinese, there is a wide range of preference for the facility in using English or Chinese language, suggesting varying degrees of exposure to Western cultures or immersion in the Chinese culture. (Weining et al.,2003)

•The country’s leaders considered the culture of Singapore as being characterized by the shared Asian ‘core values’ of all ethnic communities represented in Singapore (Quah, 1990).

•With a colonial history and the English-mediated public education, Singapore also has a fair amount of Western influences.

•Viewing the value hierarchy from within the culture, Singapore has evolved into a ‘Chinese’ value system with both modern and traditional elements. (Weining et al.,2003)

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Religious Diversity

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On the other hand, Confucianism, not normally included in scholars’ lists of true “religions,” has been elevated in Singapore as a venerable moral code, taught in school curricula, for its embodiment of values held to be central to the city-state’s own ethical image.

85% of the population profess to belong to a religion(2000 national census reports)

Buddhists

Muslims

Christians

Taoists

Hindus

other religions

Part II: Work-related Values and Cultural Influence

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Cultural values in workplace

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cognitive

behavioralaffective

Different Priorities Different

behaviors

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Cultural values in workplace

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•As researchers such as Allport, Vernon and Lindzey (1951), Kluckhohn and Stodtbeck (1961), Hofstede (1980), Schwartz and Bilsky (1987, 1990) and others have come to the consensus that although values are generalisable, and are organised according to orientations or dimensions, the way individuals perceive the importance of values may vary as values are cultural, bound. Rokeach (1973) asserted the values are the products of cultural, institutional and personal forces acting upon the individuals.

•Since values are arranged in systems of priorities for the community, different cultures may share the same basic pool of value elements but differ in their arranged priorities or value hierarchies (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz & Bardi, 2001). Extrapolating from this premise, values can be universal or transcultural, but at the same time, be specific and unique to each culture.

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Cultural values in workplace

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Power distance

Collectivism Vs

Individualism

Masculinity Vs Femininity

Uncertainty avoidance

Long-term Vs Short-term orientation

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Cultural values in workplace

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Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Cultural Diversity in Work Place: Good or Not?

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The research suggests that diversity can improve performance (Early and Mosakowski, 2000). Besides, diverse teams can be more productive than homogeneous teams (DiStefano and Maznevski, 2000). Team members bring their own backgrounds and personalities to the work performance including personalities, professional backgrounds, and their cultural backgrounds.

On the other hand, the collision between external culture and indigenous culture and the collision between different individuals from different backgrounds are essential factors that influence global economic cooperation. Improving intercultural competence has become a premise of coping with the challenges of globalization. In recent years, studies show that 20% to 50% of the expatriates came back earlier because they couldn’t adapt to native cultures. As a result, the ability to cope with different cultures has come as an inevitable problem.

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An Example: Relationship

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• Ralston et al. (1999) contend that managers in developed economies are more accustomed to legal constraints and company regulations, and hence are less sensitive to the need for personal relationships in the workplace.

• Owing to the nature of state capitalism in Singapore and an active government

interventionist approach, Singaporeans are commonly normed while Chinese are

perceived as flexible. The Chinese believe in developing good connections, or

guanxi, with their clients, suppliers, and other business associates. Chinese

managers preferred to maintain good relations with their partners through the exchange of favors instead of expressions of sympathy and friendship. Hence, they were reported to make use of the Normative style less frequently than Indian and Malay managers. (AAhad M. Osman-Gani, Joo-Seng Tan, 2002)

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

IS of Singaporeans in Leadership context--- researches based on Bennett’s DMIS model is needed

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• Panggabean’s (2004) study showed that the intercultural sensitivity in eastern and western cultures has different characteristics.

• Bennett’s DMIS model were developed based on his cross-cultural communication teaching and training experience which was greatly influenced by his western thinking and American perspectives. Even though different stages and world outlooks of cultural differences have been taken into consideration, the intercultural sensitivity of weak cultural groups in the international relations was not analyzed systematically.

• In our study, we try to find out the cultural differences between Singaporean managers working abroad and their co-workers, and how they deal with the cultural differences, in order to learn the characters of Singaporean’s intercultural sensitivity in the leadership context.

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

References

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Benjamin Lin Boon Tan. Researching managerial values: a cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Business Research 55 (2002) 815-821.Teresa M Palmer, Iris I Varner. A Comparison of the International Diversity on Top Management Teams of Multinational Firms Based in the United States, Europe, and Asia: Status and Implications. Singapore Management Review, Volume 29 No. 1.Englehart, Neil A., Right and Culture in the Asian Values Argument: The Rise and Fall of Confucian Ethics in Singapore. Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 22, Number 2, May 2000, pp. 548-568.Weining C.Chang, et al. Chinese values in Singapore: Traditional and modern. Asian Journal of Social Psychology (2003) 6: 5-29Hofstede, G. (1984). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills: Sage.Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of mind. New York: McGraw-HillCharlene Tan. Creating ‘Good citizens’ and maintaining religious harmony in Singapore. British Journal of Religious Education Vol. 30, No.2, March 2008, 133-142王思林. 论新加坡多元文化主义及其启示意义. 边疆经济与文化. 2010年第5期.Irene F. H. Wong, Lai Phool-Ching. Chinese Cultural Values and Performance at Job Interviews: A Singapore Perspective. Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 53, Numver 1, March 2000, p:9-22Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language learning. UK:CUP.Kau, A. K., & Yang, C. (1991). Values and lifestyles of Singaporeans. Singapore: NUS.Irene K. H. Chew, and Joseph Putti. Relationship on Work-Related Values of Singaporean and Japanese Managers in Singapore. Human Relations, Vol. 48, No. 10, 1995.William KW Choy et al. Multinationalism in the workplace: A myriad of Values in a Singaporean Firm. Singapore Management Review, Volume 31, No.1.Chong Li Choy. History and managerial culture in Singapore: “Pragmatism”, “Openness” and “Paternalism”. Asia Pacific Journal of Management Vol. 4 No. 3 May 1987.Lai Ah Eng. Religious Diversity in Singapore. Pacific Affairs: Volume 82, No.4, 2010Nancy J. Adler. Cross-cultural management: Issues to be faced. Int. Studies of Man. & Org.. Vol. XIII. No. 1-2, pp. 7-45, 1983.

Thank You

Contact us via…

Mail: htjitra@zju.edu.cn

Follow: twitter@htjitra

Website: http://sinau.me/hcli

Project information

Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Research Partners:

An applied research collaboration supported by the Human Capital

Leadership Institute (Singapore) with the objective to derive a model for Asian

leaders, which will lead to systematic global leadership development programs

with Asian characteristics.

Built on our previous researchers on Chinese and Indonesian intercultural

sensitivity, we continue in this study by elaborating the cross-cultural

experiences of the Chinese, Indonesian and Singaporean international

assignees and their respective local co-workers in China and Indonesia.

Intercultural sensitivity has been widely accepted as one of the most significant

element of global competencies and one of the strongest predictor for global

leaders and managers accomplishments.

The principal investigators of the project are Dr. Hora Tjitra, Dr. Hana

Panggabean, and the research team of the Zhejiang University

(Hangzhou, China), Zhejiang University of Technology (Hangzhou, China) and

Atma Jaya Indonesia Catholic University (Jakarta, Indonesia).

Funding Partner:

Zhejiang University

China

www.zju.edu.cn

Zhejiang University of Technology

China

www.zjut.edu.cn

Atma Jaya Catholic University

Indonesia

www.atmajaya.ac.id

Human Capital Leadership Institute

Singapore

www.smu.edu.sgHora Tjitra

Hana Panggabean

Juliana Murniati

Quan HE Jiewei ZHENG

Chaohui ZHANGTeng SHENTU Min ZHU Jia ZHOU

Xiaojuan WANG

Dan ZHAOXixie ZHANG

Sebastian Partogi Yuanbo LIU Tayyibah Mushtaq