TY - JOUR
T1 - In Search of Chinese Paternalistic Leadership
T2 - Conflicting Evidence From Samples of Mainland China and Hong Kong's Small Family Businesses
AU - Sheer, Vivian C.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was supported by a faculty research grant, Hong Kong Baptist University.
PY - 2013/2
Y1 - 2013/2
N2 - Extant empirical research fails to support the popular belief that paternalistic leadership (PL) style is a basic characteristic in Chinese organizations. In search of empirical evidence of PL as a practicing style, surveys were conducted with employees from small Chinese family businesses (CFBs) in mainland China and Hong Kong (HK). In the China sample, PL's three dimensions (authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality) were internally convergent; managers exhibited reasonably high levels of PL, and PL as a whole predicted positive employee-perceived outcomes. In the HK sample, however, PL's three dimensions showed inconsistent correlations, greatly similar to the extant findings. Consequently, PL as a whole could not be analyzed for that sample. Findings suggest that PL may be restricted only to CFBs in China. Management communication implications are discussed.
AB - Extant empirical research fails to support the popular belief that paternalistic leadership (PL) style is a basic characteristic in Chinese organizations. In search of empirical evidence of PL as a practicing style, surveys were conducted with employees from small Chinese family businesses (CFBs) in mainland China and Hong Kong (HK). In the China sample, PL's three dimensions (authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality) were internally convergent; managers exhibited reasonably high levels of PL, and PL as a whole predicted positive employee-perceived outcomes. In the HK sample, however, PL's three dimensions showed inconsistent correlations, greatly similar to the extant findings. Consequently, PL as a whole could not be analyzed for that sample. Findings suggest that PL may be restricted only to CFBs in China. Management communication implications are discussed.
KW - paternalistic leadership
KW - authoritarianism
KW - benevolence
KW - morality
KW - Chinese family business
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84873945038&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0893318912458212
DO - 10.1177/0893318912458212
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84873945038
SN - 0893-3189
VL - 27
SP - 34
EP - 60
JO - Management Communication Quarterly
JF - Management Communication Quarterly
IS - 1
ER -