Management Research Paper

Research Paper Assignment, MGT 301

International Differences in Leadership Style & Behavior

Background

Given the importance of international business today, and the fact that more and more people work as expatriates in other countries, it’s vital we understand differences in management approaches and styles. Many of the topics you’ve read about and explored in our course (e.g., motivation, negotiation, conflict, etc.) become even more important when working with those from different cultures. For example, a common motivation technique in the U.S. might involve creating a competition among groups for the best process improvement ideas. And, the winners might get a cash award or some other perk for their efforts. If you’re an American reading this, you might say “of course….this can be a good technique and I’ve experienced it myself.” But, this may not be the case in other cultures. Plus, what if you’re an American who’s managing Indonesian employees at your firm’s plant in that country? If you use this competition approach to motivation it could fall flat on its face and end up being de-motivating instead.

What might explain this difference? Why might such a technique not ‘travel’ across borders and cultures all that well? Let’s pursue the brief example above to illustrate. Research seems to show that Americans are more likely to be “individualists” – they are taught from childhood to stand out, take chances, and to showcase their abilities/self. (As a result, some have said they don’t work well in groups – if you’re a U.S. student, have you ever had the experience of people freeloading on group projects???). Some Latin and Asian cultures, however, have different views on this issue. They may have been taught to have close ties with groups their whole life, to be highly respectful of them, and work hard to fit in. Contrast this traditional Japanese saying: “The nail that sticks out get hammered down” with a common U.S. saying that goes something like “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” These quotes, indicative of deeply held values, could explain why a technique that seems so “obvious” and commonplace in one culture may need to be tweaked or even altered significantly in another culture.

Specifics on Paper Topic

The subject of this module is international differences in leadership styles and practices at work. And, I’ll require you to focus on this key management issue and how it is viewed and practiced across three countries/cultures: the U.S., China, and India . I believe this topic is very important for business people of any nationality. The more one understands about another culture (and market), the better - and this is why I ask you to familiarize yourself with these three countries. They rank among the world’s top economies, so each is doing a lot of things well – including managing. But, that’s not to say any one is perfect or couldn’t improve - there are plenty of examples of failure to understand another culture by firms and businesspeople from each of these countries. Americans are hardly immune from this problem. In fact, many around the globe feel that Americans make little or no effort to understand their country or their business practices/management styles. A recent survey of nearly 5000 international business executives ranked the U.S. in the bottom 1/3 of a sample of 40 countries in knowledge and understanding of other cultures. You don’t have to go overseas to hear this viewpoint. Some Americans also believe that their business focus can be myopic. So, everyone could learn and improve – possibly by looking elsewhere.

So, for this paper, I’ll require you to focus on the topic of leadership practices at work in the U.S., China, & India. Are there differences in the methods and styles of leading employees across countries? What are the differences and what are the similarities? Be sure to document any differences (or lack of) with empirical research (see point #4 below for more detail on this point). Finally, what lessons could managers of each country learn from the others? For example leadership methods or practices could Americans successfully ‘import’ and why? What approaches would not work well in the U.S. and why? What lessons could managers from the two other countries learn from the U.S.? Answer these and related questions using research in organization behavior.

Guidelines

1. Here are some formatting particulars about the paper:

· The paper must be 7 - 9 pages long. These limits do not include the title page and any number of pages of bibliography. I’m asking you to stick closely to this limit.

· Please double space & use the usual margins (I’ve seen papers with 1.25 spacing and a font that requires an electron microscope - please avoid that.). I’m requesting 12 pt. Times New Roman, with std. 1” margins just so we’ve got a consistent standard.

· You can use any referencing format you like, as long as you include one somewhere in your paper (e.g., bibliography at the end; footnotes throughout, etc.). Every system cites the article itself (authors, year, title). Use your preferred system to cite the article/book.

· As you know, UD takes academic honesty seriously and ignorance of plagiarism is no excuse. So please re-familiarize yourself with UD policy. To help you diagnose potential problems, we buy a resource each year to check for such issues – called Turn-It-In . It’s common for faculty to use this tool, but here you’ll get to use it to diagnose your own paper before you hand in your final draft. When you upload your paper to our class Isidore site, I will have it automatically run your paper through this service. If you inadvertently forgot to cite something or put it in your own words, Turn-It-In will help by checking originality/other features and provide you a report. (You do not need to create a Turnitin account or login; I have it done seamlessly via Isidore). You can then look at your report, make any necessary adjustments, and then turn in your final draft. This is not required, but recommended - so please try to use this to check your document.

2. Please consider the following tips:

· Use your 7-9 pages wisely. It’s easy for me to assign a 20-30 page paper since I don’t have to write it, but I don’t think that is a sign of rigor. In fact, in many ways it’s harder to keep a paper within page limits than it is to go on and on. Plus, let’s be frank - when will you ever get 25 or more pages of leeway in a business report?

· Be specific about your recommendations. I wouldn’t consider the following to have much value: “I think that China should adopt a more transactional leader style because it is a very good way to proceed in business.” …Why? Does it work? Why specifically could it work in Hangzhou or Bangalore given what you found in your research? Be sure to include research to support your points.

· Try to make some definitive conclusions. In previous classes, I’ve had people tell me some of the following: “I don’t really have many recommendations.” Or, “it’s hard to tell whether this would work here in the U.S. and/or apply to India.” I agree that it might be hard to tell now before you write the paper. But, if it remains that way after you research it, then I am likely to infer that you didn’t learn/research enough.

· I recommend that you plan to write a draft (or two). Share it with someone to see if it flows. Give it to your friend, or your significant other for feedback. They can tell you if it’s too jargony or if it doesn’t make sense in parts before I do.

· Don’t do a cut & paste. If you find a figure or table from an article compelling, attach it as an appendix. Save the (short) 7-9 pages for material you write. (Appendices are not required).

· Likewise, please don’t include a lot of direct quotes. Again, I’ve had papers that (when added up) have several pages of direct quotes! This material was cited, so that’s not the problem – the problem is that I want people to write the material themselves. So, I’m asking you to restrict your direct quotes to 2 sentences (or partial sentences) - total. Instead, take the research you find, digest it, and put it in your own words as you discuss it (just like our book does).

3. I will grade the paper using the following criteria: Content (60%), Organization (30%), and Style (10%). I’ll say a lot more about each of these just below.

4. Content (60% of grade): The paper must cover course-relevant material. Don’t veer from this and don’t do other topics. I don’t want papers on perception or stress…I get too many of those; I don’t want one on accounting practices or country history or economy, nor religion or preferred etiquette – save those for other classes. I want a paper on cross-country differences in practices, behavior and views about leadership at work . If you stick to the topic that’s a great first step.

· Research: But just staying on topic isn’t nearly enough. One of the key values of people in this field is research. Our book shows that professionals in the field believe that behavior in organizations can be studied systematically & with quantitative methods. Our book is chock full of such empirical research studies on topics such as perception, negotiation, motivation, and more. This is the orientation you should take in this paper. For example, if you claim that Indian businesspeople/companies are more likely to use a charismatic leader style than those from other countries, how do we know? Just because someone says it’s true doesn’t make it so! Try to find a study to support your conclusions. You don’t have to support everything you say with a research study, but the “content” points you earn depend importantly on these. Briefly describe the study purpose, maybe a sentence or two about their method, and then describe what they found & what it means. This can be done pretty quickly, certainly completely within a short paragraph.

· Speaking of research, you are required to rely on professional journals in preparing your paper (many examples are listed below). This doesn’t mean you can’t include material from good, contemporary sources – definitely include stuff you might find in Business Week, Fortune, or Forbes. But, don’t rely on these monthly magazines that are not research-based – get some empirical research to support your point. And, avoid pop periodicals at all costs (e.g., Reader’s Digest, Southwest Airlines Magazine, etc.)

· How do you get empirical research studies? All of you should be familiar with our online databases – you’ll find them useful in other business courses you take & beyond. I recommend using the main Business database for this project (the Bus Source Complete I’ve talked about).

· Go to the Roesch library site and use the Business Source Complete database(Scroll down, click on this link & enter your UD login/password)

· You’ll be at the basic search screen for Business Source Complete (titled University Libraries at upper left)

· This database searches over 7000 business journals over the last 70 years. Like most search engines, this one can be ‘touchy’ so you’ll want to experiment with various key words to find articles. And, you might want to use the ‘advanced search’ routine that provides more control (newer articles, specific topics, etc.)

· For example, I entered “Leadership” and got over 141,000 ‘hits’, whereas “leadership China U.S.” only returned 32 articles (just an example). And, of these 32 some were popular magazines, some the Wall Street, and some from journals.

· So, like any search engine (but especially this one), experiment with your search terms

· Most journals allow you to access the full article on the spot or to download the pdf to read later rather than hiking over to the library. This is a place where you want to spend time experimenting with various search terms/topics.

· How do you know you’ve got an empirical study? This is a good question and there are several ways to know. First, if the article is among the journals below, you’re in good shape. Second, most all empirical articles have 4 main sections: 1) an intro that lays out the issue being studied & reviews what’s already been done, 2) a “method” section that describes who was studied, how/why they were chosen, 3) a “results” section – usually the most technical part of the article. Unless stats are your bent, you might want to skim/skip this section and go right to 4) the “conclusion” (or discussion) section. This is where they’ll tell you what they found in non-technical terms. Finally, there’s always a reference list of previous work (usually about 30 or so other articles) which are also fair game for your paper. In fact, once you get one good one, you typically have 30, 40 or more good ones because of the references. I’ve also posted an example of an example empirical article (+another one) on our Isidore site to kick start you/your work. Take a look at those and feel free to use them if you like.

· What do I do with the articles? I want you to take a set of articles/research you find and tell a story about them – what are the key differences/similarities across culture/country? You’re not doing the primary research, but instead summarizing what the existing studies say. This is basically what the authors of our book have done. They talk a lot about research in every chapter, yet they didn’t conduct any of that research. They did what I’m asking you to do (in a small way) – they got some stuff others had written & they told a story about it in their own, paraphrased way. Don’t directly take material - this will be flagged by Turn-it-in. Instead, read it, digest it, think about it, and then summarize it cogently in your own words.

5. Organization (30%): I’ve had papers in the past with a ton of great content. Yet, those same folks can be disappointed when they find they’ve lost 15, 20, or more organization points. So, I encourage you to think about your storyline and structure it. You may have an innate ability whereby you can do a great first draft – some people just do. If you’re not one of those (I’m not), then start early and figure out a good storyline. One of the litmus tests I use for finding and evaluating a storyline is whether your paragraphs are largely interchangeable. If I can move whole sections around with no loss of information, this is indicative of a loosely structured paper. This means your story is not clear, and this is not good! Most of the time this occurs when folks sit down and try to write it with little time left in the class. I give people a lot of credit for this – under tremendous pressure, they’re able to complete a complex paper. Yet, the paper’s hard to read, there are no transitions, and it’s not clear why one section follows the other. In other words, in their desperation, they threw things down on paper the best they could. Please avoid this – spend time organizing and coming up with a theme (oldest to newest; least important difference to most important, etc…), use headings, and more.

6. Style (10%): This is the least important criterion, and when mistakes are made here, they’re one of two types: a) people put too much time into adding glitz, pizzazz, etc., and not enough on content, or b) last minute work resulted in some typos, poor sentence structure, and the like. You shouldn’t have any of these.

7. A Word about Country/Regional Comparisons. Above I ask you to compare the US with China and India - and you must touch on the practices/approaches of these three. You and I both know that these countries are large and varied. Let’s all agree that there are great differences among individuals in any one country, even in the presence of overall mean differences (the latter being the subject of a lot of research). Don’t worry too much about this. The goal of this assignment is to get you more familiar with approaches different from what you already know.

Deadline

The paper is due (uploaded to Isidore) on Dec 7th (on/before classtime) - beyond this is considered late. So please start right away. You can turn it in late, but you’ll lose 10% of the points for each late day/part day beginning with the deadline.

Research Journal Examples :

Academy of Management Executive Journal of Business Research

Academy of Management Journal Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Academy of Management Review Journal of International Business Studies

Administrative Science Quarterly Journal of Management

California Management Review Journal of Organizational Behavior

Decision Sciences Journal of Occupational & Organizational. Psych.

Group and Organizational Studies Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Harvard Business Review Organiz. Behavior & Human Decision Processes

Human Relations Personnel Psychology

Journal of Business Ethics Psychological Bulletin