New perspectives on East Asian leadership in the age of globalization: local grounding and historical comparisons in the Asia Pacific region

ABSTRACT

Many management and leadership studies have traditionally been dominated by Western theories, perspectives and cases. Non-Western leadership requires additional caveats in arriving at generalizations. The theoretical trap of conceiving Asian corporations either as irrelevant concerning leadership effectiveness or as maintaining only culturally determined leadership derives from the lack of historical understanding of Asian cases. Our collection used both historical and contemporary cases of Japan, South Korea and China to show that these Asian economies have tried to some extent balance their traditional norms and values of leadership with those from the West. A key to understanding Asia is that all three countries have historically pursued leadership mandates in running both public and private corporations, although ‘corrupt’ leadership practices were also rampant during different historical periods. Further studies of leadership in non-Western cases are necessary to devise methodological and theoretical alternatives to Western-centric perspectives. In our collection, we analysed how a dynamic and evolutionary view of leadership fared in its attempt to clarify some of the conundrums surrounding East Asian leadership. From our results, it is indicated that historical and comparative methods must accompany any analysis of leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Japan
• South Korea
• leadership
• leadership styles
• historical methods
• comparative methods
• cultural determinism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government [NRF-2017S1A3A2067374].

Notes on contributors

Chris Rowley

Chris Rowley, Kellogg College, University of Oxford and Professor Emeritus, Cass Business School, City, University of London, UK. He publishes widely on work, employment and Asian business and management and comments and provides expert opinion in the media.

Ingyu Oh

Ingyu Oh is a Professor of International Business at Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka, Japan. He is the president of the World Association for Hallyu Studies. His main research interests are economic sociology, cultural sociology and international business strategy.

Wonho Jang

Wonho Jang is a Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Seoul, Seoul, Korea. He received his BA from Seoul National University and PhD from the University of Chicago. He publishes and comments on Asian urban management and culture.