Leadership Power in U. S. –Related Companies in Taiwan

Abstract

One hundred and ninety one top-level American and Chinese managers of U. S. –owned companies and joint ventures in Taiwan were surveyed on attitudes toward their jobs; on job satisfaction in six hierarchical need categories; on paternalistic orientation toward company behavior; on ethnocentric attitudes on certain issues; and on supervisor’s bases of leadership power. Results showed that: (1) Chinese managers had a greater interest in company paternalism, probably attributable to cultural differences. (2) American and Chinese managers had different attitudes on certain ethnocentric factors affecting expatriates’ managerial effectiveness. These differences might well be expected to affect the bases of leadship power of American and Chinese supervisors. However while overall these executive supervisors received good marks in the five bases of leadership power, surprisingly they showed no significant differences between American and Chinese managers as perceived by their Chinese and American subordinates separately. Implications include: most of the multinational corporations have been successful in creating a managerial system that works well in their special cross-national ontexts, the success of executives in these firms in establishing their special cross-national ontexts, the success of executives in these firms in establishing their bases of power has varied considerably in different area; because American and Chinese managers have not shown significant difference in leadership behavior, there is little justification for the reluctance of many MNC’s to promote Chinese managers to top executive positions.