Perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness in a Korean context: An indigenous qualitative study

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study is to identify what Korean managers and non-managerial employees perceive to be effective or ineffective managerial behaviors from an emic perspective. Critical incident technique was used to collect concrete examples from 45 managers and non-managerial employees of observed managerial behaviors that they perceived as effective and ineffective. While the emphasis was given to both effective and ineffective managerial behaviors with a holistic approach, 38 distinctive behavioral categories of effective and ineffective managerial behavior were derived. Furthermore, the seven overarching indigenous themes of Korean managerial behavior emerged, offering an insightful, contextually relevant, and richly described understanding of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness in a Korean context. The authors identified and described several Korean cultural concepts embedded in the indigenous themes, which may confirm implicit leadership theory. After discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, the authors provide the limitations of this study and several directions for future research. As one of the first attempts at identifying indigenous Korean managerial and leadership effectiveness, this study could become a cornerstone for advanced indigenous empirical studies and a catalyst for dialogue related to indigenous managerial and leadership research, especially in Korean and other East Asian contexts.