Perceived Managerial and Leadership Effectiveness Within South Korean and British Private Companies: A Derived Etic Comparative Study

Abstract

This derived etic cross‐case/cross nation comparative study explored the extent to which behavioral indicators of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness, as perceived and judged by managers and non‐managerial employees in South Korean private sector companies, are different (local/context‐specific) or similar (potentially global/context‐general) to behavioral indicators perceived by their counterparts within British private sector companies. The empirical data used for the study were obtained from emic replication studies previously carried out by the authors in South Korea and the United Kingdom respectively. High degrees of overlap and convergence were revealed, with the vast majority of managerial behaviors (87.75% South Korean and 90.53% British) that distinguish effective managers from ineffective managers being found to be the same, similar, or congruent in meaning. The most surprising result of the study is that only 1 out of 13 South Korean behavioral indicators found to be non‐convergent showed any evidence of being local/context‐general, and thus culturally embedded. Overall, the findings bring into question the validity of past claims in the cross‐cultural management literature which assert that particular types and styles of managerial and leadership behavior are contingent upon the cultural aspects of specific societies and countries. Our study is a rare example of Type 4 indigenous management research, and our findings are illustrative of what has become known as geocentric (emic‐and‐etic) knowledge.