فرهنگ های رهبری متقارن و نامتقارن : مطالعه تطبیقی ​​فرهنگ سازمانی و رهبری در هیوندا و تویوتا

This study compares national cultures, leadership strategies, and work environments in two successful global automobile companies, Hyundai Motor Group and Toyota Motor Corporation. Despite competing head-on in the same market, it was found that these companies use very different leadership strategies as a basis for both global competition and local operations. Based on the results of a comparative case study, structured interviews, and related media and empirical data, it was found that Toyota competes both strategically and managerially by emphasizing planning and work systems to mitigate the impact of any turbulence in the external environment (stability is key), while Hyundai competes by accepting environmental uncertainty and risk as a part of normal daily operations (flexibility is key). We refer to these approaches as symmetric and asymmetric leadership and organizational cultures. As a result of these differences, Hyundai is able to change course more quickly than its larger competitor as new opportunities and technologies emerge. While national cultures played a role in differentiating between the two firms, leadership differences had a more pronounced effect on organizational behaviors and subsequent performance. Results are consistent with previous research and reinforce the conclusion that top management leaders’ behavior can have a significant influence on emergent organizational cultures and performance.

If you ask the people at Toyota to make you a chair, they will first develop a plan. They will then develop a coordinated work system to simplify the construction process for the chair. They will gather all the people who will work on the chair and make sure they understand their responsibilities and have the necessary job qualifications. Finally, they will discuss where the chair will be made and what they might need to charge for it. If you ask people at Hyundai to make you a chair, they will go and get some wood. Industry Analyst (2011) Managers and management researchers have long debated the meaning of leadership and its role in organizational success. However, while much has been written on this topic, the validity and utility of these materials vary widely. Some writers have offered esoteric definitions of leadership that are of little use value to managers in the field. Others offer glib observations that are of equally limited value (e.g., ‘be charismatic’). Still, many writers have offered well-considered, and often data-based, models of leader behavior that have found their place in managerial education and practice (Yukl, 2010). As a result, the field of leadership is clearly well established in both theory building and research. However, in our judgment, what many leadership researchers have failed to do is to pay sufficient attention to the global context in which leadership is exercised. And located at the center of this context is culture and cultural differences (Chen and Lee, 2008 and Tsui et al., 2007). Can we assume, for example, that successful leaders in one country would be equally successful in another? If not, what are the contextual, institutional, or situational constraints that might influence this success or failure? This is an empirical issue more than a philosophical one. Hence the question: What can organizational research tell us about systematic variations in national cultures and contexts as they relate to leadership style and the creation of high performance organizational cultures? The present study explores this relationship by comparing variations in national cultures and contexts as they potentially relate to leadership style and the creation of supportive organizational cultures in comparable companies in Japan and Korea.

This study sought to explore the manner in which national cultures and leadership patterns can influence emergent organizational cultures and employee behavior in two rival companies. We did so by beginning with an exploratory case study, followed by a paired structured interview study. In this section, we examine the meaning of these findings. 6.1. Summary of findings While Toyota Motor Corporation and Hyundai Motor Group both shared a number of common characteristics, there were also notable and important differences. Our findings suggest that, at least to some degree, the success of both companies has been based on different leadership styles that helped create and then sustain different organizational cultures. These findings are consistent both with the case study outlined above and existing, though limited, media and academic publications. At Toyota, the prevailing culture reinforced efforts aimed at systematizing operations and minimizing and mitigating uncertainty, while at Hyundai the prevailing culture reinforced efforts to remain alert to entrepreneurial opportunities and capitalize on them as rapidly as possible. Both cultures were led from the top; that is, top managers at both companies worked diligently, both symbolically and in practice, to reinforce their particular systems. This finding reinforces previous research about the active role leaders play in creating and sustaining organizational cultures that are compatible with long-term corporate objectives (Osland et al., 2010, Schein, 1992 and Sørensen, 2002). In addition, small but nonetheless important differences in national cultures also played a part in providing a motivational foundation for the actions of managers and employees alike. While Japanese tend to favor a culture characterized by risk avoidance and commitment to the larger family and society, Koreans tend to favor a stronger risk orientation and stronger commitment to local teams and groups (in-group collectivism), in addition to the organization as a whole. These findings are largely compatible with previous findings from both cultural anthropology and management research. Moreover, the triangulation approach used in this study (i.e., case study, interview study, and existing media and academic literature) reinforces the validity of the findings reported here. Finally, it is informative to compare our results—which mirror the more general findings of House et al. (2004)—with the GLOBE findings for the US. As noted earlier in Exhibit 1, Americans tend to score higher than the others on future orientation, egalitarianism, and assertiveness. However, according to the GLOBE findings, both Japan and Korea exhibited higher scores on institutional collectivism. They are more collectivistic and hierarchical. Moreover, Koreans scored higher than either Japanese or American on in-group collectivism and lower on uncertainly avoidance. That is, based both on both GLOBE and the current findings, Koreans tend to be more risk accepting than their comparators and exhibit stronger team cohesiveness than either Japan or the U.S. All three countries exhibited similar scores on performance orientation. 6.2. Steady state vs. entrepreneurial leadership Finding a theoretical model that fits these divergent findings in not an easy task. Even so, work by Mintzberg and Waters (1985) provides a useful beginning. Looking at this industry from the standpoint of competitive analysis, these researchers identify two idealized forms of corporate strategy: deliberate and emergent. A deliberate strategy requires an organization to have pure intentions with a relative concrete level of detail. The leader's role is to formulate specific and detailed strategic plans that must be implemented exactly as intended. On the other hand, an emergent strategy exists when an organization exhibits consistency in action over time but without any significant degree of planned intentions. Thus, the leader's role becomes more entrepreneurial in nature. While these two pure types of leadership and corporate strategies are rare, Mintzberg and Waters go on to identify several sub-strategies that are far more common. The most common, and the one that is most closely associated with manufacturing companies is referred to as a ‘planned strategy.’ A planned business strategy has clear intentions backed by formal control systems. The top leadership team is the center of authority with their intentions being very clear and precise. Their leader's role in this process is what we refer to as steady state leadership; that is, the leader focuses largely on facilitating incremental progress through the use of detailed long-range planning systems reinforced through multi-layered control and coordination mechanisms (see Exhibit 3). The collective goal of leaders, managers, and employees is to transform articulated long-term plans into collective action with minimal distortion, disruption, or delay. Programs and systems are built into the plan to ensure that no one acts in ways that are not intended. Long-range planning is key. For this type of strategic process to be effective, companies must reduce environmental uncertainty to the extent possible through deliberate planning. Steady state leadership strategies are common in the manufacturing industry because of their emphasis on predictability, stability, systems, and the avoidance of uncertainty. In this regard, this model provides an accurate description of how auto companies should likely operate, according to this theory.While Mintzberg and Waters suggest that large-scale manufacturing companies (like both Toyota and Hyundai) are perhaps best suited to make use of a planned strategy, they also identify an alternative model—an ‘entrepreneurial strategy.’ This strategy is assumed to be used primarily by small start-ups and technology-intensive firms that face continual chaos in their environments (e.g., Apple, Intel, Hewlett-Packard). New technologies, new entrants, and new products characterize this strategic model. As such, it has widely been assumed that such a model would be inappropriate for large-scale assembly operations like an automobile manufacturer. However, an examination of Hyundai operations suggests that this strategy may in fact represent exactly what the company is doing. Hyundai is clearly an automobile-manufacturing firm, but it is also a technology company. Indeed, it might be suggested that Hyundai is a technology company on wheels. Modern cars today are more electronic than mechanical, and are based on a number of core electronic and battery technologies that do not work always seamlessly in a planned strategic environment. A more flexible, impromptu competitive strategy may be preferable. In this endeavor, the executive role must focus more on entrepreneurial leadership than on steady state behavior. The leader's role is here to create an environment or culture in which employees from top management down are capable of recognizing and then responding to continual change. This is not unlike an example of chaos theory, in which the initial stimuli is continually changing and setting off a chain of unpredictable events. Opportunism is key. A good example of this can be seen in the two-year development and production cycle of Hyundai's hybrid models, when industry cycles typically average five years. Industry analysts concluded in 2008 that, because Toyota controlled the major patents associated with hybrid technology and because Hyundai was so far behind in this technology, it was unlikely—even unrealistic—for it to develop hybrid cars by 2010. Yet this is what the company did. In the process, Hyundai emerged as a leading technology company in the industry. Thus, while Toyota appears from both the current and previous findings to make use of a steady state leadership strategy, Hyundai uses a more entrepreneurial one. Fortunately, both strategies are compatible with the company's national cultures, management styles, and organizational cultures. And both strategies have proven to be effective for their particular and unique environments. In the final analysis, the key issue is congruence, and both companies have achieved this goal.