Cross-Cultural Leadership

Being Effective in an Era of Globalization, Digital Transformation and Disruptive Innovation

Ahmad M. Salih, Ahmad Salih

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367501303
• eBook ISBN: 9781000072747
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

For many decades, management in its research and practice has been in need of an alternative approach and paradigm to understanding human behaviours. Many studies and books have attempted to provide solutions to the individual, which ended up being a cultural dilemma with little success. This book provides a novel approach to address this dilemma by linking aspects from three knowledge domains; Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology.

Cross-Cultural Leadership supports Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and makes it a practical construct and tool that both managers and researchers harness to understand what "cultural Chameleon" means. The book also renders support to Douglaisan Cultural Framework (DCF) by activating the role of the usually neglected fifth culture; the hermit by linking it to the metacognitive dimension of CQ. This link introduces for the first time the mechanism that individuals use to run through metacognitive processes to drive change.

This book is a tool for individuals to help them work efficiently outside their homeland. Being an adaptive or culturally hybrid leader is among the most important competencies of the effective leaders in the 21st century. By focusing on comprehending the five cultures as elaborated in DCF, leaders and managers will be relieved from the dilemma of having to understand each and every national culture of their employees. This book will be of value to researchers, academics, managers, and students with an interest in leadership, management, organization studies, globalization, and innovation

Part 1
Introduction

1 Preface, Forward, and Book Structure

1.0 Chapter’s Idea in Brief

In the opening chapter, we focus on the significance of the concepts and framework presented and how important those are for both academics and practitioners around the world. The preface and forward plotted by Dr. Taran Patel from Grenoble Ecole de Management and Dr. Mohamed Salama from Heriot Watt University locate the book in a suitable horizon to students with a global reach. As an opening chapter, it lays down how this book is structured to provide readers with relevant guidance and manage their expectations. Moreover, we attempt to answer the following question as well:

1. What problems the book touches and how genuine are those problems?
2. What knowledge gaps this book addresses that management scholars call to fill?
3. What are the main challenges faced?
4. Structure of the book.
5. Why becoming global is imperative in the era of Digital Transformation and Disruptive Innovation.

1.1 Preface

This long-awaited book brings together two crucial areas of research and academic interest: leadership effectiveness and cultural intelligence. In the present era of increasing populism, intolerance, and unethicality – both in the business world and in the larger society – this book promises to sensibilise future business managers regarding how they may become effective leaders by behaving in more culturally intelligent ways.

Although the topic of leadership has been receiving increasing attention in past decades, for both its positive and negative impacts on a wide variety of internal (organisational) and external stakeholders, the topic of leadership effectiveness, and behaviours that lead to the perception of leadership effectiveness (and correspondingly ineffectiveness) among followers and co-workers, remains somewhat under-explored. In the same way, while the topic of cultural intelligence has been receiving increased attention in past decades, it has rarely ever been connected to leadership effectiveness, a surprising gap considering the increasing cultural diversity that leaders are faced within the contemporary workplace. Even when cultural intelligence has been evoked, it has been embedded within the notion of national culture, a construct that has itself been considerably criticised these past decades. In this literature, the focus has been limited to how people of one national origin (or culture) might adapt to people and practices of another nation. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an effort to conceptualise cultural intelligence free from the concept of national culture. Addressing this knowledge gap is, in part, what makes this book unique from its predecessors.

This book breaks away from the afore-cited trend of embedding the cultural intelligence discourse in the oft-critiqued national culture concept and relies on anthropology-based Douglasian Cultural Theory instead. By doing so, it helps the readers conceptualise cultural intelligence without subscribing to or limiting themselves to the national culture concept. As such, the present book meets a very important gap in current scholarship – both on leadership effectiveness and on cultural intelligence.

Another unique feature of the book is that it addresses this knowledge gap in a very specific geographical context – the United Arab Emirates. Most leadership literature up to the present times has emerged from the western world and is therefore imbued with concepts and thinking that are endemic to the western world. UAE, and the Middle East, in general, have rarely ever been part of this dialogue. A book such as this one addressing these topics in the context of the UAE has the potential to offer novel insights within a fresh, relatively less explored, and ‘happening’ context. Simultaneously, it addresses increasing calls for more ‘context-specific’ and ‘emic’ research in international business studies.

For the two reasons outlined above, I believe that this book should be a required reading for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of international business. Each ‘bite-sized’ chapter is designed to provide novice readers with the basic understanding of where extant literature on the topic stands, before taking them to more in-depth and critical levels of reflections, culminating with discussion questions and recommendations for additional reading. Structured in this fashion, it not only offers students an optimal learning experience on the topic but also inspires them to explore further.

Taran Patel, PhD.
Associate Professor, Grenoble Ecole de Management, France.

1.2 Forward

An interesting addition with a multilateral contribution is presented in an attractive and engaging blended approach.

Undoubtedly, Leadership and Culture are among the most challenging areas in business management due to the changes in perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours, generation on generation, meanwhile living in the VUCA business environment. This book introduced a very complex set of concepts in a simple yet effective manner that would benefit both practitioners and academics alike. Some interesting chapters about theoretical frameworks and modelling would provoke academic debate and encourage further research. In addition, the practical applications included in Part 4 provided a very becoming example from one of the most culturally diverse spots on the planet. The book introduces a new paradigm which represents a pivotal point in management, leadership, and cultural intelligence discourse and practice to shift thinking about these subjects into a new and innovative way. By itself, the book is considered transformational.

Indeed, leading by example and catering for the cultural diversity while utilising aspects of Cultural Intelligence, the book is written in a simple and direct style that makes it an enjoyable read. The book structure with the colourful boxes at the start of each chapter helps the reader to maintain a smooth surf and stay focused, amid some of the quite challenging concepts. In addition, the figures and box case studies are very effectively used.

Overall, it is a valuable resource with a clear set of contributions that can benefit students, academics, and practitioners, in relevant fields.

Mohamed Salama, PhD¹
Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences,
Heriot Watt University.

1.3 Value of This Book to Cross-cultural Leadership Practice and Research

Having looked at the debate surrounding the meaning of culture and its impact on leaders, or how culture can be measured and monitored, an important problem that management domain, in general, suffers from immediately appears and comes to surface, as we will elaborate later in this chapter and the following ones. This problem is cascaded to Culture and Cultural Intelligence studies also. It is related to the way culture is conceptualised and accordingly studied, which necessitates finding an alternative to national culture due to its static nature. Having all this in mind, we searched for a framework that is agnostic to people national backgrounds and decided to consider Mary Douglas’s Cultural Theory (CT) or what is commonly referred to as the Douglasian Cultural Framework (DCF) or the Grid-Group Typology (GGT) as the sought alternative. DCF has its roots in transactional Anthropology and is applied in a social structure. By doing so, we refrain from equating culture with individuals national origins as has been the case in existent cultural and leadership studies. In DCF, one can move between five cultures only regardless of her/his national origin or race. DCF is merited for its ‘dynamicity’ which the common approach to culture cannot handle or interpret (see Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky, 1990). According to DCF scholars, culture is dynamic and people can move freely from one culture to another to suits their needs or respond to internal or external stimuli. By introducing DCF, this book attempts to provide a practical and generalisable alternative to national culture that Hamlin’s (2004) model and Cultural Intelligence (CQ) both miss.

1 Dr Salama is also recognised as Academic Head of Strategy, Operations and Projects, Director of Corporate Executive Relations – Dubai, Programme ­Director – MSc in Business Strategy, Leadership and Change- Dubai, Programme Director – MSc in Strategic Project Management- Dubai, Programme Director – MSc in Operations Mgmt – Dubai.

Considering the above, and while writing this book, it was meant to consider, and attempts to contribute to three different axes that the reader may benefit from: The first axis addresses practical matters and responds to practitioners’ concerns. By replicating Hamlin’s (2004) Generic Model for Managerial and Leadership Effectiveness and Ineffectiven...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgement and Dedication
• Part 1 Introduction
• Part 2 Culture and Cultural Intelligence
• Part 3 The Sustainable, Dynamic and Adaptable Leadership Model
• Part 4 Application and Impact
• References
• Index