The Thai Cultural and Management Style
The Thai Cultural and Management Style
The Thai Cultural and Management Style
Abstract
Background
1
Introduction
The Thai style leadership is powerful in the Thai public sector. Thailand is
one of the countries in Asian of which the majority of Thai is respect the
Buddhism. In my opinion, Buddhism has a deep roots in Thai society. Harmony
and peace are among key aspects in Thai life. A study on Hofstede (1984)
identifies four dimensions for which national cultures differ: Power Distance,
Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism vs. Collectivism,Masculinity vs. Femininity.
2
According to Hofstede's theory, Thailand was ranked the highly for all
four dimensions. Followed from “fundamentals of intercultural communication”
book. Thais are collectivists and leadership that moves toward the direction of
group rather than the individual is effective in Thailand. In terms of goal
orientation and leadership, Thais may prefer to look at planning as a short-term
organisational strategy.
1)Power Distancerefers to the extent to which social group accepts the fact
power in institution and organizations is distributed unequally among
individual.
In some countries like The United States and Australia, the distance is
small or low. The employees have more participate during planning and
decision-making in the organization. The low power distance indicates that
people in organization seem to be equal.
Big or high power distance means a big difference between the employees
and the managers or leaders. With a high power distance both the leaders and
employees have an opinion that they are unequal. Therefore they have the
hierarchy system such as family, relationship. People in organization have a few
the decision-makers. It is east to say that the power is a centralize, the decision
only is from the leaders and managers. Therefore the employees are often
waiting for the leaders to give orders.
In Thailand, this dimension deal with the fact that power distance is big or
high. Therefore, the Thai society is not equal. This high power distance
influences the behavior of directors, managers, and employee.
3
3) Individualism vs. Collectivism
Even though the same country, like China, and Thailand but many
organizations have a different culture.In my opinion, Thailand is a characterized
as a collectivism culture. This means that Thai organization always emphasize is
on group orientation and teamwork. This collectivism is also supported by the
patronage system, which enables the formation of strong strategic alliances and
coalitions. The aspect of life in Thailand is from deciding which people to hire or
which administrator should be promoted to a position of higher status. And in
the same time, the employee and leader must make a good relationship because
in collectivistic societies, the companies prefer to hire people who belong to their
family. Relations between the employees or citizens are more important than the
work task. There is no real spare time; the work and the spare time become
blurred.
Hefstede has divided into the two parts, he describe the social role of men
and women in the society. It refers to distribution of emotional role between the
genders.
4
In the masculine culture the people live to work. The employees
often prefer money more than spare time. The society expects men to have a
career. The choice of career depends on the possibility to succeed. A leader in the
masculine culture often wants to have a strong hierarchy, where he/she as the
boss is alone on the top. In an organization with a masculine leader, things like
performance, money and material success, are important. It is often big
organizations.
In the feminine culture, people work to live. The spare time is more
important than to earn more money. Both men and women must have a career; it
depends on their own will. It is the interest that decides the choice of work. It is
often small organizations. For feminine leaders it is important with relations to
the workmates and teamwork. With a feminine leader, people in organization
want to be on the same level or equal. In the feminine culture, a leader wants to
be in the middle as a coordinator. They prefer smaller organizations. It’s
important with a dialogue with the workmates or teammates.
The organization with the feminine culture, people prefer welfare rather
than things. A feminine leader can see equal opportunity, solidarity, care of
humans and relations as keywords. Many women have a high position in the
organizations. Both men and women can be responsibility-taking, determined,
ambitious, soft and take care of people in the feminine society. In the religion,
they interpret God as friendly. The feminine culture results in less poverty and
more welfare.
In the working life, these things like learning, honesty, self-discipline and
responsibility, are important. Spare time it is not that important. The leader and
the employees have the same goals. They often invest in long-term personal
networks. To live together with relatives who are married into the family is
normal. The mothers take care of their children.
Societies with this thinking have values that requite greetings, favours
and gifts, respect the traditions, “protect the face” and personality stability. Effort
shall give quick results. The essence is the sale profit for the year. Freedom,
rights, accomplishments and to think by themselves are important thing in the
working life. Spare time is important. There is a social pressure on the people to
spend money. The leader and the employees don’t always have the same goals.
To live together with relatives who are married into the family is a source of
problem. The children often go to kindergarten, where other people than the
mother take care of them.
5
The Conclusion of Hofstede’s Culture Dimension
When foreign workers enter into Thailand, they would come across cross
cultural challenges issues in many different situationsor some culture shock.
However they are able to obtain a new culture by across aboard. Some culture
has become excitingto learn something new in theirlife, such as meetings,
greeting, perception of time and so on. In Thai organization culture,
Thaissometime may not be familiar to work with foreign workers so some Thai
workers or employees hasto spend long time to know the foreign workers.About
in this case, they should focus on the Thai culture, and attempt to aid and
produce further of explanation to foreign workers wishing to come to Thailand
in order for them to be able to better adapt to the Thai working environment.
On the other hand, Thai employees who disagree with others just keep
quiet. Niratpattanasai (2000) suggests that they do not like to make a quick
6
decision, and they do not like to talk with co-workers in the meeting room. Many
expatriates find that Thai people frequently seem to agree in the meeting room.
Thai people always nod in agreement, but it does not mean that they are
agreeing. They merely nod because they are polite and want to be friends with
others.
Thai society has very strict rules. It defines everyone’s position in a rigid
hierarchical structure and this extends into the corporate world. Many
businesses or departments are run like families, with the leader leads the
subordinate everything to work with so the subordinate have to follow what
leader order to.
The Thai management of often gives the highest importance are harmony
in business and in the same organization because they prefer to avoiding
commotion and conflict in the same organization. This phenomenon is also
connected to the organization culture of giving direction, setting goal and course
of operation so that everyone follows the pate laid down by top management.
7
know the people for a long time. There are two tactics that Thai managers use
with their subordinates. According to Noypayak and Speece (1998) Thai
managers focus on both soft and hard tactics and use these tactics to control
theirsubordinates. The hard tactics tend to involve using power and position to
get subordinates to achieve organizational goals. Soft tactics include ingratiation,
rationality, inspirational appeals and consultation.
1.1) The Central of Work : Thai people are relaxed and easy to work. They are
late in starting their work and return home very early or on time. Sometime
Thais are accepted to be late for meeting but no more than five minutes because
many people cannot avoid the traffic jam. When Thais are going to be late for
meeting, they have to let someone else know in advance.
8
Summary
Reference
5. http://www.waset.org/journals/ijhss/v1/v1-1-2.pdf