My colleague and I presented at the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 2021, 13 to 14 July, online

Beyond the essentialist paradigm of culture: Comparing the role of national culture on management policies and practices in China and Japan

This study focuses on key cross-cultural issues faced by organisations when designing and implementing management policies and practices in China and Japan. The aim of this secondary study is two-fold. The first is to review and compare the Chinese and Japanese national culture values and norms discussed in the management studies, and the second is to examine the role of national culture in managing employees in the context of East Asia. Many studies on the role of national culture tend to compare two cultures with relatively larger differences based on the framework represented by the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, such as United States with Japan or China. Japan and China have long history of cultural exchange in between them (Vyas 2020), but a few studies systematically compared the role of national culture on management. The position of Asia has emerged as a critical aspect of the global/local context along with the increasing flow of globalization within Asia. Based on the examination of Chinese and Japanese culture and their managerial practices, this study echoes what Chen (2010) called as ‘Asia as method’ and to interpret the role of national culture from East Asian perspective to illustrate the transnational culture in business.

This paper also attempts to address Nathan’s (2010) call of non-essentialist approach on culture studies by acknowledging the importance of exploring and respecting local culture when developing sustainable organisation strategies. Various scholars have criticized the oversimplification of the notion of culture portrayed in essentialist management studies and pointed out the importance of using interpretivist and non-essentialist perspective based on long-term observation and in-depth interview on studying culture (see Nakamaki et al. 2016; Moeran 2021). Moreover, the theoretical framework of structure and agency is also adopted to reinforce the consideration of employees as agents when analysing the influence of national culture on management policies and practices, as employees who implementing and practising the policies and practices can also be significant actors in interpreting and shaping them simultaneously.