This section discusses the differences between Thai and Taiwanese organizational cultures that affect the communicational style in the workplace. The findings were derived from the interview, and there are two main categories showing in the table 4.2.
The first category is the Thai Government representatives and the second category is the private and privatized multinational organizations.
Table 4.2. The differences of organizational cultures in Thai workplaces in Taiwan, both Government and private organizations
Research Topic Category Code Key Concept
2. The differences 1. Thai 2-1-1 Hierarchy concept (very steep) of organizational Government 2-1-2 Very clear in the chain of commands cultures in the representative 2-1-3 Bureaucracy Concept (very obvious) Taiwan-based organizations 2-1-4 Tends to take more times in each step Thai workplaces 2-1-5 Local Taiwanese always have to
follow the given directions 2. The private 2-2-1 Equality in the workplace
and privatized multinational organizations
2-2-2 2-2-3 2-2-4
2-2-5
Creativities in the workplace Open conversations
Chain of command is rarely happened in small organizations, but big organizations, it is also important Friend-alike relationship (in a small organization)
As the literature review mentioned that not only national culture but also organizational culture are influencing the management in the workplace; as a result, managers and researchers have increasingly recognized the importance of organizational culture. Honestly speaking, this study, the researcher did not primarily emphasize on the matter of organizational culture at the start of conducting the interview, since the research subjectively wish to focus on the matter of cultures that influence communication in the workplace. However, after conducting interviews, the research found that there are many issues concerning with “organizational culture” in the interview data responded by those interviewees. Significantly, there are several differences of organizational cultures between Thai Government representative organizations and private/ privatized multinational companies. Surprisingly, the researcher finally realized in what the literature review said, which is about the two concepts; national cultures and organization culture, that influencing one another in the work-related values.
From interviews, mostly Taiwanese participants; who work in Thai Government representative organizations, responded that hierarchy system in their workplace is obviously clear. As “Hierarchy” defined itself as an arrangement of values, groups, people, order, grades and etc in a ranked series, then there must be a word so called
“level” simply implied in this context. This study interview data provides information that supports the studies conducted in the past. As Marta and Singhapakdi (2005) and Sriussadaporn (2006) formally found that the Thais do emphasize on ranking, position and status, the finding of this study is the same, which found that the higher ranking of Thai expatriate manager is, the more respects from employees supposed to be paid.
Moreover, in the perspective of researcher, this concept can be related to the believing of
“seniority” since the people who are in higher position, with many years experience likely to classify themselves higher than the younger people.
Taiwanese employees describe that not only Hierarchy system in their organization is obviously clear, but also very steep in such a vertical-leveled shape.
Thai people emphasize on hierarchy very much, you are not allowed to over your boss’s head. (Taiwanese employee: 1)
With this “hierarchy” issue, the researcher found that it is strongly related with Hofstede’s concept of power distance, which he concluded from his measurement that Thailand scores seemingly high among nations. If we take a closer look at the table 2.1, page 18, Thailand rates 64, which is considered to be comparatively high.
To follow with, it is mentioned that Thai representative organizations do follow the concept of “the chain-of-command”. Robbins and Judge (2007) defined chain of command as “the unbroken line of authority that extents from the top of the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom” (p. 481). The interview participants noted that the bigger size of organizations they are, the clearer concept of the chain of command it is. Furthermore, after studying the findings with the previous studies, the researcher found that the chain of command would not happen if there are no people who have got “authority”. In many previous studies and including this study, it is clear that the organizational systems is depended on the person who is in managerial position, since he or she is the one who give orders and expect the orders to be obeyed.
Academically, the chain of command concept cannot be truly understood without knowing the concept of “span of control”; thus, this concept is being stated in the following in order to provide some information related to this communication study.
In organizational structure, “Span of control” is the number of subordinates a manager can efficiently and effectively direct (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 483). There are two types of span of control, one is wide and the other one is narrow. Robbins and Judge (2007) mentioned the larger or wider the span, the more efficient the organization;
especially in the communication aspect, there is a drawback in narrow span since it makes vertical communication in the organization more complex.
For the next interesting finding, the researcher received information referring to the bureaucracy system that heavily happened in Thai representative organizations.
Bureaucracy is “a structure with highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialization, very formalized rules and regulations, task that are grouped into functional departments, centralized authority, narrow spans of control, and decision making that follows the chain of command” (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 487).
…As we are under Thai Government, we just follow the rules of Thai Government….. It cannot be changed from us. What we do is based on their regulations.
(Taiwanese employee: 1)
Many people may think that “bureaucracy” is such an ineffective system; however, the Thai expatriate interviewees told the researcher that bureaucracy is such a system of conformation; set to be followed, which is believed to be the most efficient and effective if all workers do follow disciplinarily. To this issue, the researcher realizes that Thai expatriate managers are trying their best to find the most suitable organizational structure to fit with Taiwanese employees.
It cannot be denied that if there are such kinds of concepts; Hierarchy concept, Bureaucracy and Chain of commands, the organization eventually have to face the situation of taking much time in each step and each process. Both of Taiwanese interviewees who work in the Thai Government organizations confessed that it is normal for them to wait and be patient in each time whenever the working process is being operated. This issue can be explained that organizational culture has an influence from the national culture; which is the believing in the concept of “Jai Yen Yen” (ใจเ ย ็นๆ ). As Yee & Gordon (1993) presumed that the Thais tend to follow the way of living with the
‘take it easy’, ‘calm down’, ‘cool down’ or ‘control yourself’ concepts.
Apart from that, from the interview statements being shown above and the concept of hierarchy, bureaucracy and chain of command, it also can imply that Taiwanese have to follow the given directions from time to time.
For the second category, the researcher focused on the matter of organizational cultures in private/ privatized multinational organizations in which Thailand is the owner.
From the interview conducted with both sides, there is no such a clear concept of Hierarchy in private organizations. Both parties mentioned that they are in the
multinational setting, where the work values are pretty much internationalized. Even one of the Thai expatriate managers, he believes that equality in the workplace can create nice atmospheres in the office.
To work with me, I don’t believe in hierarchy concept. I would love to create equality in the workplace where everyone can say what they want… (Thai manager: 2)
With the international mindset of Thai expatriate managers, they somehow see that Taiwanese are lacking of creativities. Truly speaking, all of Thai expatriate managers have the same opinions in the issue of creativities. They stated that Taiwanese are very hard-working and industrious workers who always follow directions and guidelines;
however, three of the managers who work in international private organization expressed that those of Taiwanese working with them hardly come up with the new ideas.
I think that Taiwanese do concerns and follow the Chinese tradition way of thinking such as following directions and guidelines. (Thai manager: 4)
They are kind of Hou-see-leam people, not often that they think out of the box;
always follow the things that they always do. (Thai manager: 9)
Apart from that, five of the interviewees amazingly stated the same sentence by using the same and special key word which is; “Taiwanese do not think out of the box, they are such a kind of Hou-see-leam people” [หัวสี่เหลี่ยม (Hou-see-leam)] means the four angles-headed, which referred to a person who cannot think creatively, just follow the same old direction. This issue is very much concerned and undeniably important for the international private organizations since they required more creative and innovative ideas as the example of those marketing departments. To make an example, one of the interviewees mentioned that he needs to push his local employees to be more creative.
Focusing on the interview responds, the researcher; who himself has been living in Taiwan and has been observing those Taiwanese both in the Thai organizations in Taiwan and daily life settings, has seen that Taiwanese are influences by the traditional Chinese cultures, which is concerning about being such a humble person whenever he/she is being thought by the master. In addition, the researcher tried to compare those
situations of the business and workplace setting with his own experience in his international class where there are half of international and half of local Taiwanese students. From time to time, those of Taiwanese students do always listen and agree, but yet rarely disagree with the professors. To explain this issue, from the researcher’s interpretation and perception, it is the way of Taiwanese to be brought up like as it was mentioned and this is such a so called “vital value” for Taiwanese to play a role as being gently humble people who always pay respects to the one who teaches or gives some informative lesson to them.
However, with such a great hospitality of Taiwanese people, most of the interviewees mentioned that the nature of Taiwanese people is always be there and willing to help the foreigners. Form those firsthand information, it can be stated that the local sub-managers always provide the Thai managers some informative suggestions as they are very experienced and familiar with all the businesses sense and working culture here, in Taiwan.
Next, the organizational cultures in the private multination organizations support the open conversation. Thai expatriate managers do believe in two-way communication, not the bottom up or from the top to down. They also believe that the effective communications need to have two parties to communicate not one or another party. Some of Thai expatriate managers do not like the situation that whenever they give the task to the Taiwanese employee and then the employee accept it without knowing whether he/she can handle it or not. Since Thai expatriate managers believe to have such an openly international workplace, they prefer to discuss with the employees first and if there are any question, the floor is opened for the questions.
There is not only Thai Government organizations have the system of the chain of command, but also the private multinational companies. One of the Thai expatriate managers who works in a big company, he states it clear that he follows the chain of command system. He gave the authority to the sub line managers. Once the authorities are given, they are free to administrative the power and authority. He strongly believes that the authority and power should be given to the sub line managers, if he did not let the sub line managers to do so; it means that they have zero power.
If you didn’t give the authority and power to the sub line managers, how could they control their employees? (Thai manager: 8)
The theory to support his beliefs can be explained by the principal of “unity of command”. Unity of command is “the idea that a subordinate should have only one superior to whom he or she is directly responsible” (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 481).
Strictly speaking, Robbins and Judge (2007) claimed that if the unity of command is broken, an employee might have to deal with priorities or conflicting demands from superiors. However, the researcher found that some companies in which there are not many employees working with Thai expatriate managers, the chain of command are rarely to be seen. Due to the small population of employees, the highest manager does not have to operate many chains of command since he either can organize or administrative by himself.
Finally, the researcher found that the relationship between two parties in an international private organization is friend-alike. Both of Thai expatriate manager and Taiwanese employees even go out to have lunch together, or have such a friendly conversation with each other during the break. One of Thai managers always tries to speak Chinese with his employees even he has not learnt Chinese before coming to work in Taiwan as an expatriate manager and now he can speak Chinese fluently.
In conclusion, there were many questions concerning on the issue of national cultural differences and organizational cultures in work-related value. If we turn back to the literature review part, as Adler (2001) mentioned that after studying through many previous studies; in international setting, “the cultural differences were significantly greater among managers working within the same multinational corporation than they were among managers working for companies in their own native country” (p. 67).
As well as the finding of this study, in those Thai Government organizations where there are two nations working together, from Taiwanese employees’ perspective, Thai managers even seemingly became more Thai. Thus, the organizational culture did not eliminate or reduce, but yet magnify, maintain and enhance national cultures.