"Some things you can’t really learn through training courses” -En studie om globalt ledarskap i kinesisk och svensk kontext

Abstract

In recent years more countries have started to blur out their national boundaries to create and rely on international collaborations. China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and play an important role on export and import of commodities across the globe. Many Swedish companies have more business collaborations with China than ever. Differences between the cultures can lead to many difficulties for both the employees and the employer. There is both a challenge and a necessity to find ways to communicate, and to get more knowledge in how to follow and lead people from different background and perspectives. The aim of this study is to investigate how leaders through their leadership deal with contextual differences between China and Sweden and which effect these differences can have. This study is made through qualitative interviews with ten managers working in one of Sweden’s largest multinational enterprises. The main theory in this study is global mindset and global leadership. Global mindset is a way of thinking and being that helps you to have a broad perspective on different cultures. The literature states that this will be an important perspective for global leaders so that they will be able to lead employees in multinational companies. The target audience for our study is managers that have experience managing both Swedish and Chinese employers in global teams. The empirical result and discussion is structured by a thematic analysis that outlines five main themes; Expectation on the leader, communication, relationships, to lead from a distance and coping strategies. Because it was a Swedish company with Swedish core values we found that the Chinese managers had to work harder to adapt to the organisational culture and to open up and change the mindset not only in the coworkers but also in themselves. Our findings is that to understand the complexity of another culture you must understand your own culture and which part it plays and how it can be perceived. It is not enough to learn about the other culture, it has to be an integration and continual progress to reach common understanding. Our conclusion is that you need to have a global mindset, both as employer and employee, to succeed in working with different cultures.