Explaining Cohesion Linkages in Workgroups: The Cooperative Communication in Collectivism and High Power Distance Workgroup Context

Abstract

This study develops a multi-level model to advance research on how cultural context in workplace moderates the relationship between cooperative communication and group cohesion in a collectivist workplace setting. We tested the model by using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) with the data obtained from 375 employees representing 48 workgroups in a Malaysian organization. It is revealed that at the group level of analysis, cooperative communication is more strongly related to group cohesion-based in the collectivist cultural context in the individual level of analysis. On the other hand, the power distance context in the work group at the individual level of analysis did not moderate the relationship between cooperative communication and group cohesion in the group level of analysis. Practical implications are discussed.

A Theoretical Support for Cultural Influence on Implementation and Acceptance of Assessment Centres for Malaysia Public Sector

“…There is also a tendency to authoritative leadership styles in high power distance societies and organisations (Rosner & Kleiner, 1998). Studies by Malaysian researchers support the finding that Malaysia is a high power distance society and tends to place emphasis on respect to elders, authority and hierarchical differences (Abdullah & Lim, 2001;Abdullah & Pedersen, 2003;Bakar, 2017;Lim, 2001).…”

“…It is however shows that the concept of culture conceptions are normally express in statements of specific people's beliefs, values and thinking; which reflect into their behaviour, as well as their ways in acting and living (Hofstede, 1991(Hofstede, , 2001Schein, 2004). In the context of Malaysian culture, it is found that Malaysian is a society that is strong power distance and hierarchies, collectivism and relationship preferences, and prefer to use high context communication (Abdullah & Low, 2001;Bakar, 2017;Hofstede & Hofstede, 2004;House et al, 1999) . (Hofstede, 1980(Hofstede, , 2001 and the GLOBE research by House et al (House et al, 1999;House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004), showed Malaysia is a society that scores highly on power distance.…”

“…A third important finding in regards to Malaysian culture is in the context of communication (Abdullah & Pedersen, 2003;Z. Abdullah, 2010;Abu Bakar, Bahtiar, & Mustafa, 2007;Amir, 2009;Bakar, 2017;Salleh, 2005). Hall (1976) and Rogers, Hart, and Miike (2002) explain that high context-cultures like Asians prefer to use high-context communication.…”

Empowerment Communication in an Islamic Boarding School as a Medium of Harmonization

“…The importance of cooperative communication would be to create interaction and cohesiveness, this was needed to develop groups in various training activities to improve capabilities and skills in carrying out institutional or group tasks (Bakar, 2017). The effective persuasive communication is important to help community members towards an optimistic attitude change, with indicators providing opportunities to speak, to improve self-confidence, to have good emotional control, to promote friendliness, and to have a lot of vocabulary and appreciate cultural differences (Kamaruddin, 2017).…”