Leadership and Communication in HCMC, Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam remains an exciting investment destination. Long term success in this East Asian country, however, requires effective management of resources including employees. This paper examines the literature and interviews with local employees in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to identify cross-cultural communication and leadership issues at the international workplaces.

Respect, bullying, and public sector work outcomes in Vietnam

“…When one party neglects the roles in a reciprocal relationship, hostility and disappointment are guaranteed (Pellegrini and Scandura 2008). Additionally, respect is most imperative in Vietnamese work settings as it significantly influences work communication within leader-follower-co-worker relationships (Weng 2017). Without the reciprocal respectful relationships between the leader and the followers, organizational members remain silent about raising and solving organizational problems due to a lack of trust towards the management (Weng 2017).…”

“…Additionally, respect is most imperative in Vietnamese work settings as it significantly influences work communication within leader-follower-co-worker relationships (Weng 2017). Without the reciprocal respectful relationships between the leader and the followers, organizational members remain silent about raising and solving organizational problems due to a lack of trust towards the management (Weng 2017). Leck and Galperin (2006) found that the culture of collectivism has helped targets of bullying receive collective outward support from their peers, including supervisor and co-workers, to report bullying acts or has enabled peers to tell the perpetrator to stop the bullying behaviour.…”

“…This finding is more important in the context of public sector in developing economies, such as Vietnam, which is characterized by a high degree of bureaucracy, power distance, and a dearth of leadership and management skills (Quang and Vuong 2002;Vo and Hannif 2013). As noted by Dickson, Den Hartog, and Mitchelson (2003) and Weng (2017), it is important for public sector organizations in Vietnam to provide comprehensive and close support to the public servants. As a part of ethical values (Clarke and Mahadi 2017), respect plays an important role in encouraging the employees to stay, to engage in, and deliver a quality public service (Omari and Paull 2015).…”

“…On the other hand, in a high power distance society, it is a challenge for the creation of supportive relationship with subordinates as the powerless subordinates often experience and accept unfair work treatment as part of obeying the commands from their leader (Hofstede Insights 2018). Such treatment often leads to employee silence, especially when there is no trust towards the leader (Weng 2017) or they may be too frightened to report negative workplace behaviours (Kwan, Tuckey, and Dollard 2014). Individuals in Confucian work environment are also expected to respect their leaders' authority and seniority; which may result in a tolerance of workplace mistreatments.…”

How transformational leadership, workplace spirituality and resilience enhance the service recovery performance of FLEs: a theoretical integration of COR theory and SDT

“…Among East Asian nations, Vietnam is renowned for its diverse cultural perspectives owing to historical circumstances such as the impact of Confucianism arising from a thousand years of Chinese dominance co-existing with the Western cultural values emerging from the French and American occupations that lasted over a century (Tran et al ., 2016). Collectivism is one of the most prominent features of Vietnamese culture (Tiong Weng, 2017), as determined by an analysis of the five cultural aspects proposed by Hofstede (2001): power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus feminism and future orientation. These cultural values have had a substantial influence on the management and leadership effectiveness of all Vietnamese companies (Tran et al ., 2016).…”