Leadership Orientation of Afghan and Japanese Respondents: A Study of “Guzaara†or Getting Along in Asia

Bahaudin G Mujtaba

Information Management and Business Review, 2019, vol. 11, issue 1, 24-39

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the leadership tendencies of Afghan and Japaneserespondents by exploring their task and relationship orientations. While there are many published studies onthe Japanese work culture and leadership practices, research about Afghan working adults is limited. Usingthe Style Questionnaire, this research collected and compared the leadership orientations of 400 respondentsfrom each country based on national culture on the task and relationship-orientation continuums. To deepenthe understanding of Afghan leadership tendencies, we explore their culture of “guzaara†(getting along)practices. Similarly, we discuss the Japanese concept of “ba†(interactive knowledge creation) as one exampleof a best practice that can be benchmarked by others in society. Both Afghanistan and Japan are high-contextcultures; therefore, people are expected to be more relationship-oriented. While respondents from bothcountries do have a stronger focus on their relationships, data shows that Afghans have a significantly higherscore on both the task-orientation as well as relationship-orientation continuums, compared to their Japanesecounterparts. Implications, recommendations and limitations of the study are provided. The findings thatJapanese and Afghan employees are indeed focused on their relationships, and that they have a moderatelyhigh task orientation scores, are useful for managers and expatriates working in these two Asian countries.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ojs.amhinternational.com/index.php/imbr/article/view/2845/1851 (application/pdf)
https://ojs.amhinternational.com/index.php/imbr/article/view/2845 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rnd:arimbr:v:11:y:2019:i:1:p:24-39

DOI: 10.22610/imbr.v11i1.2845

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Management and Business Review from AMH International
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Muhammad Tayyab ().