Introduction to Excellence in Leadership (EIL) Studies
In 1991, a group of researchers who were expatriates at the University of Brunei Darussalam came together to explore managerial leadership in both the private and public sector organisations in Asia. It was clear that the emerging nations of Asia were employing research paradigms and measures developed in the West and with very little understanding of Eastern management context. As it was then, and still is, an emphasis on Western worldviews as surrogate or universal values for measuring leadership behaviours. Studies, such as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions were popular frameworks for studying leadership across cultures. The approach was to apply a four (later added long-term or future orientation) dimensions; individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and masculinity-femininity. These dimensions were applied across nations to provide scale comparison on differences in culture. It was very much an etic approach with interest in cross-cultural predictive values rather than understanding the actual behaviours.
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Many of the other popular leadership measurements were developed along similar line to Hofstede. In fact, a very popular instrument that has had a very wide exposure and published in well ranked journals is the GLOBE studies with House as the lead academic. The GLOBE approach is also similar to Hofstede where the interest is on cross-cultural comparative standing rather than understanding the unique features of culture that informs behaviour. To enable comparison, the GLOBE studies developed the cross-cultural leadership theory.
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It became very clear to the researchers that ‘how culture informs behaviour’ was being driven with a Western academic agenda and a ‘piece-meal’ approach was being adopted as new ideas on cultural engagement emerged. The fifth dimension, future orientation’, was added to Hofstede’s and other instruments as academics from the East Asian region started adding value to existing knowledge.
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From the onset, the research team decided that a systematic development of a managerial leadership instrument be developed to explore culture-based organisation behaviours. It is this endeavour and the theoretical framing for excellence in managerial leadership that this introductory chapter will address.
The Framing of the EIL Research
The EIL project initiated in 1991 was funded by University of Brunei Darussalam. Associate researchers in each ASEAN country assisted the research team to reduce respondent's anxieties or concerns and to help in the cultural interpretation in the development of the survey instrument and the findings reported in the first article in MIR. The research associates are seen as important intermediaries in such cross-cultural studies and in the refining of the research instruments (see Appendix). Members of the research team visited the various ASEAN countries and with the assistance of the research associates conducted interviews, gathered critical incident studies from managers and developed a questionnaire-based research instrument. In total 105 days were spent in the 5 ASEAN countries by members of the research team (not including Brunei Darussalam). A 3-day EIL Workshop was held in Brunei Darussalam, where the researchers, associated and about 30 managers from the private and public sectors in Brunei Darussalam participated. The purpose of the workshop was two-fold; to bring together the associates and the researchers to discuss issues and concerns of the research and to develop a closer working relationship between associates and researchers and secondly to seek the views of practicing managers in a workshop setting. Over 350 managers participated in the EIL research from 6 ASEAN countries (Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand).
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​The research, specifically, is an attempt to study perceptions of excellence in leadership within both private and public sector organisations in Asian countries at the onset but with the intention of using the research instrument in other parts of the world. One problem in this type of research is the complication in understanding the cultural variance contributing to leadership excellence in the countries. To overcome this deficiency the findings of the research will be interpreted using a number of cultural measure instruments, including research associate’s views and respondent interviews. Figure 1 illustrates the overall Methodological Framework of the framing of EIL research.
