IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/worbus/v47y2012i4p581-591.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Symmetric and asymmetric leadership cultures: A comparative study of leadership and organizational culture at Hyundai and Toyota

Author

Listed:
  • Shim, Won Shul
  • Steers, Richard M.

Abstract

This study compares national cultures, leadership strategies, and work environments in two successful global automobile companies, Hyundai Motor Group and Toyota Motor Corporation. Despite competing head-on in the same market, it was found that these companies use very different leadership strategies as a basis for both global competition and local operations. Based on the results of a comparative case study, structured interviews, and related media and empirical data, it was found that Toyota competes both strategically and managerially by emphasizing planning and work systems to mitigate the impact of any turbulence in the external environment (stability is key), while Hyundai competes by accepting environmental uncertainty and risk as a part of normal daily operations (flexibility is key). We refer to these approaches as symmetric and asymmetric leadership and organizational cultures. As a result of these differences, Hyundai is able to change course more quickly than its larger competitor as new opportunities and technologies emerge. While national cultures played a role in differentiating between the two firms, leadership differences had a more pronounced effect on organizational behaviors and subsequent performance. Results are consistent with previous research and reinforce the conclusion that top management leaders’ behavior can have a significant influence on emergent organizational cultures and performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Shim, Won Shul & Steers, Richard M., 2012. "Symmetric and asymmetric leadership cultures: A comparative study of leadership and organizational culture at Hyundai and Toyota," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 581-591.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:worbus:v:47:y:2012:i:4:p:581-591
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jwb.2012.01.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951612000120
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jwb.2012.01.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Toyohiro Kono & Stewart Clegg, 2001. "Trends in Japanese Management," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-333-99389-7.
    2. Henry Mintzberg & James A. Waters, 1985. "Of strategies, deliberate and emergent," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 257-272, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elsahn, Ziad & Earl, Anna, 2022. "Alternative ways of studying time in qualitative international business research: A review and future agenda," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(3).
    2. Schmid, Stefan & Grosche, Philipp & Mayrhofer, Ulrike, 2016. "Configuration and coordination of international marketing activities," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 535-547.
    3. Barron, Andrew & Pereda, Asier & Stacey, Stephen, 2017. "Exploring the performance of government affairs subsidiaries: A study of organisation design and the social capital of European government affairs managers at Toyota Motor Europe and Hyundai Motor Com," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 184-196.
    4. Martin Hemmert, 2020. "Does Korean-style management have a future?," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(2), pages 147-170, April.
    5. , Le Nguyen Hoang, 2022. "A multi-group analysis of the impact of lean manufacturing practices on operational performance: Does the national culture matter?," OSF Preprints qpe63, Center for Open Science.
    6. Richard M. Steers & Won Shul Shim, 2020. "Korean-style leadership: a comparative perspective," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(2), pages 175-178, April.
    7. Schneider, Markus & Engelen, Andreas, 2015. "Enemy or friend? The cultural impact of cross-functional behavior on the EO–performance link," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 439-453.
    8. Seungdoe Lee & Goo Hyeok Chung, 2020. "Cultural Entrepreneurship: Between-Organization Cultural Isomorphism and Within-Organization Culture Shaping," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(3), pages 21582440209, July.
    9. Bird, Allan & Mendenhall, Mark E., 2016. "From cross-cultural management to global leadership: Evolution and adaptation," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 115-126.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Battaglia, Daniele & Landoni, Paolo & Rizzitelli, Francesco, 2017. "Organizational structures for external growth of University Technology Transfer Offices: An explorative analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 45-56.
    2. Robert P. Garrett Jr. & Jeffrey G. Covin, 2015. "Internal Corporate Venture Operations Independence and Performance: A Knowledge–Based Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(4), pages 763-790, July.
    3. Sirén, Charlotta & Kohtamäki, Marko, 2016. "Stretching strategic learning to the limit: The interaction between strategic planning and learning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 653-663.
    4. Marina Fiedler & Isabell Welpe & Arnold Picot, 2010. "Understanding Radical Change: An Examination of Management Departments in German-speaking Universities," management revue. Socio-economic Studies, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 21(2), pages 111-134.
    5. Chenhall, Robert H. & Hall, Matthew & Smith, David, 2010. "Social capital and management control systems: A study of a non-government organization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 737-756, November.
    6. Ali, Abdul & Mancha, Ruben & Pachamanova, Dessislava, 2018. "Correcting analytics maturity myopia," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 211-219.
    7. Gebauer, Heiko & Worch, Hagen & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Absorptive capacity, learning processes and combinative capabilities as determinants of strategic innovation," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 57-73.
    8. Young-Choon Kim & Taekjin Shin & Sangchan Park, 2021. "Enhancing firm performance through intra-group managerial experience: Evidence from group-affiliated firms in Korea," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 435-465, June.
    9. Iman Seoudi & Matthias Huehn & Bo Carlsson, 2008. "Penrose Revisited: A Re-Appraisal of the Resource Perspective," Working Papers 14, The German University in Cairo, Faculty of Management Technology.
    10. Yannick LUNG & Bernard JULLIEN & Christophe MIDLER, 2016. "From the Logan to the Kwid. \r\nAmbidexterity, reverse and fractal innovation, design-to-cost: recipes from Renault\'s Entry strategy," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2016-19, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    11. Nurmi, Raimo, 1998. "Knowledge-intensive firms," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 26-32.
    12. Sara Belisari & Daniele Binci & Andrea Appolloni, 2020. "E-Procurement Adoption: A Case Study about the Role of Two Italian Advisory Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-18, September.
    13. Litz, Reginald A., 2010. "Jamming across the generations: Creative intergenerational collaboration in the Marsalis family," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 185-199, December.
    14. Gérald Naro & Denis Travaillé, 2010. "Construire les stratégies avec le Balanced Scorecard:vers une approche interactive du modèle de Kaplan et Norton," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 13(2), pages 33-66., June.
    15. Innan Sasaki & Niina Nummela & Davide Ravasi, 2021. "Managing cultural specificity and cultural embeddedness when internationalizing: Cultural strategies of Japanese craft firms," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(2), pages 245-281, March.
    16. Theodosiou, Marios & Leonidou, Leonidas C., 2003. "Standardization versus adaptation of international marketing strategy: an integrative assessment of the empirical research," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 141-171, April.
    17. Anoop R. Menon & Dennis A. Yao, 2017. "Elevating Repositioning Costs: Strategy Dynamics and Competitive Interactions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(10), pages 1953-1963, October.
    18. Alexis Laszczuk & Lionel Garreau & Bernard de Montmorillon, 2017. "Understanding emergence in business model development: how companies interact with stakeholders to deal with environmental ambiguity," Post-Print hal-01787276, HAL.
    19. Jianyu Zhao & Yining Huang & Xi Xi & Shanshan Wang, 2021. "How knowledge heterogeneity influences business model design: mediating effects of strategic learning and bricolage," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 889-919, June.
    20. Speklé, R.F. & van den Bogaard, M.A., 2002. "Reinventing The Hierarchy, The Case Of The Shell Chemicals Carve-Out," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2002-52-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:worbus:v:47:y:2012:i:4:p:581-591. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620401/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.