The Evaluation of Business Leadership in Chinese Organisations: A Systematic Review

Purpose: The primary purpose of the study is to examine the recent trends in business leadership practices within Chinese corporations, considering various leadership styles. It has been observed that Western organisational culture has a significant influence on leadership styles and practices in China-based corporations. It is the reason, that Chinese organisations are effectively focused on implementing collectivism in recent times and addressing hierarchy within the workplace. Agency Theory has been used within this research to identify the connection between the leaders and their team members to achieve the organisational objectives. Methodology: The research has significantly utilised a systematic literature review (SLR) to select 10 specific peer-reviewed journal articles based on leadership practices within Chinese organisations. The research emphasised engaging such studies which have been mainly published after 2020. All 10 articles were selected in alignment with the research study irrespective of their qualitative and quantitative nature. Findings: The findings of the study highlighted that the leadership practices within Chinese organisations are driven by multiple important factors that include psychological flexibility, empowering leadership, employee retention, training and development programs and the letting-go approach. It was found that Chinese organisations use multiple leadership styles like spiritual leadership, transformational leadership, transactional leadership and authoritarian leadership that support the leaders performing effectively as per their organisational needs and goals. Among all, the transformational leadership style has been identified as the most preferred as it significantly helps the leaders in bringing changes within the workflow and fostering innovation within the performance outcomes. Results: The result of the study has expressed that the democratic leadership style is the most effective leadership style that strongly supports the leaders in engaging the employees within the decision-making power not only improves their motivation but also increases innovation within their performance outcomes. The top management of the Chinese organisations empowers the employees by providing them with authorisation to work efficiently by applying their skills and efforts to accomplish the organisational goals. It has been observed that the utilisation of the democratic leadership style enables the leaders to engage their subordinates within the decision-making process which improves team interaction by empowering the team members.