Cultural congruence as reflected in communication leaders' decision-making: A convergent view from London and Singapore

Organizations increasingly need to understand the impact of national culture on organizations' strategic decision-making process and communications. Given that most international public relations and communication efforts involve multiple managerial functions and strategic decision-making capabilities in today's information-intensive climate, cultural similarities, and differences in the settings where leadership practice applies are of particular concern. Literature indicates that existing research on cross-cultural managerial leadership has largely focussed on investigating the impact of cultural (national, regional, and/or ethnic) differences on organizational leaders' behaviors, preferences, and motivations (e.g. Dorfman, 2004; Gerstner and Day, 1994) with a heavy application of western leadership theories and models to multiple national settings (e.g. Davis and Bryant, 2003; Dorfman, 2004). However, such similar research has not been widely applied to explore the leadership in the area of corporate communication itself.

Recently, a plethora of leadership research in public relations and communication management has used diverse approaches to investigate the meaning of leadership to effective corporate communication practice, with its roots in excellence research in public relations, transformational leadership, ethical leadership, and organizational studies (e.g. Aldoory and Toth, 2004; Berger and Meng, 2010; Jin, 2010; Meng and Berger, 2013; Meng, 2014; Werder and Holtzhausen, 2009; Zerfass and Huck, 2007). Although these studies have investigated critical concepts related to public relations leadership, such as managerial role enactment, gender role, preferred leadership styles in crisis, critical behavioral factors, individual traits, and effective leadership dimensions, few research has investigated effective leadership prototypes in communication practice through a cross-cultural comparison to look at the possible impact of culture could generate on the communication practice itself.

Thus, this research is motivated by the desire to better understand the interplay between cultural perceptions and leadership effectiveness in corporate communication practice. The research presented in this paper systematically compared views on communication leadership from senior communication executives in two national cultures: England and Singapore. Hofstede (2001) characterizes England as a highly individualistic national culture with low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance. In contrast, the national culture in Singapore is characterized as more collectivist, more inter-dependent, and with a high level of power distance and high uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 2001). Although there is no doubt that communication practice in the business world in the two cultural societies should share common features, but...