'What I say people do'. Stereotypes and realities about doing leadership in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper explores some of the cultural stereotypes that circulate among Western expatriates who hold leadership positions in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong, and illustrates some of the ways in which these stereotypes are challenged in people’s everyday workplace realities. Drawing on more than 80 hours of authentic video- and audio-recorded workplace discourse and follow-up interviews with professionals in five multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong, this paper demonstrates that there often exists a vast gap between professionals’ perceptions of what it is like to work with people from different socio-cultural backgrounds, and the ways in which these supposedly culture-specific perceptions, assumptions, expectations and practices are actually enacted and responded to in their day-to-day interactional encounters. This discrepancy between stereotypes and realities is particularly evident in accounts of how Western expatriate leaders reportedly had to change their (formerly egalitarian and collaborative) leadership style to more traditional, authoritarian and hierarchical forms in order to adapt to the demands and expectations of their local Hong Kong Chinese team members. By contrasting these narratives of self-perceptions with examples of authentic everyday workplace interactions, we illustrate that the leadership styles of these expatriates are not only considerably less transformed than participants have claimed, but they are also remarkably fluid, interactionally negotiable and dynamically enacted in ways that respond to the demands and constraints of the situated context in which an interaction takes place.