한·중 특급호텔 총지배인의 리더십, 조직문화 및 조직효과성의 비교연구

Abstract

Corporate environment in modern society changes so rapidly that corporations look for adequate strategies to adjust to this ever changing environment. Leadership can never be too emphasized as a critical factor for a timely adjustment and correspondence to the rapidly changing corporate environment since it contributes to motivating employees and consequently to changing their values. The purpose of this study is bifold: first, this study examines the interrelationship among leadership, organizational culture and organizational effectiveness, which have been discussed in the previous studies as important variables in the study of leadership. Second, this study provides a culture-based interpretation of the relationship between the leadership and other two variables with its emphasis on the perspectives of the comparative cultures. The purpose of this study is implemented by postulating the research model and hypotheses primarily based on the previous studies on leadership, organizational culture, and organizational effectiveness, and by conducting a comparative analysis of the Korean and Chinese hotel corporations. Data in this study are collected from middle managers in 22 5-star Korean hotels and 20 5-star multi-national hotels in Shanghai. The survey was conducted during April 2007. A total of 550 questionnaires was collected from the selected sampling hotels: 250 questionnaires were collected from Chinese hotels and 300 questionnaires from Korean hotels. Out of 550 questionnaires collected, 490 questionnaires, without any missing values in their responses, were selected for the data analysis in this study. Convenience sampling is adopted as a method of sampling in this study. Major findings of this study are as follows: first, there is a statistically significant difference in the relationships between the leadership style and organizational culture, between the leadership style and organizational effectiveness, and between organizational culture and organizational effectiveness. Second, the statistical result indicates that there is a significant difference between the Korean and Chinese managers with respect to the perception of organizational effectiveness and organizational culture, but not with respect to the perception of the leadership style. Third, the results indicate that there is a strong correlation between the leadership style and the organizational effectiveness among Korean hotel managers. By contrast, no such correlation is observed between the leadership style and the organizational effectiveness among Chinese hotel managers. Fourth, there is no significant correlation between the leadership style and the organizational culture for both Korean and Chinese hotel managers. Finally, there is no significant correlation between the two variables of the organizational culture and the organizational effectiveness in both Korean and Chinese hotels. There are several implications that are supported by the statistical result of this study: first, this study indicates that the general manager plays a crucial role in enhancing the organizational effectiveness, which is made possible only by motivating the hotel employees through his leadership and hence by creating a positive organizational culture. In its practical implication, this finding leads to an insightful strategy on what kind of appropriately effective leadership the general manager should employ and how he will motivate the employees to create a more effective organizational culture. Second, this study contributes to providing primary data for the comparative analysis of the leadership of the hotel managers between Korea and China. According to the result of the analysis, the organizational culture of the Korean hotels tend to be more conservative, while the organizational culture in China is recognized to be more innovative. With respect to the organizational effectiveness, hotels in Korea are more sensitive to the financial performance, while those in China are more responsive to the non-financial performance. With respect to the correlation between the organizational culture and the organizational effectiveness in relation to the style of the leadership, the hotels in Korea operate in a different way from those in China in correlation between the style of the leadership and the organizational effectiveness. However, the correlations between the leadership style and the organizational culture on the one hand, and between the organizational culture and the organizational effectiveness proved to be the same both in Korean and chinese hotels. This result adds supporting evidence to and confirms the legitimate expectation that the Korean and Chinese hotels would not show drastic difference in their management due to the cultural common denominator of the Confucianism. Marginally, however, there are some divergent correlations found, which are attributed to the characteristic operation of the hotels in each country. Third, this study makes the inference possible, namely that the transformational leadership is more effective than other types of leadership in enhancing innovative culture and organizational effectiveness. The findings of this study adds to the previous literature on the correlation between the cultural characteristics and the organizational variables in the management of the hotel business, especially since there has not been extensive comparative studies performed on the management of the hotel business between the two countries of Korea and China, and hence will make contribution to the further studies on this area. However, there is a limitation in this study, namely that the findings in this study are the result of the analysis of the sampling based on the middle managers, and as a consequence, it will have some limits in a certain degree imposed on its extension.