An Analysis Of National Culture And Leadership Practices In IndonesiaLink of paper ; https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cluteinstitute.com%2Fojs%2Findex.php%2FJDM%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F4957%2F5049&ei=uSSUVLqaBJfUavfggbgF&usg=AFQjCNGXuTkgskMVeirwtV6jn_1bHuCmIg&sig2=KmB_md7vtiaepy5f8l8Nvw&bvm=bv.82001339,d.d2s

Summary Managers In a global interconnected and collaborate world with many different cultures need to understand the different type of leadership to applied from one to another country. With a many type of leadership, A strategy of leadership that effective in one culture can be counter-productive in another culture such as the type of leadership in Western countries may not be suitable to be applied to Eastern countries. There need to be a ways that will perceived as representative ways to gain influence with the deep understanding of the identity and impact of the culture in order to manage effectively. In here we will compare the Hofstede’s and GLOBE’s studies use of finding’s to identify the importance value of Indonesians, their culture and the style in an organization setting. Indonesian culture is assertive and focused in the maintaining of harmony. The people emphasise as a collective wellbeing and show strong humane orientation with their society. This kind of situation expected for an effective leader to show their compassion by using the paternalistic than autocratic leadership style.

It is really important to study organization as same as to study nations, because as organization also considered as a micro level of a wider culture and this is related to national culture. As the business go worldwide, change of cultural leadership may take a place. The manager of multinational company that come from another country cannot influence the culture of host country with their own culture. It is impossible to separate the national culture that already embedded in host countries for management practices.

CULTURE DIMENSIONS

Understanding the organizational culture is to assess that which is shared by individuals within the organization, beliefs, values, attitudes, and norms of behaviour. Organizational culture shared the meanings that individuals place on their working life, and the narratives they use in making sense of their organizational context. To make organizational rules that are acceptable and legitimate; people need understanding, and the ability to describe and make sense of their working context; the rules act as a kind of social and normative glue. By this, understanding the importance of culture, and all the cultural factors such as symbolism, family interaction, values, language and the nation which we belong can linked together.

Culture differences may be investigated by looking at the national culture dimensions. Five socio-cultural dimensions, identified by Hofstede (1980) and the nine dimensions of GLOBE Studies (1990) are the most cultural dimensions used in the management research. However, the national culture dimensions as shown are clearly define the culture elements, specifically in organization content. Thus effort by Hostede’s and GLOBE project in summarizing culture aspects so we can enhance our understanding in organizational culture elements within organization boundaries.

HOFSTEDE DIMENSIONS Power distance: The extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept and expect that power to be distributed equally.

Individualism and collectivism: The extent to which individuals prefer to act as individual rather than as members of groups.

Masculinity and Femininity: The degree of assertiveness and comprehensiveness versus modesty and caring.

Uncertainty avoidance: The degree to which people prefer structured over unstructured situations

Long term orientation and Short term orientation: Thrift and perseverance versus (short term) respect to tradition, fulfilment of social obligations, and protection of one’s “face”.

GLOBE PROJECT DIMENSION

Group/Family collectivism: The degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizational.

Power distance: The degree to which members of a collective expect power to be distributed equally.

Humane Orientation : the degree to which individuals in organization encourage and reward individuals for acts of fairness, altruism, friendliness, generosity, caring, etc.

Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which a collective relies on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events.

Institutional collectivism: The degree to which institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.

Future orientation: The degree to which individuals in organizations engage in future-orientated behaviour.

Performance orientation: The extent to which an organization encourages and rewards members for performance improvement and excellence

Assertiveness: the degree to which individuals in organizations exhibit and accept assertive, confrontational, and aggressive behaviour in social relationship.

Gender egalitarianism: The extent to which an organization minimizes gender differences.

INDONESIAN’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONS

From Hofstede study shows that Indonesia have below average score in cultural dimension compare to another Asian nations, or as contrast we can say that many scholars in the area of organizational studies still believed that people still share the similar values. GLOBE finding also supported this by stated that Indonesian values still the same 10 years later.

Individualism score in Indonesia is relatively low compare the world averages and Indonesian people can be considered as a collectivist.

The level of masculinity in Indonesia is also relatively low if compared to another Asian country in average and this dimension also related to Assertive dimension which Indonesia also scored low.

Uncertainty Avoidance of Indonesian people is relatively weak where we can compare to the score of average Asian and this may have impact on the formalization and decentralization in organizational structure such as decentralization in operation rather than personal control of management.

The level of Gender egalitarianism in the average of the world rank shows that Women emancipation in Indonesia relatively high.

Indonesia scores the highest Human orientation dimension compare to many other countries. This dimension shows that Indonesian have a high value in concern for others, tolerant of errors, generosity, and sensitivity towards others.

UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN INDONESIA

Indonesians can be classified as having large-Power Distance, Collectivist, Short-term-orientation, weak Uncertainty-Avoidance, and Feminine culture.

This cultural type maintains weak, short term societal ties among organization members and works toward harmonious relationships (Hofstede and Hofstede 2005).

In a western company there are some unsuitable policies to be applied in Indonesia. For instance, The HR department of McDonald’s fast food chain restaurant try to introduce theme called “Employee of the month” in rewards for monthly performance and a good achievement. This is a common policies in country with high individualist score, while Indonesia, a country of collectivist, this policies will not suitable for Indonesia. This policies can show the failure of introducing the new value, although they work in some culture, unless we make sure how it is adaptive to the environment in which the organization operate.

The collectivism is affected the employer-employee relationship to more like family interaction. In Western management point of view this relationship is based on a contract between parties in labour market. In Indonesia it is their obligation to attend all ritual ceremonies and to show the fact that Indonesian like being together and the family network is necessary for emotional wellbeing.

Indonesian are likely behave assertive. For example in school there is transfer of behaviour model from family to school situation where teacher identified as a father like in family setting. And masculinity is related to demographic aspect.

In person oriented culture such as Indonesia which characterized by a high level of power distance, in rewarding an employees, the reward should be clearly explained and fairly equal based on the portion of work. The hierarchy that distinguished Indonesian people from other people in low Power Distance culture is weather the employees do most of the work but the manager will be granted with higher reward. It is different from the task-oriented culture countries.

Working with the Indonesian can be hard for a people with strong Uncertainty Avoidance because they have to respect the behaviour of the majority ethnicity who work with them and usually people with low Uncertainty Avoidance work slow and have less initiative.

The role of women in Indonesia today is the outcome of mixture between custom, religion (mostly Moslem) and social and political development. Woman has more authority, influence, and responsibility than her husband, and at the same time receive more affection and loyalty.

LEADERSHIP IN INDONESIA

Managers need to consider the importance of cultural attributes for understanding each culture. In country like Indonesia with very low GNP it is important to looks at the employee’s basic needs that meets the minimum regional wage to treat the employees regarding fair practices. In a country with low GNP it is common that societies put group interest ahead of individual interest. And in collectivist culture like this, a good social relationships are more important than money.

In Indonesia the leader expected not only to be the manager but also protector, a mentor, a father and must responsible for them and their extended family. For example in Ramadhan month the work hour need to be reduced from 8 to 6 hours. It looks as the waste of time and less production but the leader need to emphasize situation to maintain a relationship with their employees with moral obligation than act as an authoritarian leader and the employees will repays with gratitude, obedience, respect, and identification.

Although relationships between leadership and culture, as well their linkages, are important to the organization’s success, the underlying intercultural connection may differ as a result of national culture. As an example, In Indonesia where the people known to defer the authority, they need to be convinced before accepting the authority. And Indonesian in general are difficult to be convinced, because they think that the organization belong to the management or the ruler and they don’t have any obligation to have the sense of belonging to the organization. That’s why a global manager has to consider cultural sensitivity that enabled another to become a multicultural leader.

LESSONS FROM INDONESIA

The Hofstede and GLOBE study has investigated the cultural value that can contribute to enhance leadership practices and remove barriers related to patronage relationship in Indonesia context. And this can be the knowledge of the cultural values that underpin Indonesian’s values in the workplace. Indonesia’s lesson of multi-ethnic diversity can help to increase understanding, and to respect and value differences in organizations.

Managers from individualistic and performance orientation cultures need to address Indonesians values, thus gaining insight and acquiring skills that will increase their contribution to effective leadership skills from the local environment, is an important task for them.

OPINION Indonesia, an Archipelago country with the unique geographical landscape which comprises more than 17.800 islands, consists of more than 300 indigenous ethnic groups, with 450 local languages and 6 major religions.Oppression by the colonialist for more than 3 centuries caused the Indonesian people to have a lot of cultures and traits. Some of this traits are having no achievement, oriented to the past, depending on fate and destiny, having uncertainty to themselves, undisciplined and tend to neglect their responsibilities. The religion also play a big part in Indonesia development. More than 90% of Indonesian is a Moslem, many Islamic customs that implemented in macro level influence the micro level. To be a successful leader or manager, the understanding this customs are really important. Leaders should accommodate all religious activities if they want to have a good relationship with their followers or employees. In Indonesia is difficult to convince that employee are the part of the corporation because they believe that corporation is owned by the management or the ruler. As subordinates they need to think that the managers need to be father, protector, and need to be responsible for their extended family. For example in the religious custom, there is tradition where all office will closed for 2 weeks and all of people will go to their home town to see their friend or relatives. In the management point of view this is waste of time, money and not productive. But in the cultural and ethnic point of view this things should be done. This habit shows that Indonesians don’t value time, do excessive spending on budget, do not rely on the available system and only do job for making friends and relationship.Indonesia also considered as the fourth largest country in the world, with a population of more than 250 million. The demographic shows that the profile is notably young around: Around 60% Indonesian are under 30 years old. By this young people, most of them expect a leaders need to focus on their development and career than the older people do. If the future leader or manager don’t meet this expectation they will failed in retain the young people because the young people in Indonesia have the can-do attitude and they just need more training and definite direction and to counteract this situation, the leader must make engagement and retention of key talent their priority.The dominant ethnic group in Indonesia is Javanese. With more than 40% of the population and the biggest percentage of group ethnic that holds political position, The Javanese culture become the concept of power that slowly infused into modern Indonesia. Javanese have social hierarchy that divided by two class; Wong cilik (peasant, follower), and priyayi (leader) so the distribution of power being constructed in this basis. Javanese in general is avoiding conflict and tough conversation, instead they placed high value on harmony. It is considered uncultured to give critics or feedback by openly. But this doesn’t means that Javanese cannot take a feedback. Instead, it is important to understand what might be the motivation of response. So the managers need to understand this cultural nuances to improve the best style to be use. Indonesian people are known as people that like to do organization. They have the characteristic that can make an organization work effectively. The characteristic that Indonesian people is collectivist. Even though with this characteristics, Indonesia have a problem of valuing charisma over the competence. This thing can be shown by the governmental infrastructure and system that when a new leader elected so the system and infrastructure that they already built also disappear. So comes the new style of leadership in Indonesia that people will see as the new authentic leader. Slowly people consciously or unconsciously aware of their strengths, and they convert this understanding into performance gains for their organizations or nation.The changes in Indonesian people due the globalization and IT is that now the Indonesian people tend to value the relationship between employee and the company. This is because the increasing of the valuing dignity and basic human rights from the company to have a good cooperation and partnership in the management process of corporation.

Based on this, the leadership style that suitable for Indonesian is the leadership that have a concern more for people and less concern for production. With this style of leadership the manager would have a good relationship with the employee and they will repay with gratitude, obedience, respect, and identification so that the manager or leader can slowly boost the production. And a leader or manager need to be more paternalistic, and transformational as their leadership style. With the growth of the economic in the country, Indonesian people placing a great demand on the leaders. The leader need to ensure result, consistent, sustainable performance and can emerge only from good grasp of what followers need. The leader in Indonesia also need to have the role of father, a commander, a mother, and a friend. Need to have behaviour such as sharing, responsible, and introspective. All those characteristics are the combination of style, traits, and behaviour of Indonesia. That’s why becoming a leader in Indonesia is not easy. It is hard for a leader to take decision and solve problem with a proper solution.

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Dissertation). NL, Tilburg University.3. Tjosvold, D. and K. Leung (2004). Leading in High Growth Asia: Managing Relationship for Teamwork and

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