Management Discourse in Australian Banking Contexts: In search of an Australian model of participation as compared with that of Hong Kong Chinese

This paper seeks to identify culturally distinct features that characterise management discourse in 20 meetings in two Australian banks, as compared with Hong Kong Chinese discourse in similar contexts. Australian managers were found to display a discourse pattern of leadership styles markedly different from the Hong Kong Chinese. For instance, the Australians exhibit a distinctive consultative mode. Instead of using genuine bipolar and multiple choice questions like the Hong Kong Chinese, the Australian managers often ask leading and loaded questions to enlist support from the subordinates. Unlike the Hong Kong Chinese managers who invite subordinates' participation in problem solving, the Australian managers tend to engage in perfunctory consensus-checking before making final decisions. While such features are attributable to cultural and organisational differences, they also indicate a configuration of Australian management styles rather different from that expostulated in the existing literature.