APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 1993.42 (4) 365-377

Discovering an Alternative View of Managing: A Study with Singaporean Women Managers

David Sims University of Bath, UK

Jean Lee Sew-Kim National University of Singapore

Une recherche collective fut conduite avec un groupe de femmes cadres de Singapour qui dksiraient comprendre les tensions resultant du fait d'etre simultanement femmes, asiatiques, e t cadres. Cet article decrit comment la recherche fut construite et pourquoi elle le fu t de cette faFon. I1 relate les faits centraux que les participantes utiliskrent pour communiquer leur point- de-vue et decrire les processus et les resultats d'une analyse collective de donnees. Les cartes cognitives des representations des participantes sont montrtes. Des thtmes majeurs y apparaissent qui sont dans certains cas sensiblement differents de ceux couramment observes chez les cadres mas- culins occidentaux. I1 est suggere que ces themes pourraient etre le point de depart d'intenogations futures sur la signification du travail des cadres i la fois pour des femmes asiatiques et pour d'autres, selon des hypothtses con- trastees rendues plus visibles et irnplicitement remises en cause par cette recherche.

A coIlaborative-enquiry was conducted with a group of Singaporean women managers who wanted to understand the tensions involved in being simul- taneously a woman, an Asian, and a manager. This paper describes how the r e s e a r 3 was done and why it was done this way. I t relates the core anecdotes that the participants used to convey their views, and describes the process and outcomes of a collaborative analysis of the findings. Cognitive maps of the participants' views are shown. Major themes appear in these maps which are in some cases very different from those that have currency among Western male managers. It is suggested that these themes should be the starting point for asking further questions about the meaning of managing, both for Asian women and for others whose contrasting assumptions are made more visible in, and implicitly questioned by, this research.

Requests for reprints should be Sent to Dr. David Sims. School of Management, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.

0 1993 International Association of Applied Psychology

366 SlMS AND LEE

I NTRODUCTIO N

This paper reports a collaborative inquiry with a group of Singaporean women managers who shared the authors' interest in understanding their position as an increasingly numerous but relatively powerless group of managers, and in the perspective on the nature of management that can be gained from their gender and culture. The inquiry was with a group of seven Singaporean women, all of whom had worked as senior managers in a variety of organisations in Singapore. They were all in their thirties or early forties. Their combined experience embraced the full range from small family businesses to multinationals, in a wide range of industrial sectors, and representing American, Japanese, European, and local owner- ship. They were all known to us or to our friends, without being well known either to us or to each other. Our criteria for choosing the members of the group included variety of experience, race, concerns, and attitudes, as well as an expectation on our part that they would find each other stimulating and challenging. However, we made no attempt at a random sampling of the women managers of Singapore.

The group was facilitated and coordinated by the two authors, using their perspectives as an Asian woman and a Western man. The questions that we started with were: what does it mean to be a Singaporean woman manager? H o w do factors in the upbringing and culture of Asian women affect their managerial practice? How do Asian women managers come by their models and theories of management? What paradoxes, dilemmas and discomforts are involved in being an Asian woman and being a manager?

Singapore has an increasing number of women managers, coming from several different racial and cultural backgrounds, and a continuing national debate about the nature and merits of being Asian or Western in orienta- tion. Since the national commitment to industrialise has strengthened in Singapore, the female labour force participation rate has increased gradu- ally from 17.5% in 1957 to 50.5% in 1991 (Report on the Labour Force Survey of Singapore, 1957 and 1991). Although women have increasingly participated in labour, they are still under-represented in administrative and managerial posts. Women made up 6.4% of all administrators and managers in 1970, and 24.4% i n 1989.

The enrolment of women in the National University of Singapore is higher than men (53% of women and 47% of men in 1989). With better education, the entry of women into management should be facilitated. However, the statistics show that women are still under-represented in managerial positions. Women business graduates are often faced with a narrower range of job choices than men, and according to Ling (1981, p.48): "tend to be placed in jobs with fewer challenges and less autonomy which are weaker launching pads onto the career success cycle." For the same job, women are paid less than men (Thomas, 1986). Moreover, as

DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF MANAGING 367

Chan and Lee (1992) point out, the role of primary parent is especially demanding in Singapore because of the high demands made on children’s performance by a very competitive educational system. Mothers are expected to help to push even very young children to gain a ‘head start’. Aryee (1992) found that most working professional women experienced at least moderate levels of work-family conflicts. Women in managerial and administrative positions faced the problem of a cultural attitude that a woman cannot successfully hold an important and high level job to which she is seriously committed and yet be ‘normal’ (Deckard, 1975). This stereotype creates much confusion and anxiety when women find them- selves in positions of authority in an organisation. Relationships within a work group may be seriously affected by the belief that women should be nurturing and submissive.

METHODOLOGY

This research needed to be both collaborative (Reason & Rowan, 1981) and grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1968). We were trying to discover some- thing about the way the world worked for a group of people who were also interested in finding out for themselves. Only through collaboration with the inhabitants of that world could we know what we should be looking at. For us to attempt to take an ‘objective’ stance would be arrogant and probably self-deluding. The view of their world that we wanted to discover was the one seen through their eyes. To discover our participants’ view of managing, the research had to be done in collaboration with a group of participants, and not on a group of subjects.

Grounded research was implicit in our research objectives. We wanted to discover concepts and beliefs that were used by our Singaporean women managersto explain what they thought was worth understanding and why. To do this, we explored the categories that they used, staying as much as possible within their language. Any attempt to frame the research in pre- existing academic categories would have led us away from hearing the voice of people whose voice has rarely been heard. All of our participants were competent in several different languages of discourse; they could speak the language of an MBA course, of a training programme, of a meeting in a multinational, or of an Asian daughter. As women and as Asians they commonly had to offer their ideas within languages that have been created by men and by Westerners. Our objective was to enable them to discover which ideas they found most enlightening, and which issues were the most salient for them to try and theorise about together. To do this, we needed them to use their own language and thought systems for discussion-the way of thinking and speaking that came most naturally to them when they were in a group of sympathetic and like-minded people.

368 SlMS AND LEE

This clearly had some consequences for the ambitions that we could entertain for our study. We offer an intensive study of this group of man- agers. We do not claim that this enables us to make statements about ‘all Singaporean women managers’. We do, however, claim that this paper relates a rich account of the issues of concern to this group, in their own language. We claim to have discovered an alternative view of managing from a previously unheard group; we do not claim to have investigated what proportion of Singaporean women managers share this view with what strength.

RESEARCH PROCESS

We initially designed a sequence of events that we thought would lead the group into the issues we sought to understand. However. if you invite participants to behave as collaborators, you run the risk that they may do so! They are likely to participate in the design and direction of the research. So the research we describe here belongs to the whole group of nine, not on ly to the authors.

Our initial agreement was to meet for three hours plus lunch on three consecutive Saturday mornings. At our first meeting, we spent ten minutes teaching the participants a simple cognitive mapping technique (Eden, Jones, & Sims, 1983; Sims & Jones, 1981), as an aid to them in talking to each other. We then formed them into pairs. While one member was talking, the other would draw a map that charted the experiences described. After the mapping, the talker would have a chance to consider the map drawn for her, and elaborate further. The participants decided to take a biographical approach (Bruner, 1990) to look at what had led them to the views that they now held about being a Singaporean woman man- ager. The procedure was repeated with the roles of talker and listener reversed. The pairs produced large and detailed cognitive maps about each member; each pair chose to meet again to complete this work.

The agreed purpose for the second meeting was to build a joint map of the issues of becoming and being an Asian woman. Each participant talked about her own issues and experiences, as revealed on her map, and at the same time other participants made connections with their own issues and experiences. They tested these connections, to see if they were saying the same thing as each other, or something related but different. In this way the whole group gained a sense of the depth and quality of the data, and of the range and density of the concepts that emerged.

The third meeting was designed to complete the circle. Each participant gave accounts of one or two incidents that they thought best illustrated their experience of managing or being managed. The participants had

DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF MANAGING 369

agreed to think of these incidents in advance, but recognised that the incidents they would want to talk about would be affected by each other. This meant that these accounts are best seen as coming from the discourse of a community of Singaporean women managers, rather than from indi- viduals. Accounts of incidents were collected from all those present, including the female author of this paper, and excluding only the male author.

Participants became excited by sharing their experience of working as double outsiders-both as Asians and as women-in companies dominated by a Western male managerial culture. The process took off as one person’s experience would encourage another to share and make sense of her experience, and to reflect on what other people were saying about the ‘normal’ (but to them very alien) managerial culture. The excitement was not only around the accounts themselves, but also about the ideas, as concepts and beliefs were gradually discovered and used by the group. For example, when the concept of “mellowness” (to be described shortly) first arose, the excitement in the group was intense, as each member began to see her own experience illuminated by it.

TALES OF THE UNACCEPTED

After drawing maps of the accounts, the participants concluded the session by generating a list of nine themes that ran though many of the incidents. These themes represented their analysis of the main issues of being simul- taneously an Asian, a woman, and a manager. The themes are listed here with the most frequent at the top:

Integrity Coping with male insecurity Western values . . . Taoist Confucian values Supporting friends and superiors Female leadership Fighting Individual rights . . . group rights Not wishing to undermine others High standards for self

I n the following sections. we use some of the stories the managers gave to illustrate and ground these themes. The themes can be seen in the context in which they were given by the managers in the summary cognitive maps (Figs 1 & 2).

W 4

0

DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF MANAGING 371

Integrity (Fig. 1)

A number of stones were told about dilemmas managers faced from con- flicting moral codes, and their attempts to act with integrity.

One of the participants told how a subordinate asked her to apply to the company for a car loan for him. She knew that his case did not strictly fit the company’s rules; she also knew that other managers bent the rules in similar cases, and she wanted the subordinate’s approval. So she made the application, but at the same time felt angry with herself for doing so.

Another person had been responsible for moving a department from one building to another. The new building had less car parking space than the old, and there were just enough spaces to include everyone down to her level, but ‘not her immediate subordinates, although they had spaces at the old building. Part of her felt guilty about accepting the privileges of rank, while another part felt, in line with her Asian upbringing and Con- fucian values, that she was right to apply the rules strictly.

One of our participants had bowed to pressure to give a lower appraisal than she felt was fair, in order to motivate a subordinate. He was very upset by the appraisal, and she then explained what had happened. She felt that she was wrong to have bowed to pressure, and doubly wrong to be open about what she had done; the ethical system which said “Be fair” also said “You don‘t have to explain how you are being fair”.

Some of the ethical dilemmas which appeared in the accounts were seen as matters of right and wrong. One person was responsible for providing professional advice to two competing teams, while being a member of one of them, and had to struggle to be fair. Another person had been invited by the president in one firm that she joined to help him to undermine the comptroller, in rQurn for which he would “back her all the way to the top”. She left; her successor advanced rapidly in the company, but left relatively-soon, leaving our participant feeling that she had not paid as dearly for her ethics as it had appeared at first.

Another account was about the ethical system of a particular industry. A negative report from a credit reporting agency can destroy a small family business that might otherwise have sorted ou t its problems. Our participant found it offensive that many credit agencies report without understanding what lies behind the figures. Although the money is good, she now refuses to do credit reporting.

Coping with Male Insecurity (Fig. 1)

Participants felt they had to be aware of some men’s insecurity, and take this into account in how they presented themselves as managers. Some felt that males employ females “because they think we are naive enough to be manipulated”. Others protected their male bosses from tough decisions.

372 SlMS AND LEE

For example, our participant did not reporr one of the dilemmas described earlier under 'Integrity' to her male business partner, because it would have put him in a difficult position and she felt he could not have coped.

One person had a male boss who used to throw all reports back at her, without having read them, saying that they were rubbish. She attributed this to insecurity.

Another participant had co-directed an organisation with her boyfriend. Everyone wanted to deal with her in preference to him, as she was seen as both more central and more approachable. This left him feeling very threatened. and under threat he became very macho and controlling. This created a vicious circle which was readily recognised by the other parti- cipants; macho, controlling behaviour leads to people feeling unheard, so they by-pass the macho controller, who then feels threatened, and becomes even more macho.

Western Values. . . Taoist Confucian Values (Fig. 1)

Asian women managers are often not only working with men and with male bosses, as are women managers world-wide, but also with men from another culture. Some of the incidents we were told related to men as Westerners, and are especially revealing of Western managerial assumptions.

One of our participants described a dilemma arising from Eastern retic- ence with seniors. Asians would not consider it their place to go and talk to someone who was much senior to themselves. This is perceived by Westerners as fear, and by Asians as respect. I t produces appraisals from Western managers such as "Cannot cope with authority". I t is related to the democratic assumptions of Westerners and of some Western-educated Asians, as illustrated by the incident about car parking described earlier, under 'Integrity'.

There is a sense of fairness and orderly procedure that is important to Asian women, which Western managers do not always understand. One of our participants, a personnel manager, had been telephoned by a Western director of her company who said he wanted one of his staff dismissed immediately. She refused to comply until she had talked to the member of staff. Having investigated, she concluded that the director was right, and did what she had been asked, but the male director had been made to look silly, and they were never good friends again.

Supportive Friends and Superiors (Fig. 1)

One of the participants found that, because she worked long hours, her friends felt she was rejecting them in favour of her work, or they felt that she was never available; in either case she ended up left out of social

DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF MANAGING 373

functions. This mattered a lot to her, because she saw those friends as being her main support.

Support is a paradoxical concept. One person told how, repeatedly, she had started working for a good boss who supported and guided her, and then let go of the reins. He would change jobs, leaving her with a less supportive boss. Although she would have come to feel strong and inde- pendent with the previous boss, she would then discover that this strength depended on a degree of support. The group considered that there might be a distinctive female style of strength-with-support, as against a male style of solitary strength.

Another account was of how a much more supportive environment could be created in an all-female department. It could be more relaxed and more fun, particularly if it offered protection from the ‘sudden arbitrary bureau- cracy’ of male management.

Female Leadership (Fig. 1 )

One of our participants had been well supported by a female boss, and had been developing happily. Then she was suddenly moved to another department. This happened more than once; her talents were in wide demand, and she was always being moved. She resented the idea that she could be transferred without consultation or warning, and saw such im- personal treatment as distinctly male leadership.

Another participant found herself in a dilemma as to how domineering to be, and how much to give independence. She felt that a lot of women cultivate an effective style in which they give independence. The story about the person who had worked alongside her boyfriend illustrated this. He was controlling in a way that stifled creativity in others, whereas she was allowing, listening, emotionally supportive, nurturing, and coun- selling. Her concern was to find ways to help people do what they wanted. This was seen by the group as a characteristic of female leadership.

Fighting (Fig. 1)

Aggressiveness is taken for granted in most Western organisations, particu- larly by males. It was more noticeable to our group. One member had worked for French bosses, who were inclined to fight over issues. After a little while she realised that she was quite enjoying joining in with this very un-Asian activity, and that they too appreciated someone who would fight with them. Other accounts on this theme connected it with integrity. You can enjoy fighting if you believe you are doing right, even if the fight is very serious; there are people who you feel comfortable about dismissing. You have more stamina for these fights if you feel properly focused.

374 SlMS AND LEE

Individual Rights . . . Group Rights (Fig. 1)

The relationship between group and individual may be different for Asians. The example of the allocation of parking spaces illustrated this point . The Asian emphasis o n the rights of the group confronted the Western emphasis on the rights of the individual. Returning to the story of the person who worked with her boyfriend, when others in the organisation wanted to get rid of him she protected him. This was not for personal reasons, but because she felt that i t was not right for the rest of the group to be successful at his expense. To Westerners, that story sounds as i f it is making the opposite point , but the Asian concept of the rights of the group includes the rights of the individual to belong to the group.

Not Wishing to Undermine Others (Fig. 2)

However unfair the situation, there was a shared view that it was wrong to undermine other people. One participant told of an incident in which a man was given a promotion that should have been hers. When she found

I f a aU i\

- dhsr.

FIG. 2. The participants' cognitive map (part 2).

DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF MANAGING 375

out that this had happened, she did not try to prove that she should have had the promotion, because she did not wish to undermine him. Instead she resigned.

Several participants had been told that they got where they did because of charm. This seems silly to them, because the assumption that underlay it was that competition was between people, which was not as important for them as internalised competition-always wishing to do better within yourself.

High Standards for Self (Fig. 2)

The person who worked very long hours (described earlier, under ‘Supportive Friends and Superiors’) did so because of her standards in her job. Another participant told us that her mother had set very high standards for her, in such a way that she felt angry with herself if she did not meet them. She felt ambivalent about this; she did not like others enforcing high standards on her, and when people have tried to do this to her department, she has always been ready to tell them what those standards cost. She was reflecting on the dilemma of expecting everything from yourself while not expecting too much from others.

THE PARTICIPANTS‘ CONCLUSIONS

Western managerial culture may show some detailed variations from place to place (Hofstede, 1983). but it appears monolithic to outsiders. In this paper we have participated with a group of people who, because of both gender and culture, see themselves as able but awkward participants in such a culture, a d they have given accounts of incidents that demonstrate the awkwardness-a process akin to understanding the foot by feeling where the shoe does not fit.

Our participants regarded some of the concepts that appear on the cognitive maps as particularly illuminating of their world. For example, ‘balancing career and family’ (Fig. 2) must be a recognisable issue to most of us, but the concept of ‘balance’ is richer in a culture where Yin and Yang are everyday terms.

‘Mellowness’ (Fig. 2) was highly valued by the participants. It means mature ripeness, in which any harshness has been converted into good flavour. It is best understood by looking at its context in Fig. 2. It was seen as a possible result of “being a good wife and mother” (both of which are, ironically, made more difficult by “balancing career and family”), and of “getting older”. Mellowness led to “being well focused”-which is what Western managers mean by saying that they “know what they are about”. Mellowness also implied having enough maturity to emphasise “competing

376 SlMS AND LEE

with self rather than competing with others”. Mellowness is a component of “female leadership”, which will take the reader to connected notions in Fig. 1.

“Being fair” and “being honest” (Fig. 1) were major issues. “Being fair” is a value that may go right against both the politicised and the democratic notions of organisations that are current in Western managerial thought. The values of bureaucracy are close to the Confucian value system, so “being honest” makes i t difficult to fit into multinationals that are dominated by the feeling that rules are there to be broken creatively. I t seemed that, from the viewpoint of an Asian upbringing, t h e fast foot- work often needed to make an organisation work was seen as acceptable for men but not for women-especially not for daughters!

Finally, “emphasising group rights rather than individual rights” was implicit in so many of the other ideas that it seems worth stressing at the end. The increasing emphasis on individualism and individual action in management writing and practice which characterised the 1970s and 1980s in the West left our Singaporean women managers unimpressed-and ou t on a managerial limb.

THE AUTHORS‘ CONCLUSIONS

The next step for research in this field might be to take t h e concepts that we have described in this paper and that appear in Figs 1 and 2, and relate them to concepts that emerge from the recent literature on women in management. We have not taken that step in this paper because it seems to us that i t would be all too easy for Western academic ideas to colonise and dominate the less explicit Asian women practitioners’ concepts. For example, it would be possible to link the concept of “mellowness” with existing concepts in the managerial literature, and it will be appropriate for this to happen in the future. I t would be premature for us to make this connection at the same time as reporting the rich meaning of mellowness for this group of managers.

The production of management theory has been predominantly done by Western men. Women and Asians have not had a strong presence in the process and their experiences have not been represented. When they have been involved, they have usually had to work within the language and concepts of Western men. This study revealed the collective cognitive map of a group of Singaporean women managers. The map shows some emphases that run counter to most management theory. This study does not provide judgements on Asian women’s management or Western management. We hope, however, that it will provide a language and a set of concepts for further research, and that it will enable such research to

DISCOVERING AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF MANAGING 377

be done in a more collaborative and grounded way. We believe that an open approach such as the one we have taken here is essential if new voices are to be heard.

Manuscript received March 1992 Revised manuscript received April 1993

REFERENCES Aryee. S . (1992). Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict among married pro-

Bruner. J . (1990). Acrs of meaning. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Chan, A.. & Lee. J . (1992). Women execurives in a newly indurriafised economy: rhe Singa-

pore scenario. Working paper; National University of Singapore. Deckard. B.S. (1975). The women's movemenr: polirical, socio-economic and psychological

issues. New York: Harper & Row. Eden, C.. Jones, S.. & Sims. D. (1983). Messing abour in problem: an informal srrucrured

approach 10 [heir idenr$carion and management. Oxford: Pergamon. Glaser, B.G.. & Strauss. A.L. (1968). Thediscoveryo/grounded rheory. Chicago: Aldine. Hofstede. G. (1983). National cultures in four dimensions: a research based theory of

cultural differences among nations. lnrernarional Srudies of Managemenr and 0rgani:a- rionr, 13, 4 6 7 4 .

Ling. S.C. (1981). The Singapore woman manager and administrator. Commenrary. 5 . I . October.

Reason, P., & Rowan, J . (1981). Human inquiry: a sourcebook ofnew paradigm research. Chichester: Wiley.

Reporr on rhe Labour Force Survey of Singapore. 1957 and 1991. Singapore: Ministry of Labour.

Sims, D . . & Jones, S. (1981). Explicit problem modelling: an intervention strategy. Group and Organiznrion Srudres, 6 . 486499.

Thomas, M. (1986). Sex and salaries: the vital statistics. Singapore Business. 10, 6.

fessional women: evidence from Singapore. Human Relarionr, 45, 813-837.