Chapter 17 — Further Reading
A short, curated shelf on leading and being led across cultures — giving and saving face, the directive–facilitative gap, and the loyalty that the East weights differently. These are starting points, not a syllabus; pick one and follow your curiosity.
Reading-level key: ★ accessible to anyone · ★★ some background helpful · ★★★ scholarly
On leadership style across cultures
- Erin Meyer, The Culture Map (2014). ★ The most directly useful book for this chapter. Meyer's "Leading" scale (egalitarian ↔ hierarchical) and "Disagreeing" scale (confrontational ↔ avoids-confrontation) are exactly the dials this chapter turns — and her "Trusting" scale (task-based ↔ relationship-based) explains "build the person, not just the role." Read the leading, disagreeing, and trusting chapters alongside this one.
- Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede & Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (3rd ed., 2010). ★★★ The source of the Power Distance dimension — the empirical backbone for why "empowerment" and "direction" are read so differently across societies. Reference-grade; dip into the power-distance chapter rather than reading cover to cover.
- Fons Trompenaars & Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture (1997). ★★ Their achievement vs. ascription and specific vs. diffuse dimensions illuminate why status is conferred (and protected) differently, and why the work/personal boundary that feels right to a Westerner reads as coldness elsewhere.
On face, harmony, and recognition
- Erin Meyer, "Getting to Sí, Ja, Oui, Hai, and Da," Harvard Business Review (Dec. 2015). ★ Short and practical on how persuasion and disagreement — including the soft, face-protecting "no" — work across cultures. A good companion to the "yes may mean 'I heard you'" section.
- Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought (2003). ★★ The cognitive-psychology grounding for why East Asian colleagues attend to the group and the context while Westerners attend to the individual and the object — which is, at root, why public individual praise lands so differently. We build Chapter 5 on it.
On the employment relationship and loyalty
- James Abegglen, 21st-Century Japanese Management: New Systems, Lasting Values (2006). ★★ A clear-eyed update from the scholar who first described Japan's lifetime-employment system, tracing what has changed and what endures. The best single source on why the employee–employer bond is read more morally than in the West — and how it's evolving.
- Ming-Jer Chen, Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide (2001). ★★ A readable, practitioner-friendly guide to guanxi, face (mianzi), and hierarchy in Chinese management — useful for the "give face / save face / build the relationship" moves in a specifically Chinese setting.
Lighter and free
- Erin Meyer's HBR articles and talks. ★ Searchable and free; "Navigating the Cultural Minefield" (HBR, 2014) is a good first taste of how to adjust your own style without losing yourself.
- The Hofstede Insights "Country Comparison" tool (online). ★ Free; lets you put your own country and your counterpart's side by side on Power Distance and other dimensions — a quick, concrete way to locate yourself on the directive–facilitative dial before a posting.
- INSEAD and major business-school case collections. ★★ Searchable cross-cultural management cases (many on Asian leadership transitions) make excellent discussion material; treat them as practice scenarios, not gospel.
A reading suggestion. If you do one thing, read the "Leading," "Disagreeing," and "Trusting" chapters of Meyer's The Culture Map next to this chapter — they give you a vocabulary and a set of scales for the exact moves taught here. If you specifically manage in, or report into, an East Asian firm, add Abegglen on Japan or Chen on China for the loyalty-and-face logic at depth. Save Hofstede for when you want the empirical "why" behind power distance.
(Full citations for all sources appear in the Bibliography. Sources here are real, verifiable works; where this chapter uses composite or illustrative examples — David and Mei, Alan, Rachel — it says so explicitly.)