In this paper, we explore excellence in leadership in Thailand, a nation that has strong roots in Theravada Buddhism. Summated scales and a structural model were constructed to explain the relationships between the excellences in leadership constructs. A sample frame of 401 Thai managers employed in organizations in Bangkok, North Thailand, and East Thailand participated in this research. The findings suggest that there are strong cultural factors such as non-confrontation, respect, and deference for authority mediating the perceptions of Thai managers with regards to perceptions of an excellent leader. Age and gender are also demonstrated as key differentiating factors in the perceptions of Thai managers.

This study investigates whether the eight ancient principles of Javanese statesmanship (Asta Brata), can be employed as the basis for analysing managerial leadership excellence in Javanese organizations. Factor analysis, regression modelling and structural modelling are used to explain what constitutes leadership excellence in Javanese organizations. These findings based on the perceptions of 312 Javanese managers suggest they favour a paternalistic leadership style that is nurturing but not authoritative. This study highlights the importance of understanding Indonesia’s bapak-ism, or reverence for the leader as a father figure, and its familial orientation of interdependency between management and employees.

Management research has predominantly focused on national studies of large nations, while smaller nations have been largely ignored. In addition, although Confucian Asia has been extensively studied, dharmic Asia and the Mekong region have not. This study, therefore, considers Cambodia, using the conceptual framework of Selvarajah et al. (Selvarajah, C., Duignan, P., Nuttman, C. and Suppiah, C., 1995. In search of the Asian leader: An exploratory study of dimensions that relates to excellence in leadership. Management international review: Journal of international business, 35 (1), 29–34), which has been previously used to understand a variety of eastern and western leadership behaviours. This study on Cambodia, similar to previous studies, has demonstrated the importance of cultural context when considering leadership behaviour. In Cambodia, the influence of religion and its turbulent past make this a particularly interesting study of managerial leadership and the implications to management and theory development are discussed.

In this paper, we set out to study what constitutes managerial leadership excellence in Vietnam. In so doing, based on a 208 sample employing factor analysis and structural equation modelling, we have developed a ten dimension cultural model where Confucian cultural values with some aspects of Dharma influence managerial behaviours, where a leader is seen to be both a team and an organizational player. These values are moderated by Gender differences, with female managers more supportive of what constitutes an excellent leader than male managers. The cultural values are also moderated by a significant regional difference between the North and South.

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to examine the changing cultural values that influence the perception of managers to leadership excellence in their organisations in Singapore.Design/methodology/approach: – Summated scales for the importance of excellent leader, personal qualities, managerial behaviours, organisational demands and environmental influences were developed using most of the items categorised by Selvarajahet al.(1995) and several other items rated highly in this study. A structural model was constructed to explain the relationship in excellence in leadership.Findings: – In all, 249 managers, from the three main ethnic groups: Chinese, Indians and Malays participated in this research. The findings suggest that ethnic differences are not strong determinants of managerial values in organisations in Singapore. However, gender is seen as a differentiating factor in the behavioural values of Singapore managers.Research limitations/implications: – This study is purely an exploratory study and the size of the sample is not large enough to create purposeful causal relationships. Certainly the effect of ethnicity on the study should be explored further with a larger sample.Practical implications: – Singapore is a highly globalised country that attracts international investments. Statistics in Singapore clearly suggests that there is a sharp increase in women managers in employment. Therefore, understanding the changing behavioural values of managers of both sexes are important for a foreigner engaging with Singapore nationals.Originality/value: – This is the first study that looks at behavioural values of Singapore managers with regard to leadership excellence. The masculinity-femininity dimension is pronounced in the gender split.