Managing change in Asian business: A comparison between Chinese educated and English educated entrepreneurs in Singapore

Abstract

Against the background of the current rapidly changing business environment, the article examines the organizational change management behaviour of the owner-managers of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore. The analysis of survey data is aimed at ascertaining whether there are any differences between Chinese and English educated small (ethnic Chinese) businessmen in terms of Change Management (CM), a dichotomy that is of great historical and politico-cultural significance in Singapore. The survey data show that there are indeed differences between the subgroups (eg with regard to the initiation of a more participatory people management style) but these variations turned out to be far less pronounced than expected. Access to information and actionable managerial knowledge appears to be a key precursor to the various change management approaches used by both groups. Chinese educated businessmen in particular seem to be somewhat disadvantaged in this respect, as modern change management literature is still largely only published in English.