Leadership style of construction managers in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s construction industry is one of the most dynamic in the world and the Territory has a remarkable record of completing projects to budget in seemingly impossible times. Despite the fact that 97’% of the population is Chinese, the Territory remains under British Colonial rule (until 1 July 1997) making Hong Kong a meeting point for Western and Eastern cultures. This mixture of cultures raises interesting managerial issues and an issue particularly relevant to construction project management is leadership behaviour style. This paper studies the leadership styles of Hong Kong Chinese construction managers (by means of Fiedler’s Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scale and House’s styles grid) and compares these styles with those of their western counterparts. Hong Kong managers are found to be much more relationship-orientated than their western counterparts. The issue of the effect of situational variables on the style adopted is explored. © 1993, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.