Management style change: a Singapore prespective

This dissertation studies factors that influence and have led to changes in Singaporean management style. Since the country’s independence in 1965, management style of Singaporean managers continued to evolve. The development of Singaporean management is attributed to a number of factors which include government developmental policies for the country. Among them, the promotion of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Singapore, attracting multinational companies (MNC) and hosting their regional headquarters, and also becoming home to government lead companies (GLC) which run successfully and have endeavoured into foreign countries.

This study of the changes and influences in Singapore’s management styles adopts the convergent-divergent process model for management in Asia as devised by Chaterjee and Nankervis (2006) as its frame. The model comprises of five dimensions the Global Imperatives, Regional Imperatives, Contemporary Societal Context, Managerial Culture and Trends and Transition. The developments have brought with them global and regional imperatives which have exerted pressure on local ways of management, influencing the country’s educational system to tackle these developments. They have also subjected Singapore’s society to global values which have influenced established customs.

Through the application of the model, five factors of the Singaporean management styles which have undergone change are identified and analysed in this dissertation.
They are the Entrepreneurship Spirit, Relationship Network to Individualistic Traits, Manpower Qualification and Learning, Government Interventionism and Foreign
Talent Recruitment. Implications of these changes in foreign managers working in Singapore are also discussed.