My talk on Research Seminar organised by CCCU Business School on 6th January, 2016. This talk was focussed on why managers juggle with many roles, and what influences their daily practices in context of contemporary Mongolian management practices.

1. Exploring plural
perspectives in
Mongolian
management: why
managers have many
roles
Sara Manalsuren
Paper for
Research Seminar Series
CCCU Business School
6th January 2016, Canterbury Christ Church University

2. Classic, yet not fully answered questions in management studies:
• What managers do?
• What managers ‘really’ do?
• How do we understand managerial work?
Theoretical debates
RATIONALE
Western/Classic Theories Non-Western / Exotic Theories
‘Classic Four Roles ‘ (Fayol, 1916/30)
‘Nature of managerial work’ (Mintzberg ,
1973)
Convergence-Divergence-Crossvergence
(Ralston, 1997)
Indigenous Management Theories
• Guanxi (Tsui, 1996)
• Blat (Ledeneva, 1998)
• Dharma (Gopinath, 1998)
• Ubuntu (Jackson, 2013)

3. Research Questions
• How is management understood? (Mental image)
• How is management practised? (Reality)
• What influences practitioners’ understanding and practising the
management?
In order to understand managerial practices in context of Mongolia.
Keywords
Indigenous management, managerial role, ethnography, Mongolia
THIS RESEARCH EXPLORES

4. Nomadic Country
(before 1921)
 13th century, Mongol
Empire
 Shamanism and
Buddhism
 Monarchy
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY: MONGOLIA
Socialist Country
(1921-1991)
 Central Government
control
 Great Purge (1937-
39)
 Population increase
Free Market Economy
(1992-present)
 Parliamentary
constitutional Republic
 GDP growth 17% in
2011
 Mineral deposit of 30
trillion USD for 3 million
people
 Potential to become the
next Qatar by 2050

5. Western Approaches
What managers do?
 Nature of managerial work
(Mintzberg, 1973/2010)
What influences managerial
work?
 ‘Three levels of culture’ (Schein,
1985/2010)
 VoC
 Institutional Theories
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Exotic Approach: Indigenous
management concept
Questions the suitability of using
western managerial practices in non-
western countries in the 1990s
(Marsden, 1991).
Key influences:
 Local culture (Tsui, 2004)
 Local environment (Jackson, 2013)

6. THEORETICAL GAPS IN IMC
Culture
a. Liquidity of Culture
b. Historical,
social and economic
changes
Management
What is notion
of
management
in IMC? (over-
reliance in
Western
concepts
Indigenous
manageme
nt Concept

7. PROBLEMATISING INDIGENOUS
MANAGEMENT
Inside
What is notion of
management?
“Nature of
managerial
work”
(Mintzberg,
1973; 2010)
Outside
a. Are things
changing?
b. What are
changing?
c. What are not
changing/slowly
changing?
“Convergence-
Divergence-
Crossvergence”
C-D-C Framework
(Ralston et, al. 1997; 2007)
What is
Mongolian
Management?

8. METHODOLOGY
Trafford and Lesham’s (2012: 95) “Levels of thinking about research” model to demonstrate chosen methods
Auditing progress
Paradigms: Interpretive
Research Approaches: Inductive
Methodology: Ethnography
Methods:
Qualitative interviews
Shadowing
Visual materials

9. WHO are Local Managers?
WHAT they do?
• How do they manage their daily job, duties, rituals, and other roles?
WHY they do certain manifestations?
• Cultural Influences
• Social Influences
HOW MANAGEMENT UNDERSTOOD IN
MONGOLIA
Mongolian Non – Mongolian
Older /‘Socialist’ managers Younger / ‘Post-socialist’
managers
Foreign / expat managers

10. PARTICIPANTS' PROFILE
Mongolian managers Managers (20)
Gender Male (17) Female (3)
Public /Private Sector Public (5) Private (15)
Work experience at management level Average 8 years
Member of political party (ies) 14 out of 20
Outside work activities 18 out of 20
Educated in Mongolia/ abroad Locally (5) Abroad (15)
Participated at management trainings Attended (8)

11. PARTICIPANTS' PROFILE
Non-Mongolian managers Managers (15)
Gender Male (8) Female (7)
Public /Private Sector Public (1) Private (14)
Work experience at management level in Mongolia Average 3 years
Worked other Asian countries Yes (8) No (7)
Outside work activities (voluntary, charities etc) Yes (4) No (11)
Number of members in their team Average 10

12. UNDERSTANDING OF AN EFFECTIVE
MANAGEMENT
Differences
People vs Profit
Hierarchies and Networks
Controlling vs Empowering
Planning vs Experimenting
Privacy vs Transparency
Similarities
Adaptability
Training need
Finding the right
people

13. WHAT MANAGERS REALLY DO?
• Internal Balancing
• External balancing
• Learning by doing
• Creating employees
• Care for others
• Controller
• Giving pressure and
fear
• Parenting
• Building trust
• To get things done
• Representing
Networking Leading
BalancingCreating

14. WHY: INFLUENCES IN MANAGING IN
MONGOLIA
Culture
Nomadism
Socialism
Capitalism
Society
Workforce
Education
Technology

15. NOMADISM: VISTA METAPHOR
Artefacts in the offices that represents the interrelationship between
landscape and humans: My mountain

16. SOCIALISM: EGALITARIANISM
• Respect to Socialist
heroes, who brought
today
• Carry on Socialist
values and legacy
• Co-workers’ culture

17. CAPITALISM: NEW CHALLENGES AND
OPPORTUNITIES

18. Workforce
• Younger workforce, who have overseas experiences
• Repatriates, 100K+
• Working with expatriate managers from more than 35 countries
Education
• 101 universities, (16 public, 80 private and 5 foreign branches)
• 178, 295 graduates, including 38,105 business and management grads
• Curriculum and faculty still 50%+ Soviet style
Technology
• Networking
• Customer Perception
• Demand to improve skills
SOCIAL INFLUENCES

19. Model shaped by deep-rooted nomadic values, socialist and capitalist economic ideologies,
all co-existing in contemporary Mongolian management practices.
MONGOLIAN MANAGEMENT
Nomadism-
Divergent
Socialism-
Converged
Capitalism-
Converged
Mongolian
Management-
Cross-verged

20. CONCLUSION: MANAGEMENT
PRACTICE IS CONTEXT-DEPENDANT
Management
Practices
Economic
context
Cultural
context
Social
context
Political
context

21. QUESTIONS &
COMMENTS
ARE
WELCOME
Sara Manalsuren
smanal@essex.ac.uk
6th January 2016.

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