Job satisfaction of the Chinese and Javanese managers in Indonesia: The role of ethnic culture

Abstract

Considerable research attention has been devoted to study how culture influences control systems' impact on employee behavior in organizations. Many of these studies focus on national culture. But, national culture may not fully capture the cultural impacts on important organizational aspects such as control systems and employee behavior, because not all nations or national cultures are homogenous. Many national cultures comprise diverse or ethnic cultures. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact (if any) of an ethnic culture on control systems and employee behavior. Prior studies overlooked this issue. This study, conducted in a field setting in Indonesia, investigated the impact of ethnic (Chinese and Javanese) cultures on managers' behavior. A total of 104 department managers participated in the study. The results revealed that managers' ethnic cultural difference was reflected in their group difference with respect to personality type, level of participation in budgeting, and job satisfaction.