Introduction

The relationship between culture and organisational culture is officially recognised through the study of Hofstede (1980). In this research, IBM workers in 40 countries were researched to find out four dimensions to outline a nation’s culture. As a result, Hofstede (1980 p43) considered culture as “the collective mental programming that people have in common; the programming that is different from that of other groups, tribes, regions minorities or majorities, or nations”. As such, a national culture has been firmly regarded as a principal component that influences people’s thinking and behaviours. Lord et al. (2001) indicated that culture is of considerable significance in cross-cultural management and organisational culture. However, the main argument is the extent to which theories created in one nation can adapt to another. More detail, most cultural and organisational culture theories have been created in the USA, where it is defined as low scores in power distance and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede 2011). In contrast, two dimensions have high scores in the Asia region, such as China and Vietnam. Thereby, the impact of these theories on these two countries is questionable.

The objective of this cross-cultural research is threefold. Firstly, it compares the organisational culture in Vietnam and China based on task and relationship orientations. Secondly, it enlarges the empirical studies of cross-national organisational culture and identifies the unique characteristic of these two countries in the global sector. Finally, this study distributes empirical results for domestic and worldwide superiors who collaborate with people in China and Vietnam.

Comparing the organisational culture in Vietnam with China is necessary for some reasons. These two countries prolong the active cooperation that increases their economy. According to the Vietnam Ministry of Trade and Industry, China was among the top export markets of Vietnam with $12 billion in 2010. In return, Tran (2013) indicated that potential and fast developing South-East Asian countries have been contributing to a significantly principal part in China’s trade policy. For example, Vietnam was China’s top export market for automobile and manufacturing. In the recently worldwide economy, China is famous for easily exporting resources to foreign markets. The research of Holst and Weiss (2004) in emerging countries concluded that China was the top export market with $593.326 million and the top import market with $561.229 million. Two countries celebrated the 60th anniversary of the cooperation and signed the bilateral association investment in April 2017, which could bolster up the bilateral relationship.

Another reason for weighing the differences between Vietnam and China is that there is no conducted research on the similarity and dissimilarity in organisational culture between the two countries. Thereby, this study aims to fill the gap and supports academic authors to deep understand the organisational culture in Vietnam and China. Practitioners can benefit from the paper as it explores the proper organisational culture in these two countries.

The structure of the research is organised as below. The next section will reveal a literature review on Chinese and Vietnamese culture, the meaning of organisational culture and its dimensions of task and relationship orientations. The methodology that provides empirical study will be issued in the third sector. The following section will express the discussion, recommendation and limitation, and the last section will overview the conclusion of the research.

Literature review

The Chinese and Vietnamese Culture

The People’s Republic of China, or China, in short, is located in East Asia. This is the most populous country in the world, with a population of 1.4 billion. The official language is Chinese (Mandarin), and English has been recently the “second language”. The country has 22 provinces and 4 megacities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, and two particular areas of Macau and Hong Kong. China has been structured by the Communist Party of China since 1921. After an economic reform in 1978, this country has recently become the world’s fastest developing economy. China overcame Germany as the world’s third-biggest economy in 1982 and overcame Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy in 1992 (Allen et al. 2005). Chinese culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world, with a history of a thousand years ago. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are regarded as three religious systems that historically organised Chinese culture. There are officially 56 ethnic groups in China, with Han Chinese being the dominant group. Each ethnic group has its conventional norms, customs and values. For instance, different marriage conventions are discovered in various minority groups (Liu 1995).

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, known as Vietnam, is a country in Southeast Asia region. The country has a population of 97.8 million people, and two-thirds of the population has been living in rural areas. A large number of Vietnamese people ranges from 15 to 64 years of age (approximately 70%). The country has 58 provinces and 5 megacities such as Ho Chi Minh and Can Tho in the South, Da Nang in the Central, and Hanoi (the capital) and Hai Phong in the North. Vietnamese is the primary language, while English has been “the second language” since the economic reform in 1986. The Vietnamese government is regarded as a communist state (Central Intelligence Agency 2012).

The Vietnamese culture is a complicated structure with a long and traditional history that has been shaped and transformed over a thousand years ago (Nguyen, Boehmer and Mujtaba 2012b). Due to being colonised by China, France and United States for over thousand years, Vietnamese culture has been significantly mixed and blended by many cultural characteristics of these four countries. As the North of Vietnam was invaded by China (more than one thousand years) and France (one hundred years), its cultural region has been influenced by Chinese and France cultures. Also, through its history of being colonised by United States for a few decades ago, the South of Vietnam’s culture has been impacted by cultural traits from that country (Karnow 1994). Altogether, Vietnam is considered as a high-context culture where individuals are moulded in cultural features of long-term orientation, high collectivism and power distance (Hofstede 2001).

The below section weighs the differences between the cultural dimensions of Vietnam and China based on Hofstede (2001) study as follows:

  • Power Distance (PDI) indicates that people in societies are unequal. It highlights the degree of which individuals in a culture agree with social position, power divergence and how they admire status and ranks.

  • Individualism/Collectivism (IDV) expresses the level of interdependence a society preserves among its people. In individualist societies, the relationship among people is not secured as they are required for dependence and value themselves and their relatives only. They tend to work individually, positively and confidently. In collectivist societies, individuals refer to have a close relationship and trust in group cohesion. As being in a community, they are believed to be protected and that the community will support them in return for their loyalty. As such, they have a passion for working in groups, which lead to less positive and decisive.

  • Masculinity/Femininity (MAS) reveals the extent to which a country emphasises on feminine or masculine characteristics. It concerns the social gender issue in a country. A high result means that a country immerses in a masculine society that highlights contention and success. In contrast, a low result means that a country tends to a feminine society that emphasises interdependent relationship, respect others and life balance.

  • Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) concerns the extent to which individuals in a country deal with threat and ambiguity. It indicates how significantly individuals believe that they can handle with problems in the future.

  • Long Term Orientation (LTO) displays the level of which society highlights behaviour showing high moral standards towards the future, such as perseverance and savings. It displays whether individuals in a country value short-term or long-term orientations.

According to Fig. 1, Vietnam and China have almost the same scores on the Hofstede (2001) five cultural dimensions. Figure 1 displays that the score of power distance in China (80) is slightly higher than that in Vietnam (70). This means that Chinese people deal with inequalities more than Vietnamese people. The results also indicate that though both countries respect social order, it is more hierarchical in China than in Vietnam. Chinese and Vietnam employees prefer being controlled by managers and communication between them is indirect and formal (Hofstede 2011). Vietnam and China have the same score (20) on the Individualism/Collectivism dimension, which means that both countries are collectivist society. It indicates that the people in two nations immerse in a close-knit social system as they prefer to work toward group benefit rather than individual’s goals (Parks and Vu 1994).

Fig. 1
figure 1

The China Cultural Dimensions in comparison with Vietnam. Source: Hofstede (2011)

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In the third dimension, Vietnam has a lower score (40) than that of China (66). It confirms that Vietnam is regarded as a feminine society while Chinese society is significantly masculine. In China, highly masculinity society blended with high power distance tend to aggressive contention at the group degree rather than the individual degree. In contrast, Vietnamese society refers to sensitive, prioritise the others and concerns for the quality of life. Vietnam and China have the same low score (30) on Uncertainty Avoidance dimension, which displays that the two countries are two of the least uncertainty avoiding nations in the world. In two societies, people are easy to deal with “out of the norms” behaviours, thinking and accept ambiguous facts and execute issues by compromise and adaptability. It indicates that both countries prefer cooperating each other to achieve consensus and reconciliation is the best way to execute conflicts.

In the last dimension, China has a slightly higher score (87) than that of Vietnam (80). This confirms that two countries have directions toward long term vision as they value the worth of know-how, accuracy, loyalty and rectitude. Within two societies, long term alliance is the principal factor for business and management success. They also have high regard on traditional values and display a requirement for norms and value truth as an instruction.

Organisational Culture

Organisational culture is the working environment structured from the association of workers in the corporation. It includes core assumptions, shared values, norms, beliefs and attitudes in the workplace (Schein 1999; Lund 2003). As Deal and Kennedy (1999) pointed out, organisational culture is regarded as a level of definitions created inside a corporation but impacted by social, historical and economic aspects. According to Abdul Rashid et al. (2003), organisational culture derives from leadership and is strengthened by conglomerated learning of people in the organisation. As such, it can organise the thinking and behaviours of the organisational member.

Some research has indicated the multi-faceted traits of organisational culture and a shared value within members (Zhu et al. 2009). Denison and Mishra (1995) stressed four cultural characteristics as adaptability, values, attitudes and consciousness of a mission. As Schein (2004) pointed out, organisational culture is divided into the degree of artefacts, beliefs and underlying assumptions. Sinha (2000) considered attitudes, connections, technology, context, procedure and visions as the core constructions of organisational culture. Cameron and Quinn (2011) expressed competing values framework to evaluate organisational culture, which can be categorised into: Clan (focuses on internal preservation with flexibility), hierarchy (concentrates on internal preservation with a requirement for management and steadiness) adhocracy (focuses on external positioning with a high level of flexibility and personality) and market (concentrates on external preservation with a requirement for management and steadiness). As such, several authors targeted two aspects of organisational culture, such as association among members (Cousins et al. 1994; Fullan 1992) and goals fulfilment (Murphy 1991). This research aims to open the scope of these aspects as it categories organisational culture into task and relationship orientations.

Task and Relationship Orientations

Organisational culture is one of the primary approaches to managerial context. Denison and Mishra (1995) believed that active management is based on how leaders adopt the right organisational culture and this issue can be studied. Schein (1999) revealed that when superiors are succeeded in creating proper organisational culture, their subordinates are incredibly motivated and expertly performed. The two common types of organisational culture displayed in this research are task and relationship orientations, often regarded as initiating structure and consideration, respectively (Fleishman 1967; Halpin and Winer 1957).

One of the critical research in two orientations was conducted by several scholars at the University of Ohio State in the 1940s. The research divides the behaviours of superiors into initiating structure (task orientation) and consideration (relationship orientation). Initiating structure displays the extent to which a leader creates an organisational culture that focuses on task attainment, contention and performance success (Judge et al. 2004; Mujtaba et al. 2010). Consideration refers to how a leader organises an organisational culture that values concern and approves of employees such as giving praise, recognition and concerning for welfare. In literature, initiating structure calls for goal performance, so the organisational culture links to job effectiveness. In contrast, consideration deals with employees’ satisfaction, so leaders are expected to create empathy in organisational culture.

Judge et al. (2004) displayed that the connection between initiating structure and consideration is not always independent and separated from each other. In many situations, the coordination between two factors varies based on the circumstances. Their study regards consideration as significantly concerning employees’ satisfaction, whereas initiating structure is significantly linked to task performance. However, their study also indicates that consideration displays a positive relation in performance as well. Altogether, Mujtaba et al. (2010) concluded that initiating structure and consideration are not interactively unique as a corporation can be low or high on both, or low on one and high on the other.

The main question for this research is to explore whether Vietnamese and Chinese organisational cultures are different in either task or relationship orientations. Another determinant of this research is to identify whether there is any divergence between the two nations in either gender or age on these scores. The specific hypothesis for this research is as follows:

  • Hypothesis 1: Vietnamese respondents have task score that is significantly different from Chinese counterparts.

  • Hypothesis 2: There is a significant difference in the task scores between male and female respondents.

  • Hypothesis 3: There is a significant difference in the task scores among age ranges of respondents.

  • Hypothesis 4: There is significant interaction between gender and country in the task scores.

  • Hypothesis 5: There is significant interaction between age and country in the task scores.

  • Hypothesis 6: Vietnamese respondents have a relationship score that is significantly different from Chinese counterparts.

  • Hypothesis 7: There is a significant difference in the relationship scores between male and female respondents.

  • Hypothesis 8: There is a significant difference in the relationship scores among age ranges of respondents.

  • Hypothesis 9: There is significant interaction between gender and country in the relationship scores.

  • Hypothesis 10: There is significant interaction between age and country in the relationship scores.

Study Methodology and Analysis

Vadi et al. (2002) Organisational Culture Questionnaire is selected to collect general information of a respondent regarding task-oriented and relationship-oriented styles. A score of 1 means “Totally disagree” and a score of 5 means “Totally agree” with the respondent regarding their organisational culture. Convenient sampling method was used to choose the respondents in this research. The target sample was Vietnamese and Chinese who were above 18 years of age. The survey was conducted as a hard copy that could be sent to the respondent directly by the author. The informed agreement, research clarification and method of confident maintenance and particular guidelines on how to conduct the survey was attached. Majority of Vietnamese respondents were from Hanoi (the capital) and Ho Chi Minh cities. As a result, 276 surveys were collected from Vietnamese respondents. For the Chinese sample, hard versions were sent to working adults in several provinces including Hangzhou, Shanghai and Yangzhou. As such, 222 returned questionnaires were conducted by the Chinese respondents. Altogether, 498 conducted questionnaires were adopted for this research.

Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics of the respondent. The Vietnamese sample had 134 male respondents (48.5%) and 142 female respondents (51.5%) whereas the Chinese sample included 114 male respondents (51.3%) and 108 female respondents (48.7%). Table 1 also displays that the Vietnamese respondents were younger than the Chinese respondents. Specifically, the majority of Vietnamese sample was in the 18–29 age range (113 respondents) while only 47 Chinese respondents were from this age range. Two countries had almost the same age range of 30–39 with 112 Vietnamese and 111 Chinese respondents. Altogether, the majority of respondents were in the age range of 30–39 (223 respondents), followed by 18–29 years of age (160 respondents), 40–49 years of age (94 respondents) and 50 and older age range (21 respondents).

Table 1 Descriptive statistics (N = 498)
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Results and Discussions

Univariate analysis of variance (Two-way ANOVA) is used when there are several independent variables and one dependent variable. Here the study explores two organisational culture types, and each type is one dependent variable, either task or relationship orientations, whereas independent variables are age and gender. The results will be discussed separately in the below sections.

Levene’s Test of Homogeneity

Levene’s Test is adopted to explore whether the samples display equal variances, which is called variances homogeneity. Before testing any statistics on the data, it is assumed that the samples indicate equal variances. Levene’s test is selected to challenge these assumptions (Gastwirth et al. 2009). Table 2 reveals significant scores for both orientation styles (p < 0.05). Thereby, it confirms that the dependent variables across the two orientations are equal.

Table 2 Levene’s test of homogeneity
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Task Orientation Scores

As displayed in Table 3, the mean results of Vietnamese respondents for task-oriented styles (M = 7.552) appeared to be higher than that of Chinese respondents (M = 5.449). The difference was totally significant (F = 98.2, p = 0.000), as displayed in Table 4. Thereby, Hypothesis 1 could be supported as Vietnamese respondents have task scores that are significantly different from Chinese counterparts. Also displayed in Table 4, there was no significant difference in the task scores between male and female respondents (F = 0.365, p = 0.546). Thereby, Hypothesis 2 could not be supported. Male and female respondents did not have a significant difference in task orientation score. Similarly, there was no significant difference in the task scores among the age range (F = 1.17, p = 0.323). Thereby, Hypothesis 3 could not be supported. There was no significant difference in the task scores among age ranges of respondents.

Table 3 Descriptive statistics
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Table 4 Tests of between-subjects effects
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Table 4 indicated no significant relationship between country and gender (F = 1.36, p = 0.243) and country and age (F = 0.830, p = 0.478). Thereby, Hypothesis 4 and 5 could not be supported. A logical description of a statistical difference between independent variables or a relationship between a group of variables is to examine the observed power result. According to Table 4, there were 9.3% and 36.9% opportunities of finding a statistical difference among the gender and age scores for task orientation. Also, there would only be 21.5% and 23% chances of searching for a connection between country and gender, and country and age on task orientation scores in this sample.

Relationship Score

As displayed in Table 5, the mean results for relationship orientation of Vietnamese respondents (M = 5.783) appeared to be higher than that of Chinese respondents (M = 4.583). The difference was significant (F = 15.3, p = .000), as displayed in Table 4. Thereby, hypothesis 6 could be supported. Vietnamese respondents had relationship scores that were significantly different from Chinese corporations. As also displayed in Table 6, there was no statistical difference between male and female (F = 0.09, p = 0.924). Thereby, hypothesis 7 could not be supported. There was no significant difference in the relationship scores between male and female respondents. Similarly, there was no significant difference in the relationship scores among the age range (F = 0.699, p = 0.593). Thereby, Hypothesis 8 could not be supported. There was no significant difference in the relationship scores among age ranges of respondents.

Table 5 Descriptive statistics
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Table 6 Tests of between-subjects effects
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Table 6 also indicated no statistically significant relationship between nationality (Vietnam and China) and gender (F = 0.771, p = 0.511), and nationality and age range (F = 1.25, p = 0.288). Thereby, hypotheses 9 and 10 could not be supported. According to Table 6, there were 5.1% and 22.7% opportunities of finding a statistical difference among the gender and age scores for relationship orientation. Also, there would only be 21.6% and 33.7% chances of searching for the connection between country and gender, and country and age on relationship orientation scores in this sample.

Discussion and Limitation

This study indicated that compared to the Vietnamese corporations, Chinese counterparts are less task-oriented and relationship-oriented. This study also displayed that no differences were explored between two countries in task and relationship orientations in terms of gender and age. It can be confirmed from these findings that Vietnamese organisations are more task-oriented and relationship-oriented than Chinese organisations regardless of age and gender. Gender, age and nationality are not significantly correlated in both orientations. This is a positive result for Vietnamese corporations because though being regarded as a collective and high relationship-focused society, this country is also focused on getting the job completed. Vietnamese respondents accept tasks that are ordered by their superiors, adhering to the rule and regulation, and attempting to work effectively. The critical recommendation in setting up a business in Vietnam is to create an organisational culture that values task fulfilment, contention and success.

As the Vietnamese corporations are more relationship oriented than Chinese corporations, their relationship orientation falls in the average score (M = 5.783). This can be concluded that the result is somewhat different from Hofstede (2001) as the author considered Vietnam as a country with collectivism being in the high range and feminine being in the medium range. From these scores, Hofstede concluded that Vietnam is a cooperative society that values “in-group” connection, group preference and consensus. The explanation would be that under the economic pressure, Vietnamese corporation attempts to balance two orientations within its organisational culture. According to Bass and Avolio (1993), while a relationship orientation relates to employee satisfaction, task orientation links to group achievement. Thereby, it is assumed that Vietnamese corporations are expected to balance the two orientations and try to create friendly and cooperative working environments.

Chinese corporations have a higher score on task orientation (M = 5.449) than relationship orientation (M = 4.583). This concludes that, with the 30 years of reform policy, there has placed enormous pressures on competition in the market which, in turn, has appeared to be the orientation toward task achievement in Chinese corporations. Similar to the Vietnam case, this finding is opposite to the research of Hofstede (1980, 2001) about China culture. The author indicated that the Chinese traditional culture is moulded by Confucianism and immersed in decades of communist ideology and centralised state economy, which has a considerable impact on the organisational level. Thereby, Chinese organisational culture is assumed to value “in the group” decision making, consensus and preference in network relationship. However, China’s recent economic reform has been concerning an enormous influence in its organisational culture, which towards goal fulfilment, contention and success. The finding reflects the recent situation of China’s diverse and transitional traits, economically, politically and socially.

It is often concluded that individuals from the same cultural traits such as Confucianism and collectivism have a similar organisational culture. However, this research confirmed that nations with same cultural characteristics, i.e. collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and high power distance, such as China and Vietnam, organisational cultures can still be sharply divergent and these divergences can affect their subordinate behaviours and attitudes in the working environment. Worldwide leaders and practitioners should understand this difference and avoid the bias of the same organisational culture based on similar cultural characteristics. This study also confirmed that Chinese and Vietnamese corporations have different values on task and relationship orientations as Vietnam respondents revealed much higher scores on two orientations than Chinese respondents. It is assumed that China’s economic development was earlier than Vietnam counterpart, so Chinese corporations have been familiar with task oriented and thus increased active management abilities to balance between task and relationship orientations. Thereby, leaders and superiors in Vietnam must create both clear workload and friendly network relationship to encourage task achievement and employee collaboration in their workplace. Effectively workload planning and building friendship among member in corporations can be a proficient choice. Same recommendations are introduced to China although Chinese corporations displayed a lower task-oriented and relationship-oriented than Vietnamese corporations.

Further scholars should overcome a few limitations of the current research. Firstly, the study attempts to statistically and randomly manage variables concerning the business workplace. However, a more detailed framework should be conducted to explore organisational culture in a specific industry (e.g., education, manufacturing) or particular sample (e.g., state and private sectors). Another limitation is that this study has tested only two dimensions of organisational culture, which measure the hypotheses regarding task and relationship orientations. Though two variables play principal parts in comprehending organisational culture, other factors such as market, hierarchical, clan and adhocracy cultures (Cameron and Quinn 2011) or attitudes and technology (Sinha 2000) should be studied to distribute a broad picture of the organisational culture traits, and the association between national culture and organisational culture. Finally, further research should involve other dimensions that could impact on organisational culture but was not mentioned in this research (e.g., working attitudes, organisational commitment and leadership).

Conclusion

After speculating on the organisational culture of Vietnam and China corporations, it can be concluded that Vietnamese corporations are more task-oriented and relationship-oriented than Chinese corporations. Globalisation and mixed labour force have led to an urgent requirement for superiors to create proper organisational cultures. This research succeeds in exploring the differences in organisational culture between the two Asian countries. Future researchers can collect advantage aspects from this research as it distributes more empirical findings on similarities and dissimilarities between organisational culture in Chinese and Vietnamese’s corporations. Leaders and practitioners, who come from China and Vietnam, can also receive positive outcomes from the research as it shed the lights on the real effect on setting business in these countries.