It is very important to understand how seniority culture in Thailand affects international companies in order to adjust behavior and culture accordingly. Thus, this study will examine the influences of Thai seniority culture on the work environment in an international company. KEYWORDS: Seniority culture/Seniority culture in Thailand/Corporate culture/Work culture/Thai culture/Global company in Thailand.
Therefore, this research will address the impacts of Thai seniority culture on the work environment in an international company.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This can lead to paternalistic management, and organizational attitudes will be governed by formal behavior with a hierarchical and controlled flow of information. Traditional Thai values, such as seniority system, Kreng-jai, nepotism, avoiding conflict and saving face, create workplace problems in the organization that can lead to misunderstandings, inappropriate practices and misinterpretations in the organization, and can lead to unfair or unethical practices. management situations. For example, the company may need to promote a senior staff who will stay in the organization for ten years, even if there is a young, enthusiastic employee with proven performance and teamwork who has been in the company for three years, or a manager may promote a manager. unqualified subordinate because he is the son of a former manager, which is the situation caused by Kantanyu Katawethi or reciprocal favors (Bun Khun).
These examples can create unfair situations for the organization, therefore the executive officer and HR must work together and propose a clear vision/direction in the organization. Despite some unfair situations created by the traditional Thai values, some of the traditional Thai values are also valuable and should be maintained in the society as well as the workplace in order to maintain a good relationship, harmony, team spirit and trust. establish. Top management personnel must be good role models in preserving traditional values, while strengthening fairness, ethics and transparency in the organization.
In addition to traditional Thai values and performance values, there is an evolution of each generation, which has grown extremely fast and influenced the nature and economy of the city. The intergenerational space will increase in the existing business arena as Thailand evolves into an aging society. It is not only about people and processes, but also technology is driving this change in the world (Leistner, 2010; Edwards, 2011; and Wiriyapinit, M. 2016).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Interviewees
Interviewee A: A senior Thai employee who had worked with regional team for more than 10 years and recently moved to work locally 3 years ago. He is an American who has been working with Thais for more than 10 years. He is in a senior position and has a lot of experience across many regions with a focus on Asia Pacific, Japan and China.
Interviewee G: A Thai manager who has worked in many companies in Asia Pacific, Japan and China for nearly 20 years. He did not have the background in this company and there are many seniors from the co-founder era during his time in this company. Interviewee H: A Thai management leader who has a close relationship with the seniors in the co-founder era.
Interview and Questionnaire Questions
- General Education Experience
- Employee Assessment and Job experience
- Special question for senior employees
Q4: When you first joined this company, was seniority culture an obstacle and how did it make your job more difficult. Q7: Do you generally think that an international company promotes its employees based on performance or seniority or years of service. Is the promotion criterion in the headquarters or other countries different from the promotion criterion in Thailand.
Question 8: Do you think it is easy to make changes in working relationships between older and younger people in Thailand? Two interviews were group discussions with 2-3 colleagues because they have close relationships and the same level of work. Fortunately, I joined the company when the company only had 80 people, so I can communicate directly with everyone at every level, and everyone welcomed me to interview them.
DATA ANALYSIS
The Backgound of The Seniority Culture That Respondents Experienced in Their Lives
They help each other and live together in the same house and those seniors would have more roles and responsibilities than younger students. However, he did not have that experience because he spent 8 hours studying, 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours working during his university years. Therefore, he has less experience of seniority in his life due to the nature of people in the United States who do not call other people as family members, and they usually shake hands in greeting regardless of their age.
The university where Respondent E, G and H graduated had a freshman welcome activity, and they all agreed that it was a good activity to force the junior people to respect senior people by 'wai' and they like ' naming an older brother/sister, which can create unity among freshmen and seniors. The unit also means that the students also help each other in their studies and future work opportunities.
The Seniority Culture at Work
- The respondents’ experience on seniority culture at work
- Evidences of seniority culture on job promotion, feedback, and award
Respondent D said that her male boss is a very aggressive person and always thinks that his idea is the best. Respondent E is in the same generation as me and this company is his first job. This environment also made it difficult to work in the company, as he is a salesman and needs the support of a pre-sales engineer.
Respondent G indicated that he was promoted to be a senior executive after joining this company in the Thailand branch for a while, and he was opposed by employees who had been with the company longer than him. Seniority is not just about age, but also how long you have been with the company. Respondents A and B, they shared that promotion and award in this company are not much about seniority, but about personality.
Respondent B said that he has been working very hard for the past 3 years, but his boss keeps awarding the boss's favorite person every single year. Respondent F shared that this company used to have a systemic criteria for a promotion, feedback and award 10 years ago, but does not have the same system today. Respondent E, G and H shared that this company has a clear KPI which can be achieved by achieving targets.
How to Deal with Seniority Issues at Work
This is a compromise, as the company has a clear KPI system, but some positions still require seniority, and the international company aligns with the Thai tradition of seniority culture. I usually don't get support from anyone in the company and I just work to the best of my ability.” Respondent F said that he tried to prove his knowledge and efficiency in order to be accepted by the seniors in the organization.
Based on his experience, he would be acceptable to the seniors in the organization as he had already proven his abilities. Respondent G said that he never gets that kind of feedback on seniority issues in the company, and his case is such a special outlier. He said he is always open to hearing any feedback on seniority issues and feels that issues should be resolved on a case-by-case basis and there is still no solid process to improve it.
The most notable feedback is from the juniors as shown in the above result from respondent B, C, D and E, but some information from seniors may not be a genuine point of view. For example, some seniors said that they want to open their minds and accept ideas or comments from everyone, but they actually want to appear more open-minded in research. Therefore, these 2 main problems with seniority in the organization are about promotion/feedback/price and open communication.
RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
Conclusion
But the culture of seniority can create more distance between the young and the old when the old try to use their power, such as giving feedback, awards and promotion. Seniority can play an important role and influence older people to favor personal preferences, which can have a negative impact on people who feel it is unfair. Sometimes, older people simply cut off young people and make them stop sharing their ideas with complaints and offer less support.
Juniors respond to this situation with silence and avoid sharing ideas, which reflects close communication and creates stress and pressure in the workplace for juniors. This situation not only creates problems in the workplace, but also slows business development. In the international company in Thailand, we also have the seniority culture in terms of close communication and unfair feedback, promotion and award.
Although the international company has Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that clearly measures competence with the goal achievement in the sales department, but it is still not quite the same KPI used in international companies, it is influenced by Thai norms and culture.
Recommendation
- Direction and vision
- Encourage more activities
- Coaching, community and club
Then we can organize a meeting to share experiences between juniors and seniors after improvement. Allow the younger ones to host the activity, get the older ones to support but discourage them from leading as the young people have to make the activity successful in their own new ways. HR may need to spend some time surveying all employees about unfair situations resulting from seniority culture.
It's good to get the feedback from this group so we can start coaching a small group of management level employees to learn their expectations on juniors and their perspectives on juniors. Furthermore, the trainer can recommend how to improve the relationship between seniors and juniors to create better workplace environment. We can easily apply these recommendations in the organization, but the sensitive part is how to refine them to suit each personality.
This can be further researched, for example, some people feel stronger in seniority culture, while some people feel less confident when they are in seniority culture. Open communication in seniority culture should not be seen as disrespectful, and there should not be silence among colleagues. Workplace environment will be able to improve when all people in the organization support each other and have open communication that can professionally overcome the disadvantages of seniority culture in international workplace.
Thai seniority system in the organizational context and preliminary discussion on its potential impact on knowledge management.
