ABSTRACT
The focus of this study is to explore how Confucianism can positively influence the leadership in organisations in Malaysia. A practical and theoretical understanding of the influence of Confucianism philosophy on Chinese corporate leadership will not only contribute to the body of knowledge of leadership studies, but also provide a different perspective on the understanding of the intricacies and complexities of Chinese corporate leadership. Hence, two interdependent areas of interests, that is, the practice and theory in the study corporate leadership, within the framework of an understanding of leadership behavior actions, involving knowledge and understanding of Confucianism philosophy, including values, ethics, morals and a review of leadership assumptions, within the context of Chinese corporate leaders in Malaysia, consciously or unconsciously applying their knowledge and understanding of Confucianism philosophy to execute vision and implement change in their organizations to be examined. The inductive analytic design employed to answer the research questions is organized into four sections, namely: (a) sampling-selection of respondent, (b) instrumentation, (c) data collection, and (d) data analysis. In this study, the findings indicated that the evaluated understanding of Confucianism Philosophy on aspects of leadership is of paramount importance in achieving people harmony and organisational performance. Based on the results of the enumerated data, the findings of this study filled the research gap by exhibiting that Confucianism values of ren, chung yung and morality displayed were the most important values in influencing organisational leadership actions. It is with the deep and evaluated knowledge and understanding of these Confucianism values that lead to series of transformative action within the Chinese company in Malaysia.
Keywords: Confucianism, knowledge & understanding, corporate leadership, analytic, induction