HONG KONG,
CHINA – Media OutReach – 20 December 2019 – To be a leader requires many skills, including the ability
to read and assess the emotional reactions of subordinates quickly and
accurately. This skill, also known as emotional aperture, is an important
leadership skill that allows leaders to interpret group reactions of
organizational events.

“Emotional aperture ability provides
a leader with a wealth of information about how a group is responding
emotionally to a situation, and allows her to behave appropriately and
strategically,” says Prof. Ying-yi Hong,
Choh-Ming Li Professor of Marketing of Department of Marketing at The Chinese
University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School.

In her recent research study in
collaboration with researchers at Australian Catholic University in New South
Wales and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, Prof. Hong
explores how culture affects emotional aperture.

“Accurately reading collective
emotions is particularly necessary as individuals are regularly more dependent
on accurate inferences regarding the collective’s beliefs, goals, and action
tendencies, to harmoniously navigate social life,” she says.

Prior research have shown how, given
the wide-ranging influence of collective affect, an individual’s ability to
decode the collective affect can facilitate their success in liaising, leading,
and navigating group dynamics. In a previous study, she and other
researchers found that Chinese had lower level of collective empathy toward the
2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami as compared with Americans.

However, it is not easy to interpret
collective emotional reactions.

“Unlike perceiving individual emotions,
where attention rests on a single focal target, perceiving collective emotions
requires focusing on a broader view of targets. Given the inherent subtle,
variant, and fleeting nature of emotional cues, the task of understanding the
overall affective composition of a group can be challenging,” Prof. Hong
says.

Global versus Local Processing

Human beings process information on
either the holistic view of the specific information (global) or details of
that information (local). Previous research studies have shown that people with
high global processing ability are more successful at recognising collective
emotions. Given its interdependent culture, Easterners are known to be more
affected by the emotions displayed by the surrounding people than Westerners.
In other words, Easterners’ global processing is more prevalent than their
Western counterparts. However, does it mean that Easterners are really better
at recognising collective emotions than Westerners?

To find the answer, Prof. Hong and
her collaborators tested two hypotheses in the study: First, Chinese will show
a higher level of accuracy in recognising patterns of group emotional reactions
than will North Americans. Second, the cross-cultural variability predicted in
the first hypothesis will be mediated by greater global processing exhibited
among Chinese compared with North Americans.

A total of 98 American Caucasian
undergraduate students from an American university and 79 Chinese
undergraduates who were born in mainland China from a Hong Kong university were
recruited for the study. The participants were told to report the emotional
reactions that they saw in four-person group photos, whereby some of the
persons in the photos show happiness, anger, fear or a neutral facial
expression. The four-person group photos were shown very quickly (500
mini-second) so that it was not an easy task. On the other hand, the
participants’ global versus local cognition was tested using the Navon letter
identification task in which some large letters (e.g., “F”) were made
up by some small letters (e.g., many “T”s). The participants were
asked to identify either the large or small letter as quickly and accurately as
possible. Quickly recognising the large letters requires a global processing of
the whole image, whereas quickly recognising small letters requires a local
processing of the details in the image. Therefore, the shorter reaction time in
identifying the large letters in comparison to the small letters, the more
global than local cognitive-oriented a person would be.

Cultural Differences in Recognising Collective Emotion

As predicted, the study showed that
the Chinese participants demonstrated a higher level of accuracy in recognising
group emotions than their American counterparts. However, the Chinese
participants showed a lower level of accuracy in identifying individual
emotions than did the North Americans. In addition, based on their responses in
the Navon task, the Chinese participants were more global cognitive-oriented
than their Western counterparts.

To further explore whether global
cognition plays a role in collective emotion recognition, the researchers
simulated 5,000 samples from the original data and attained a 95% confidence
interval, suggesting that the indirect effect of global cognition on collective
emotion recognition was significant. In other words, the Chinese students’
higher performance in recognising collective emotions was in fact influenced by
their higher level of global processing.

“Growing up where the emphasis
is on attending to the forest rather than the tree, it appears to shape
fundamental ways individuals see emotional reactions,” says Prof. Hong. “Our
results shows that among individuals from cultural contexts known to foster
interdependence as compared with independence, there exists a greater ability
to recognise subtle shifts in the emotional reactions of the collective.”

Future Study

Going forward, Prof. Hong says more
research on how culture interplay with psychological processes are needed in
order for human beings to have a more comprehensive understanding of how we
make sense of our world.

“This research represents the
first and initial exploration at examining evidence for cross-cultural
variability in decoding collective emotions. As such, it opens a new line of
investigation within the budding literature on collective emotion recognition
and complements the traditional focus on individual emotion recognition
processes,” says Prof. Hong.

“Moreover, based on our
findings on reading collective affect, we expect that other domains of people
perception, such as group hierarchy, group diversity and group competence, also
operate differently across different cultures,” she says, adding that
future studies will be worthwhile.

Reference:

Ying Yang, Ying-yi Hong and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Emotional Aperture Across East and West: How
Culture Shapes the Perception of Collective Affect, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
(2019).

This article was first published in the China
Business Knowledge (CBK) website by CUHK Business School: https://bit.ly/2SdJXBD.

About CUHK Business School

CUHK
Business School comprises two schools — Accountancy and Hotel and
Tourism Management — and four departments — Decision Sciences and
Managerial Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing. Established
in Hong Kong in 1963, it is the first business school to offer BBA, MBA and
Executive MBA programmes in the region. Today, the School
offers 8 undergraduate programmes and 20
graduate programmes including MBA, EMBA,
Master, MSc, MPhil and Ph.D.

In
the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2019,
CUHK MBA is ranked 57^th. In FT‘s 2019 EMBA ranking, CUHK EMBA is ranked 24^th
in the world. CUHK Business School has the largest number of business alumni (36,000+)
among universities/business schools in Hong Kong — many of whom are key
business leaders. The School currently has about 4,400
undergraduate and postgraduate students and Professor Lin Zhou is the Dean of CUHK
Business School.

More information is
available at www.bschool.cuhk.edu.hk or by connecting
with CUHK Business School on:

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/cuhkbschool

Instagram: www.instagram.com/cuhkbusinessschool

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/school/3923680

WeChat: CUHKBusinessSchool

Best Employers in Singapore lead the way with a 16-point higher employee engagement score than market average.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 20
December 2019 – Kincentric,
a Spencer Stuart company, has named 6 organisations as
Best Employers in Singapore for 2019, as part of Kincentric’s global Best
Employers program, which recognises leading employers that strive to
continuously spark change, inspire their people and accelerate business success.

Best Employers, the leading employer benchmarking
program, measures and recognises extraordinary employers that demonstrate
workplace excellence. Formerly a part of Aon, the Best Employers program is now
offered by Kincentric, a new business unit of Spencer Stuart, following the
close of Spencer Stuart’s acquisition of this business from Aon on July 1,
2019.

Findings from this year’s study show that Best
Employers in Singapore continue to invest in creating a highly engaged workforce,
with an employee engagement score of 77%, compared to a market average of 61%. In
today’s uncertain business environment, Best Employers are also better
positioned to manage change, with 78% of employees in Best Employers believing
that their organisation is highly agile, innovative, inclusive and responsive
to changing needs (compared to 59% market average). Furthermore, 79% of these
employees agree that their senior leadership has communicated a clear vision
for the organisation (compared to 60% market average). Best Employers are also
strongly committed in nurturing and developing their employees professionally,
with 84% believing that their organisation is supportive of their learning and
development (compared to 66% market average).

The Kincentric Best Employers in Singapore for
2019 are:

• DBS Bank
• Far East Organization
• Great Eastern Singapore
• InterContinental Hotels Group
  (Singapore)
• Marriott International
  (Singapore)
• OCBC Bank

In addition, DBS Bank has also been recognised as
a Regional Best Employer 2019 for Asia Pacific.

Stephen Hickey, Culture & Engagement APMEA
Practice Leader at Kincentric, said, “Through Kincentric’s Best Employers
program we are celebrating and recognising organisations who excel in their
efforts to create a working environment where their people feel heard, are
highly connected and inspired to do their best every day. Best Employers are creating
the workplace of the future through their high employee engagement levels,
strong organisational agility, engaging leadership and exceptional talent
focus. We congratulate all of our Best Employers in Singapore who have achieved
this recognition.”

Best Employers are awarded based on their ability
to exceed others in four measurable ‘people factors’ that are crucial if organisations
want to excel: employee engagement, organisational agility, engaging leadership
and talent focus. Participating organisations work with Kincentric’s team of
experts to understand the views and perceptions of their employee population.
Using Kincentric’s state-of-the-art technology platforms, knowledge and
consulting experience, employee opinions on these factors are analysed and
compared to applicable benchmarks in Kincentric’s robust database to determine
which organisations come out on top.

For 20 years, the Best Employers certification has
recognised leading employers across the world, backed by over 50 years of
employee research and a global database of over 15 million employees. To find
out more about the program, visit kincentric.com/bestemployers.

About Kincentric

Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart company, approaches
human capital differently — we help you identify what drives your people, so
they can drive your business. Our decades of expertise in culture and
engagement, leadership assessment and development, and HR and talent advisory
services enable us to help organisations change from the inside. And our global
network of colleagues, our proven insights and our intuitive technologies give
us new ways to help organisations unlock the power of people and teams —
fostering change and accelerating success. For more information, please visit kincentric.com

NEW YORK, US – Media OutReach – 20 December 2019 – Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, today announced that the company was recognized as a Leader in the Gartner 2019 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Asset Management Software for Infor EAM.¹ Per Gartner, key characteristics of Leaders include: broad and deep EAM offerings, proven success in moderate- to high-complexity environments, participation in a high percentage of new deals, a strong and consistent track record, high customer satisfaction ratings in multiple categories, consistent performance and vigorous client growth and retention, enduring visibility in the marketplace from both sales and marketing perspectives, a proven ecosystem of partners, and a global scale.²

The report also notes that, “Leaders combine the characteristics of vision and thought leadership with a strong ability to execute. Leaders in the EAM market are present in a high percentage of EAM evaluations, and they win a significant number of them. They have robust core functionality and offer reasonable –although not necessarily leading-edge — capabilities in all EAM areas. Their offerings must meet all mainstream maintenance requirements in complex industries without significant modifications, and references must be available to validate this. Leaders must anticipate where customer demands, markets and technology are moving, and must have strategies to support these emerging requirements ahead of actual customer demand. Leading vendors should have coherent strategies to support IoT and OT integration and APM, and must invest in, and have processes to exploit, innovation. Leaders also have market momentum and strong client satisfaction — both in the vendor’s local markets, as well as internationally. Because Leaders are often well established in leading-edge and complex user environments, they benefit from a user community that helps them remain in the forefront of emerging needs.” ³

Infor CloudSuite EAM is robust asset management software that can help leading organizations digitize and optimize maintenance operations. The solution supports specialized requirements for asset and work management, materials and procurement management, budget and inspection management, and project and safety management.

“Infor is helping its customers reach new levels of efficiency and is helping them identify problems before they even start, with its highly scalable and modern EAM solutions,” said Kevin Price, Infor CloudSuite EAM technical product evangelist. “Our team is committed to our customers’ success, and we believe being recognized as a Leader again for Infor CloudSuite EAM is a testament to our innovation and modern thinking throughout the years, which has been focused on helping to keep our customers operating and performing at optimum levels.”

For more information please visit: Infor named a Leader in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for EAM Software 

¹Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Asset Management Software, Kristian Steenstrup and Nicole Foust, October 14, 2019

² Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Asset Management Software, page 30, Kristian Steenstrup and Nicole Foust October 14, 2019

³ Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Asset Management Software, page 29-30, Kristian Steenstrup and Nicole Foust, October 14, 2019

Gartner disclaimer

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

About Infor

Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. With 17,300 employees and over 68,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress. To learn more, please visit www.infor.com.

Infor customers include:

• The top 20 aerospace companies
• 9 of the top 10 high tech companies
• 14 of the 25 largest U.S. healthcare delivery networks
• 19 of the 20 largest U.S. cities
• 18 of the top 20 automotive suppliers
• 14 of the top 20 industrial distributors
• 13 of the top 20 global retailers
• 4 of the top 5 brewers
• 17 of the top 20 global banks
• 9 of the 10 largest global hotel brands
• 7 of the top 10 global luxury brands