Earlier Confucian thoughts on the rule of virtue and benevolence
paid overwhelming attention to morality and education to the neglect
of economic and military development and the establishment of laws
and regulations, which led to the decline of those states that cherished
Confucianism. But the other extreme, namely, government through
coercion, as represented by the Zho`u of the Shang and Qin dynasties,
also brought about disasters that led to the collapse of the dynasties. The
early Confucian emphasis on the rule of virtue was later enhanced with
rules of propriety and rule by law by Xunzi (Chapter 2) and by other
Confucian scholars of the Han dynasty.
Confucianism has had a worldwide impact on leadership and mana-
gement as well as on people’s daily lives (Dai and Zheng, 2002 ;
Fernandez, 2004 ; Lee, McCauley, and Draguns, 1999 ; Liu and Tu,
1970 ; Yang, Zheng, and Li, 2006 ). For example, in the last century,
theories of management in the West went through some major
changes. The period of the 1900s–1930s witnessed scientific manage-
ment, which stressed every factor of production except workers
themselves. Efficiency went up at the expense of people’s sense of
humanness. The subsequent phase of management theory tried to
mend its predecessor’s flaws by taking into consideration human
feelings, motivation, needs, and self-value. But generally speaking,
not until the 1970s did Confucian ideas enter modern management.
Confucian theory of management, with its roots in the traditional
doctrine of benevolence and centered around human beings gives
special attention to ethics, moral education, and leader–member inter-
actions (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995 ; Romar, 2002 ) so as to form
harmonious human relationships and improve business and work
effectiveness (seeChapter 6on paternalistic leadership).
Through interpretation and transformation, Confucian theory of
management and leadership has found its way into industrial and
organizational activities in many East Asian and South-east Asian
countries (see Cheung and Chan, 2005 ; Tan and Khoo, 2002 ). Since
the 1960s, more and more neo-Confucianists and Sinologists have
been active in Asian, European, American, Australian, and African
countries, to apply the Confucian philosophy of benevolence and the
rule of virtue to challenges of leadership and management.
One wonders what Confucius would say about many of the mana-
gement and leadership practices in the world. Confucius would be
very critical of the single-minded pursuit of economic profit by today’s
48 Xin-hui Yang, Yan-qin Peng, and Yueh-ting Lee