Developing senior leaders and managers in the public sector: the case of the MPA for Chinese local government leaders

The paper explores how culture and education system affect leadership development for senior leaders from a local government via learning experiences in a different country. The research takes an interpretivist approach and adopts methods of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with students on a Masters' of Public Administration (MPA), who are senior leaders at their local government. The findings show that culture and education have a great impact on the outcomes of students learning from two aspects. Firstly education systems influence the approach of surface learning in the Chinese context. Secondly Confucianism contributes to the education system which indirectly affects students learning due to an issue of face. The findings present a valuable insight for both academics and practitioners in order to understand the significance of the relationship between culture and education as well leadership development