The business protocols in Southeast Asia are seniority and hierarchy.

Hierarchical systematic business culture where the manager/boss/top directors are the
sun, the centralized person that will direct the entire company. In fact, in the
overwhelming majority of South East Asian countries, a collective decision-making
process is preferred to an individual one. For example, senior employees in a company
always get the best benefits and respect from new employees no matter how big the gap
of experience between two generations. Being a senior employee does not mean that
person is the most knowledgeable and experienced in a department but being the longest
contributed employee surely gives that person certain perks and abilities to weight their
voices and opinions heavier than a fresh and young employee.
For example, in Thailand, Thai business culture is distinguished by strong value
respecting seniority and hierarchy. Furthermore, Thai is ranked as one of the Asian
countries with considerable amount of power distance. Thais are taught since childhood
how to behave or treat others according to the ranks. It is well observed that Thai
organizations are structured with vertical power and hierarchy. Seniority and status in
Thai culture are measured in relation to power, wealth, professional ranks, family name,
occupation, age, job tenure, social connection and merit. When meeting a person, he or
she will be positioned into the ranks so that they know how the person should be treated.
Juniors will pay respect to seniors. Thais value hierarchy in relationship and it is
important to respect seniors. This two cultural dimensions of Thai culture are highly
important and influential in business context. In Thai work setting, seniority-based
promotion is widely practiced and confirmed by the research from. Their research
compared Thai setting to American. Seniority-based promotion is a practice that relates
the job promotion with the length of service or age in the company. This type of practice
normally outweighs employees’ achievements, qualifications and competencies. This
research found that the majority of Thai organizations adopts seniority-based promotion.
Its likelihood is positively related to the size of the company. 79.50% of respondents
reported that the companies they are in promote employees based on seniority and they
respect seniority in workplace. Out of the same data, only 35.30% of those respondents
answered that this practice negatively affects the company’s efficiency. However, they
understand the negative effects of seniority-based promotion because 70.20% of
participants said that it is unjust and it impedes performance of the organization.