culture and leadership cdc
TRANSCRIPT
Culture as a Main Effect on Leaders and Followers
Cultural variation in research
¤ Most influential investigation of cultural variation in perceptions of what traits are effective ¤ By the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Effectiveness Project (House et al. 2004)
¤ Relationships between ¤ societal culture ¤ organizational culture ¤ leadership prototypes
¤ 62 culturar societies
¤ appr. 17,000 middle managers
Results
¤ Two leadership attributes were universally endorsed: a- Charismatic Leadership
b- Team-oriented leadership
¤ Organizational and societal values (rather than values) were significantly related to a and b
¤ Power distance ¤ positive associated with self-protective leadership
¤ Negative associated with charismatic and participative leadership
Variations in leadership prototypes
¤ Significant variations in leadership prototypes or behavioral manifestations of the prototypes were found ¤ Across and within cultural clusters
¤ Across hierarchical positions
¤ Example: Attributes of an effective leader ¤ According to top managers:
¤ Innovative, visionary, courageous
¤ According to lower-level managers:
¤ Attention to subordinates, team building, participation
In individualistic cultures
¤ Perception of charisma based on recognition-based perceptions ¤ i.e. leadership effectiveness is a perception that is based on
how well a person fits the characteristics of a „good“ or „effective“ leader
¤ Japanes employees follow a „logic of approapriateness“ model (ehat is appropriate in a specific circumstance)
In collectivistic cultures
¤ Perception of charisma based on inference-based perceptions ¤ i.e. leadership effectiveness is an inference based on group/
organizational performance outcomes
¤ U.S. employees follow a „logic consequence“ model (what should be the consequence of a specific behavior)
Variance
¤ Across-country variance accounts for more variance in leadership preferences than
¤ Within-country variance (e.g. across demographics and occupational grouping)
Culture‘s influence on leadership prototypes
¤ Cross-cultural differences in leadership behaviors and practices
¤ Study of how middle managers in 47 countries handle work events (Smith et al. 2002) showed that ¤ Cultural values (e.g. high collectivism, power distance,
conservatism, and loyal involvement) are related to
¤ Reliance on vertical sources of guidance (i.e., formal rules and superiors), rather than
¤ Reliance on peers or tacit sources of guidance
Strategic orientation
¤ Comparison of executive‘s strategic orientation (Geletkanycz, 1997) ¤ In 20 countries
¤ Results: ¤ Individualism
¤ Low uncertainty avoidance
¤ Low power distance
¤ Short-term orientation
¤ Associated with executive‘s adherence to existing strategy
Study Hofstede et al. 2002
¤ Individualism and long-term orientation ¤ correlated positively with
¤ importance of profits in upcoming years
¤ Power distance ¤ correlated negatively with
¤ staying with the law
Culture‘s influences
¤ Culture affects ¤ the use of power
¤ influence tactics
¤ Individualistic cultures put emphasis on ¤ Coercive power
¤ Collectivistic cultures put more emphasis on ¤ Expert power
Study Rao et al. 1997
¤ Japanese managers were similar to U.S. managers in their use of ¤ Assertiveness
¤ Sanctions
¤ Appeals to third parties
¤ Japanese mangers used culture specific influence strategies (i.e. appeals to firm‘s authority, personal development)
Study of Fu et al. 2004
¤ Perceived effectiveness of influence strategies is influenced by ¤ individual-level variables (e.g., beliefs) and ¤ macro-level variables (e.g., national culture values)
¤ For example: individuals who believed in fate control are ¤ more likely to use assertive and relationship-based influence
strategies ¤ Particularly in societies high on
¤ future orientation ¤ In-group collectivism ¤ Uncertainty avoidance
Transformational and transactional leadership
¤ Bass (1997) argued that they are ¤ Universal dimensions ¤ Tranformational more effective than transactional
¤ Yet: evidence for culture specific enactment of these dimensions
¤ And additional dimensions in other cultures
Svadharma
¤ Indian svadharma orientation (following one‘s duty)
¤ As important component for transformational leaders in India
Predictors of charismatic leadership
¤ Collectivism
¤ Organic organizational structures
¤ Manifestation of charisma vary across cultures!!!
Discourse analysis of speeches of global leaders
¤ A strong voice with ups and downs was associated with ¤ perception of enthusiasm ¤ in Latin American cultures
¤ A monotonous tone of voice associated with ¤ perception of respect and self-control ¤ in Asian cultures
Culture as a Moderator of Leadership
Culture
¤ Moderates relationship between ¤ leadership and
¤ employee‘s outcomes
Transformational leadership in collectivistic cultures
¤ Collectivism strengthens the effect of transformational leadership on ¤ employees‘ job satisfaction
¤ Organizational attitudes
¤ Turnover attention
¤ Transformational leadership enhanced creativity in followers with ¤ High conservatism values in Korea
Participative leadership
¤ Improved profitability of work units in countries with relatively low power distance
¤ but did not affect profitability in high-power-distance ones
Leadership behavior
¤ Positive impact on employee outcomes across five countries if ¤ Leader supportivness
¤ Contingent reward
¤ Charismatic leadership
¤ Differential impact if ¤ Participation
¤ Direcitve leadership (positive only in Taiwan and Mexico)
¤ Contingent punishment (positive only in U.S.)
Level of innovation
¤ In Russian culture facilitated by ¤ Charisma
¤ Demosntration of confidence
¤ Idealized influence
¤ Active/passive management by exception
¤ In Sweden facilitated by ¤ Inspirational motivation
¤ Intellectual stimulation
Role stress and ambiguity
¤ Initiating structure decreased role stress and ambiguity ¤ in the U.S. but not in India
¤ Consideration ¤ decreased these negative experiences and
¤ enhanced organizational commitment in both cultures
Emic Dimensions of Leadership and Leadership in a Multicultural Context
Paternalistic leadership
¤ Scales developed and validated by Aycan and colleagues (Aycan et al. 2000, Aycan 2006)
¤ Paternalistic leadership has a positive impact on ¤ employee attitudes in
¤ collectivistic and
¤ high-power-distance cultures
Guanxi
¤ In the Chinese culture the social connections between people that are based implicitly on mutual interest and benefits.
¤ When guanxi is established, people can ask a favor from each other with the expectation that the debt incurred will be repaid sometime in the future (Yang 1994, pp. 1-2)
¤ For further information ¤ http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/guanxi.html
Guanxi and leadership
¤ Distinct concept from leadership member exchange (LMX) and from commitment to the supervisor
¤ Has explanatory power for supervisory decisions on promotion and ¤ reward allocation after controlling for performance
Positive leadership outcomes
¤ In multicultural work settings if ¤ Setting cooperative goals
¤ Using cooperative conflict management strategies
¤ Having a leader-follower match in ethnicity
Source: „Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior“
¤ Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007)
¤ The Annual Review of Psychology
¤ Pp. 492-494