Culture and Leadership Source: „Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior“ Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007) The Annual Review of Psychology Pp. 492-494

1. Culture and Leadership
Elena Tecchiati
elena.tecchiati@cdc-leadership.com

2. Culture as a Main Effect on
Leaders and Followers

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. Variance
¤ Across-country variance accounts for more variance in
leadership preferences than
¤ Within-country variance (e.g. across demographics and
occupational grouping)

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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)

14. 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

15. 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

16. Svadharma
¤ Indian svadharma orientation (following one‘s duty)
¤ As important component for transformational leaders in
India

17. Predictors of charismatic leadership
¤ Collectivism
¤ Organic organizational structures
¤ Manifestation of charisma vary across cultures!!!

18. 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

19. Culture as a Moderator of
Leadership

20. Culture
¤ Moderates relationship between
¤ leadership and
¤ employee‘s outcomes

21. 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

22. Participative leadership
¤ Improved profitability of work units in countries with
relatively low power distance
¤ but did not affect profitability in high-power-distance
ones

23. 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.)

24. 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

25. 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

26. Emic Dimensions of Leadership
and Leadership in a Multicultural
Context

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. Positive leadership outcomes
¤ In multicultural work settings if
¤ Setting cooperative goals
¤ Using cooperative conflict management strategies
¤ Having a leader-follower match in ethnicity

31. Source:
„Cross-Cultural Organizational
Behavior“
¤ Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007)
¤ The Annual Review of Psychology
¤ Pp. 492-494