Search results

On a global scale, leadership takes place within a complex environment that is molded both by national culture and organizational culture influences. This chapter explores leader-culture (L-C) fit in this global context. Drawing together distinct perspectives on national culture and organizational culture, we identify potential contingencies of L-C fit across these levels. In addition to identifying key gaps and areas for future exploration, we also discuss the practical uses of fit when selecting and developing leaders. Overall, we argue that researchers and practitioners could benefit from an expanded perspective on cultural fit to simultaneously address aspects of national and organizational culture.

Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an important realm of entrepreneurship during the last decade. Research on what motivates social entrepreneurial activity continues to be of interest in the field. Given the integral role of the social entrepreneur, one area identified as deserving more attention is the leadership traits of the social entrepreneur. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a conceptual model on the role of national leadership culture on social entrepreneurship.

As part of the social fabric of a country, national leadership culture is viewed as a social contextual factor that can either enhance or hinder social entrepreneurial activity. As its broader conceptual base, this paper relies on institutional theory, marketing systems and leadership theory. At the heart of the proposed conceptual model are six leadership dimensions from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) theoretical model: charismatic/value-based, team-oriented, participative, self-protective, humane-oriented and autonomous. These leadership dimensions are central to the propositions that accompany the proposed conceptual model.

Implications of this research for entrepreneurial marketing and public policy are presented. Since this research is conjectural, future directions for empirical research on national leadership culture in social entrepreneurship are discussed.

The conceptual model is the first to examine the role of national leadership culture on social entrepreneurship. The research adds value to the growing body of research on social entrepreneurship in its social context. It answers the call in the literature to examine leadership as it pertains to the individual entrepreneur’s pre-disposition to engage in social entrepreneurial activity.

The purpose of this paper is to show that corporate governance structures differ significantly across countries. Using agency theory and institutional theory, it examines how ownership structure and national culture influence the size and leadership structure of the corporate boards of multinational firms based in industrial countries.

The hypotheses are tested with data on 399 multinational manufacturing firms based in 15 industrial countries. The authors use ownership concentration, bank control, and state ownership to represent ownership structure. They view institutional structural norms as components of national culture and infer the nature of these norms for governance structure from Hofstede's national culture dimensions.

The findings show that national culture has a dominant influence on corporate governance structure, and its emphasis is recommended in future cross‐national organizational research.

Although the models were successful in explaining MNC board structure, the authors addressed only the effects of ownership structure and national culture. It is expected that these models could be improved by including national political and legal differences and additional national economic variables.

The findings demonstrate that national cultures of the home countries of MNCs have powerful influences on their governance structures.

This paper links national culture with governance structure.

This study examined the effects of organisational culture and leadership styles on job satisfaction and organisational commitment in samples of Hong Kong and Australian managers. Statistically significant differences between the two samples were found for measures of innovative and supportive organizational cultures, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, with the Australian sample having higher mean scores on all these variables. However, differences between the two samples for job satisfaction and commitment were removed after statistically controlling for organizational culture, leadership and respondents' demographic characteristics. For the combined samples, innovative and supportive cultures, and a consideration leadership style, had positive effects on both job satisfaction and commitment, with the effects of an innovative culture on satisfaction and commitment, and the effect of a consideration leadership style on commitment, being stronger in the Australian sample. Also, an “initiating Structure” leadership style had a negative effect on job satisfaction for the combined sample. Participants' level of education was found to have a slight negative effect on satisfaction, and a slight positive effect on commitment. National culture was found to moderate the effect of respondents' age on satisfaction, with the effect being more positive amongst Hong Kong managers.

Knowledge management (KM) is associated with higher performance and innovative culture; KM can help the public sector to be fiscally lean and meet diverse stakeholders’ needs. However, hierarchical structures, bureaucratic culture and rigid processes inhibit KM adoption and generate inertia. This study aims to explore the nature and causes of this inertia within the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public sector.

Using an in-depth case study of a UAE public sector organisation, this study explores how organisational inertia can be countered to enable KM adoption. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 17 top- and middle-level managers from operational, management and strategic levels. Interview data is triangulated with content analysis from multiple sources, including the UAE Government and case organisation documents.

The results show transformation leadership, external factors and organisational culture mediate the negative effect of inertia on KM practices adoption. We find that information technology plays a key role in enabling knowledge creation, access, adoption and sharing. Furthermore, we uncover a virtuous cycle between organisational culture and KM practices adoption in the public sector. In addition, we develop a new model (the relationship between KM practices, organisational inertia, organisational culture, transformational leadership traits and external factors) and four propositions for empirical testing by future researchers. We also present a cross-case comparison of our results with six private/quasi-private sector cases who have implemented KM practices.

Qualitative data is collected from a single case study.

Inertia in a public section is a result of bureaucracy and authority bounded by the rules and regulations. Adopting a qualitative methodology and case study method, the research explores the phenomena of how inertia impacts KM adoption in public sector environments. Our findings reveal the underlying mechanisms of how internal and external organisational factors impact inertia. Internally, supportive organisational culture and transformational leadership traits positively effect KM adoption, which, in turn, has a positive effect on organisational culture to counter organisational inertia. Externally, a progressive national culture, strategy and policy can support a knowledge-based organisation that embraces change. This study develops a new model (interactions between internal and external factors impacting KM practices in the public sector), four propositions and a new two-stage process model for KM adoption in the public sector. We present a case-comparison of how the constructs interact in a public sector as compared to six private/quasi-private sector cases from the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which different patterns of cross-functional integration and the operations strategy (OS) process may be explained by national cultures differences.

Perceptual survey data from 105 manufacturing plants in four countries were used to validate the constructs and to test the hypotheses. The plants are located in two Western and two Eastern countries with different industrialization and development backgrounds (Brazil, China, Germany and South Korea). CFA validated the constructs, and ANOVA and t-tests evaluated the differences between levels of four Hofstede’s elements (i.e. power distance, individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term vs short-term orientation) on the OS process enablers (i.e. leadership for cross-functional integration and functional integration) and elements (i.e. manufacturing strategy linkage to corporate strategy and formulation of manufacturing strategy).

Results suggest that different OS and OM processes are present in different national cultures. Leadership for cross-functional integration and manufacturing strategy linkage to corporate strategy differ between levels of power distance, individualism vs collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. Functional integration and formulation of manufacturing strategy also present differences according to the degree of individualism vs collectivism and long-term orientation.

Results indicate that national culture is a key aspect for the OS process. Prior studies usually do not consider cultural aspects. Therefore, the OS process varies in different countries and contexts. Managers need to adjust their OS process when they are developing a global OS.

The purpose of this cross-cultural study was to investigate whether the embraced national culture was a distinguishing factor of preferred downward influence tactics and targeted goals by principals of different countries. The participants of the study were the public school principals in Turkey and the United States, two culturally distinct countries. The conceptual framework for the study incorporated the Cultural Dimensions (CDs) of Hofstede and the Profiles of Organizational Influence Strategies (POIS) of Kipnis and Schmidt; two pioneers in their respective fields. The findings of the study supported Hofstede's framework for three of the four dimensions for both countries. By employing a pseudoetic cross-cultural research methodology and a relational causal-comparative research design, the study first tested the reliability and construct validity of POIS (Form S) influence tactics scale, both in the Turkish context and in the public education contexts of the two countries. The findings partially supported the applicability of POIS in both countries by yielding a three-factor model for the Turkish context and a four-factor model for the public education context. The multivariate analyses strongly supported literature in regards to the culture-specific nature of leadership influence practices, and it identified national culture as a significantly distinguishing factor of both Turkish and American principals in their preferred influence tactics. Similarly, national culture was also a significantly distinguishing factor of groups in principals' targeted educational goals.

This article investigates the potential mediating role of organizational commitment in the relationships of leadership behavior with the work outcomes of job satisfaction and job performance in a non‐western country where multiculturalism is a dominant feature of the workforce. It also explores the moderating effects of national culture on the relationships of leadership behavior with organizational commitment, job satisfaction and job performance in such a setting. Results suggest (in support of many western studies) that those who perceive their superiors as adopting consultative or participative leadership behavior are more committed to their organizations, more satisfied with their jobs, and their performance is high. The results also indicate that national culture moderates the relationship of leadership behavior with job satisfaction.

Cultural diversity continues to be a pressing issue in managing service quality, particularly in the cruise industry. As a result of recent growth, many cruise lines recruit from as many as 100 different nations. The result is a truly multicultural environment in which supervisors and subordinates may maintain very different national and ethnic cultures. This study sampled 313 high customer contact cruise line managers and assessed whether similarity in national culture between service leaders and subordinates impacted perceived leadership style, goal clarity and organizational satisfaction. It was determined that employees who reported to managers from the same country reported higher levels of consideration behaviors on the part of their manager and higher overall organizational satisfaction. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for managing within the diverse service environment.

Seeks to understand how differences in national cultures impact on the understanding and meaning of the concept of self‐leadership and its application.

First, research at the intersection of culture and leadership and Hofstede's culture framework are reviewed. Then the main components of self‐leadership theory are introduced, and how Hofstede's framework can be used to re‐analyze them given differences across cultures is discussed.

While self‐leadership remains, in general, a valid concept, its understanding and application is likely to differ across cultures. Specifically, high power distance raises the importance of the symbolic value of tasks and correspondent covert processes of self‐leadership, high uncertainty avoidance makes more explicit the importance of non‐rational and intuition‐based thought processes, collectivism shows the relevance of social relations, femininity reiterates the importance of social relations and non‐rational processes, and long‐term orientation introduces the importance of making time an explicit element.

There is a need for further research on self‐leadership that investigates the roles of social and cultural relations, communication and language, multilevel interdependencies, and ethics. Empirically there is need for developing a self‐leadership instrument that is relevant and applicable across cultures.

This paper should facilitate appreciation of a contingency perspective of self‐leadership that requires different modes of application across cultures.

This paper helps fill a gap in the self‐leadership literature. In particular, it can facilitate greater understanding of this concept in cultures other than the USA, where it originated.