Jose C. Alves, Charles C. Manz, & D. Anthony Butterfield
This paper is about leadership, culture, and theory development. We argue that development of
leadership theories in other cultures has to account for philosophical assumptions and frames
of reference underpinning those cultures. Specifically, we point out that leadership theory
in China has to account for notions of Chinese philosophy. We start our argument by making
a case for studying management and leadership from a Chinese perspective. Then we review
Western perspectives of management and leadership and introduce the concept of culture to
indicate that the notions of management and leadership may have different meanings in
different cultures. After this we present two Chinese approaches to management –
socio-behavioral and philosophical approaches – and present several notions of Chinese
philosophy. Finally, we illustrate how these notions can be used in interpreting leadership
in Asia. Implications and discussion are also presented.
Leadership categorization and relational demography theory suggest that ethnicity has a
major impact on how people work together and perceive leaders. The purpose of this study
was to examine the relationship between leader ethnicity (Hispanic) and perceptions of
leader behaviors. The results indicated that Hispanic leaders were perceived as equivalent,
in terms of leadership, to Euro-American leaders despite a significant difference in ethnic
identity scores between Hispanic and Euro-American students. However, the mean perceived
effectiveness ratings for leaders whose leadership style matches their followers' leadership
prototype were significantly higher than those in the mismatch condition. Implications for
both managers and researchers are discussed.
This study adds to previous research on the influence of national cultural values on
leadership attitudes and introduces new findings for three countries - Lithuania, Estonia,
and Poland. The attitudes of managers and employees toward various aspects of leadership
in these three geographically and historically similar countries are, in fact, different.
Significant differences were found across countries on the following variables: control,
supervision, view toward authority, commitment, decision type, initiative, preferred leader
orientation, and leadership style. It is revealed that differences in attitudes are closely
related to differences in country positions on Hofstede's cultural dimensions. This study
provides interesting cues for managers working in the region.
This study investigated the extent to which behaviors in a team and structure of a team
influence the willingness of team members to share in leadership. The results indicated
that empowering team behaviors related positively with shared leadership. Horizontal
team structure had limited effects on shared leadership. The development of shared
leadership in a management team depends largely on increasing the perception of
empowering behaviors that team members experience. Implications for the practice of
shared leadership, as well as ideas for future research, are discussed.
This study investigated the effects of supervisors' trust of their subordinates and
their organization on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using survey data
collected from 117 district sales managers in one large pharmaceutical company, the
study found a significant relationship between supervisors' trust of their subordinates
and supervisors' job satisfaction. Further, supervisors' trust of the organization was
found to have a greater effect on job satisfaction than that of supervisors' trust of
their subordinates.
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