Atwater et al: Relevance of culture in studies of leadership: ignored or dismissed?

Question 1

What is this article about?

Answer 1

Are we being misled or taken off track if we apply theories, concepts and relationships built in the U.S. to empirical work performed in very different cultural contexts? Most organization theories (including leadership theories) have been “Made in the USA” and shaped by the economic, cultural, and political context of the U.S.

Method: They reviewed all leadership articles from 91 to 2015. The country or region where the study was conducted was a main focus.

Question 2

What are they going through in their literature review?

Answer 2

1. Employees in high power distance, collectivistic cultures may be less susceptible to leader treatment because they tend to be affected more by collective interests and role-based loyalty. These results showed that national culture can moderate the magnitude of the relationships between LMX and employee outcomes.
2. Research on abusive supervision: Abusive super- vision has been generally assumed to be a dysfunctional leadership style across countries. Abusive supervision studies conducted in the U.S. have predominantly concluded that it has adverse effects on a vast number of individual and organizational outcomes such as decreased job satisfaction and organizational commitment. But this is not the case everywhere, ex in South Korea: Abusive behaviors perhaps were better tolerated because of the combination of power distance and paternalistic leadership. In fact, the authors of this study interviewed some of the subordinates from the study, and the subordinates made comments like the following: “Although I feel highly stressed when I hear some harsh words from my boss, I have to admit that it often brings about better outcomes”
3. GLOBE study: leadership accross cultures and found big differences.

Question 3

What are the future directions said by the article?

Answer 3

But can we actually create universalistic theories that are equally valid across countries and cultures? Are there any leadership ideas that are actually, completely universal? Or is it that supposedly universal theories or dimensions (as suggested by GLOBE study) are actually quasi-universal and have differing nuanced qualities in different countries/regions?