Leadership

Culture's influence on leadership efficiency: How personal and national cultures affect leadership style
Gabriel J. Byrne , a, and Frank Bradleya,
aUCD Michael Smurfit School of Business, College of Business and Law, University College Dublin, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland

Available online 12 December 2006.

Abstract
Personal and national cultures derive from peoples' personalvalues and pervade the role of effective management leadership and successful firm performances. This paper explores the differences of the two aspects of cultures on effective leadership. Researchers now hold that the Porterian analysis of competitive advantage has become fungible due to the entry of myriad international competitors. Effective leadership style is now the single mostimportant antecedent in maintaining competitive advantage and in supporting firm performances. The researchers collected data on CEOs using Schwartz's framework, in three EU countries. They state hypotheses, test them and derive implications and conclusions.
Keywords: Effective management leadership style ; Personal values; Personal culture; National culture; International firm performance; Crossproduct deviation analysis
Article Outline
1. Conceptual framework
1.1. Personal and cultural values and leadership style
1.2. The gestalt quality of bundles of personal values
1.3. Research hypotheses
2. Method
2.1. Measurement of variables
2.2. Data collection — countries and firms
2.3. Statistical analysis
2.4. Hypotheses testing
2.4.1. Hypothesis H1
2.4.2. Hypothesis H22.4.3. Hypothesis H3
2.4.4. Hypothesis H4
3. Findings
3.1. Cultural values
3.2. Leadership style
3.3. Sustained competitive advantage
4. Conclusions
References
A relationship exists between managers' personal values, their leadership styles and organisational culture (Sackmann, 1991, Schein, 1991, Deal and Kennedy, 1982 and Selznick, 1957). Barbosa (1997) suggests that the formation ofpersonal values among business leaders is a priority over efforts to implement concepts such as ‘total quality management' and strategic management. Many firms are now in global alliances that depend upon flexibility and adaptability to local markets, requiring their managers to possess appropriate leadership styles to cope effectively with different value systems and cultures, ininternational management (Fahy, 2002 and Coviello et al., 1998). The literature gives wide consideration as to how personal and national cultures influence leadership efficiency in the field of management. Culture, an essential component of which is personal values (Kroeber, 1952 and Kluckhohn, 1949), is now at centre stage (George et al., 1998, Nakata and Sivakumar, 1996, Steenkamp et al., 1999 andCadogan et al., 2001), in the context of analysing the role of leadership in maintaining firm sustained competitive advantage and superior international performance (Kimber, 1997, Jackson and Aycan, 2001 and Pfeffer, 2002). An investigation of managers' personal values and their cultural antecedents is necessary to understand the leadership of individual managers and their potential toinfluence competitive advantage (Erbring and Young, 1979).
Personal and national culture depend essentially on personal values (Kroeber, 1952, Triandis, 1989, Triandis, 1990, Triandis et al., 1988 and Hofstede, 2001), which gives rise to a leadership style, an effectiveness dependent on the leader's ‘bundle of values’ (White, 1993). Leaders' personal and cultural values are measurable (Schwartz, 1992and Schwartz, 1994) and they imbue and underlie the performance of the firm. Vroom and Yetton (1973) link personal values and firm performance mediated by leadership style and consequent effectiveness on business. Scholars now consider the Porterian view of competitive advantage as passé (Porter, 1985), as such advantage has increasingly become fungible due to the entry of myriad international...