A Cross-Cultural Test of Implicit Leadership Theory

摘要

This research builds on Implicit Leadership Theory, which suggests that aleader’s performance is likely to be higher when there is congruence between afollower’s prototype of what a leader should be and his or her perception of theleader’s behaviour. The essence of effective leadership, according to this theory,is being seen as a leader by others.Data were collected from 196 leaders and 1,738 followers from 23 countrieswithin Cargill Incorporated, a US food and agricultural multinational. Theresearch was conducted in two phases. During the first phase data werecollected on followers’ desired leadership values and their perception of theirleader’s behaviour on the same dimensions. These data were used to compute acongruence score based on a weighted sum of absolute differences. Thecongruence score data formed the heart of an individualised Leadership FitReport written for each leader in the study showing the extent of congruenceacross 21 leadership characteristics (see Appendix A).The second phase of the study focused on a subset of 933 followers from fivecountries testing the two hypotheses. The two hypotheses in Phase Two werepartially supported. The first was that congruence between desired leadershipvalues and perceived behaviour leads to high performance of a leader andincongruence leads to lower performance. The second was that the relationshipbetween congruence and leader performance varied by nationality.The cross-cultural test of Implicit Leadership Theory captured in Hypothesis2 was particularly important to Cargill because it revealed unique and important9differences between the five countries included in the second data set. Thisstudy found that the nature of the relationship between congruence and leaderperformance varies significantly between all five countries. More specificallythe data suggests that congruence does not always lead to high performance.This study, albeit exploratory, makes theoretical, methodological andpractical contributions in the following ways.i. A cross cultural test of Implicit Leadership Theory in a multinationalorganisation with a significant sample size.ii. An existing desired leadership values questionnaire was used anddeveloped further to measure leadership values and leaderperception.iii. All 196 leaders received a personalised feedback report showing thelevel of congruence (or degree of fit) for 21 leadership characteristics.iv. A methodological contribution was made by using PolynomialRegression Equations and Response Surface Methodology to measurethe nature of the relationship between desired leadership values,perceived behaviour and leaders’ performance.Implicit Leadership Theory was shown to be complex yet very relevant tomanagement practice. The research undertaken was exploratory yet it hascreated the basis for on going discussion.