| Social, international, and economic changes are forcing both American- and Japanese-owned companies to reevaluate existing leadership practices. These global changes have not existed independent to the automotive manufacturing industry. The popular press often compares the American and Japanese automotive companies. A review of the literature, however, failed to reveal literature or studies comparing U.S.-based Japanese and American participants in the automotive manufacturing industry.; This study used semistructured interviews to examine what frames were evidenced in the participants organizational decision making. Bolman and Deal's Leadership Orientations Self and Other instruments (Leadership Frameworks, 1990) were used to compare leadership orientations (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) of participants in the U.S.-based Japanese companies and American-owned companies. Additionally, this study compared self- and other-perceived leader and manager effectiveness.; American participants as a group perceived themselves as more human resource oriented. Others perceived them as more politically oriented. The Japanese participants perceived themselves as human resource oriented, identical to the manner in which others perceived them.; American participants perceived the structural, political, and symbolic frames as patterns for manager effectiveness. They viewed only the political frames as an effective leader behavior. Others perceived all four frames as patterns for both leader and manager effectiveness. These results generally supported other studies by Bolman and Deal (1991).; The Japanese participants perceived only the structural frame as a manager behavior. None of the frames were perceived as effective patterns for effective leader. In the perception of others, the human resource frame was negatively correlated with effective manager. The structural, political, and symbolic frames were perceived as effective leader behaviors. The human resource frame and effective leader were negatively correlated in the perception of others. These results failed to support other studies by Bolman and Deal (1991). Findings suggest that cultural differences existed between the American and U.S.-based Japanese participants. |
