A Comparative Study On Leadership Styles Between The Chinese And American Managers In IT Multinational Companies In China: From A Cross-Cultural Perspective

While the phenomenon of leadership is widely considered to be universal acrosscultures, the way in which it is operationalized is usually viewed as culturally specific.Conflicting viewpoints exist in the leadership literature concerning the transferability ofspecific leadership styles across cultures.This study explored these conflicting views for managers and professional workers byempirically testing specific hypotheses that addressed the differences of leadership stylesbetween Chinese and American managers in large IT multinational companies located inChina.This cross-cultural study utilized the full range of transformational leadershipframework developed by Bass and Avolio and Hofstede's model of culture. To assess theleadership style the author revised scales from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire(MLQ) by Bass (1985). The participants of the survey were mainly Chinese employeesfrom well-known IT multinational companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and Cisco.The analyses provided evidence for conceptual and measurement equivalence for allthree leadership styles employed in the study—transactional, transformational, andlaissez-faire leadership. The MLQ determined leadership style by assessing sevendifferent scales, including four transformational (Idealized Influence, InspirationalMotivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration), two transactional(Contingent reward, and Management-by-Exception), and one non-transactional behavior(Laissez-Faire). Our results from the IT industry point to cultural differences in theleadership behaviors between different leaders. No general style could be assessed. Thethesis finally points out the limitations of the study and proposes some recommendationsfor future relevant studies.