Leadership in Transformation - Between Local Embeddedness and Global Challenges

Zusammenfassung

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Based on empirical studies in Romania, Estonia, Germany, and Austria within the GLOBE project, the authors try to answer the question of cultural embeddedness of leadership patterns in an environment of more and more globalised management. Special emphasis is put on the match/mismatch of the observed styles of leadership behaviour of CEO's with regional and global expectations, on the differences and similarities between the examined countries, the influence of transformational settings in the CEE countries, and the prospective changes due to a new generation of managers.

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Auszug

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Leadership in Transformation - Between Local Embeddedness and Global Challenges

1. Introduction

Leadership in the East-European Transformation Process has been the subject of several country-based studies (e.g., von Rosenstiel 1994; Alt/Lang 1998; Catana/Catana/Finlay 1999; Breu 2000; Catana/Catana 1999, 2000; Alas 2002; Alas/Sharifi 2002) as well as cross-cultural comparisons, both between Eastern and Western countries (e.g. Lang et al. 1998; Edwards/Lawrence 2000; Brodbeck et al. 2000) and within East-European countries (e.g. Lindert 1996; Lungwitz/Preusche 2001; Bakacsi et al. 2002). In general, these studies suggest a more or less pronounced difference between leadership behaviour patterns in Eastern Europe compared to Western or Northern Europe. Leadership in the East was deemed more autocratic and less participative, less human and more status oriented and, at least partly, more formal.

Early explanations frequently saw this as a result of the so-called communist heritage. This, however, ignores on the one hand the influence of the transformation process as a fundamental process of change which may have supported these "stricter" types of leadership. On the other hand, the different cultural backgrounds of East-European countries compared to the West have been also neglected (for a critical assessment see Lang 1998:6-17, or Clark/Lang/Balaton 2001). A few studies have also shown that, concerning leadership. Eastern Europe is on the one hand much more different (e.g. Lindert 1996), and on the other hand quite similar to countries in Western or even Southern Europe (e.g. Brodbeck et al. 2000) than one could expect.

The development in the last 15 years of transformation has brought a more international orientation and global challenges for the East-European countries, e.g., increasing integration into international division of labour, massive foreign direct investments, joint ventures, and last but not least, massive transfers of management knowledge into the East-European countries. This should arguably lead to changes in leadership behaviour, too, namely a process of internationalisation or convergence of leadership behaviours and styles. Nonetheless, experiences of managers as well as empirical studies still suggest a difference between East and West (Catana et al. 1999; Catana/Catana 2000). Reasons for this "inertia" might be the ongoing transformation process or peculiarities of the national culture, but it is unlikely that after ten years of tra...

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