Empower me or not? Influence of societal culture
Cross Cultural & Strategic Management
ISSN: 2059-5794
Article publication date: 24 November 2021
Issue publication date: 3 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships between societal culture value dimensions and employee preferences for empowerment behaviors by managerial leaders across societal cultures. To do this, the authors synthesize the extant literature to underpin this study and to set the research agenda for future empirical work.
Design/methodology/approach
Using field survey research method, the authors obtain and analyze data from ten samples in eight geographically and culturally diverse societies from a global longitudinal study of preferred managerial leader behavior.
Findings
Cultural value dimension predictor variables affect employee preferences for leader empowerment behaviors in the societies studied. Some significant effects of gender and organizational factors on these relationships were found.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should expand upon variations in the meaning of employee empowerment across cultures, consider other cultural models and theories, and a more extensive set of personal, organizational and relational factors.
Practical implications
Employee preferences for leader empowerment behaviors are more likely the result of the interplay, exchange and trade-offs between cultural, personal and organizational values. The effectiveness of employee empowerment is contingent upon well-designed training programs aligning management and worker values, goals and tasks.
Originality/value
The authors offer more realistic, objective and evidence-based insights into the cultural influences on the effectiveness of empowerment and employee cognitions towards it than the extant, conceptually and methodologically compromised, strategic cross-cultural studies.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: The authors prepared this manuscript within the framework of a subsidy granted to the National Research University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow, by the Government of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the Global Competitiveness Program.
Citation
Ljubica, J., Littrell, R.F., Warner-Søderholm, G. and Minelgaite, I. (2022), "Empower me or not? Influence of societal culture", Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 114-146. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-05-2021-0091
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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