According to the sub-saharan africa anglo culture cluster, the most desirable leader behavior is

In the Eye of the Beholder: Cross Cultural Lessons in Leadership from Project GLOBE Mansour Javidan, Peter W. Dorfman, Mary Sully de Luque, and Robert J. House*

Executive Overview Global leadership has been identified as a critical success factor for large multinational corporations. While there is much writing on the topic, most seems to be either general advice (i.e., being open minded and respectful of other cultures) or very specific information about a particular country based on a limited case study (do not show the soles of your shoes when seated as a guest in an Arab country). Both kinds of information are certainly useful, but limited from both theoretical and practical viewpoints on how to lead in a foreign country. In this paper, findings from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research program are used to provide a sound basis for conceptualizing worldwide leadership differences. We use a hypothetical case of an American executive in charge of four similar teams in Brazil, France, Egypt, and China to discuss cultural implications for the American executive. Using the hypothetical case involving five different countries allows us to provide in-depth action oriented and context specific advice, congruent with GLOBE findings, for effectively interacting with employees from different cultures. We end the paper with a discussion of the challenges facing global executives and how corporations can develop useful global leadership capabilities.

Impact ofGlobalization

Almost no American corporation is immunefrom the impact of globalization. The realityfor American corporations is that they must increasingly cope with diverse cross-cultural em- ployees, customers, suppliers, competitors, and creditors, a situation well captured by the follow- ing quote.

So I was visiting a businessman in downtown Jakarta the other day and I asked for directions to my next appointment. His exact instructions were: Go to the building with the Armani Emporium upstairs—you know, just above the Hard Rock café—and then turn right at McDonalds. “I just looked at him and laughed, “Where am’ I?”

Thomas Friedman, New York Times, July 14, 1997

Notwithstanding Tom Friedman’s astonishment about the global world in Jakarta, the fact is that people are not generally aware of the tremendous

impact that national culture has on their vision and interpretation of the world. Because culture colors nearly every aspect of human behavior, a working knowledge of culture and its influences can be useful to executives operating in a multi- cultural business environment. It is a truism by now that large corporations need executives with global mindsets and cross-cultural leadership abil- ities. Foreign sales by multinational corporations have exceeded $7 trillion and are growing 20 percent to 30 percent faster than their sales of exports.1 But while the importance of such busi- ness grows, 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies have reported a shortage of global managers with the necessary skills.2 Some experts have argued that most U.S. companies are not positioned to implement global strategies due to a lack of global leadership capabilities.3

*Mansour Javidan is professor and director of the Garvin Center for the Cultures and Languages of International Management at Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management in Arizona. He is on the board of directors of the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) research program. Contact javidanm@t-bird.edu Peter W. Dorfman is a full Professor in the Department of Management, New Mexico State University. Contact: pdorfman@nmsu.edu Mary Sully de Luque is an Assistant Professor of Management and a Research Fellow at Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management. Contact: sullym@t-bird.edu Robert J. House holds the Joseph Frank Bernstein endowed chair of Organizational Studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Contact: house@wharton.upenn.edu

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How can companies best use the available in- formation for executive development and, more- over, what is the validity and value of such infor- mation? U.S. and European executives have plenty of general advice available to them on how to perform in foreign settings. During the past few years much has been written about global leader- ship, including several books.4 Journals are also getting into the global action as seen in The Hu- man Resource Management Journal which recently published a special issue on global leadership.5 Nevertheless, in a recent review of the literature, Morrison concluded that despite the importance of global leadership, “relatively little research has thus far been carried out on global leadership characteristics, competencies, antecedents, and developmental strategies.”6

Advice to global managers needs to be specific enough to help them understand how to act in different surroundings. For example, managers with an overseas assignment are frequently ex- horted to have an open mind and to show respect for other cultures.7 They may also be told of the importance of cross-cultural relationship manage- ment and communication. Some will wrestle with the idea that they need to develop a global per- spective while being responsive to local concerns.8 Or they may wonder if they have the “cognitive complexity” and psychological maturity to handle life and work in a foreign setting. And they are likely to hear or read that they must “walk in the shoes of people from different cultures” in order to be effective.9 There is nothing wrong with such advice, and the scholars and writers who proffer it have often been pioneers in the field. But it is insufficient for a manager who is likely to assume, mistakenly, that being open minded in Atlanta, Helsinki, and Beijing will be perceived identi- cally, or that walking in someone else’s shoes will feel the same in Houston, Jakarta, and Madrid. Because of the lack of scientifically compiled in- formation, businesspeople have not had suffi- ciently detailed and context-specific suggestions about how to handle these cross-cultural chal- lenges. This is a particular problem for those in leadership positions.

Although there are universal aspects of leader- ship, information about which will be presented

shortly, people in different countries do in fact have different criteria for assessing their leaders.10 The issue for the American manager is whether the attributes that made him or her successful as a leader in the United States will also lead to suc- cess overseas, be of no value or, worst of all, cause harm in the foreign operation. Using the findings from an extensive research effort known as the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project, this article pro- vides a few answers to the questions about the universal and culture specific aspects of leader- ship. We will present specific information about key cultural differences among nations and con- nect the “dots” on how these differences influence leadership. This information should help a typical global executive better understand the leadership challenges s/he faces while managing operations outside the United States. It will also provide suggestions on how to more effectively cope with such challenges.

To make the GLOBE findings come alive, we will follow a hypothetical American executive who has been given two years to lead a project based in four different countries: Brazil, France, Egypt, and China. This hypothetical project in- volves developing a somewhat similar product for the four different markets. The project team in each country is tasked with the marketing of a new technology in the telecommunications indus- try. The executive will work with local employees in each location. Success will be determined by two criteria: the executive’s ability to produce results and to show effective leadership in differ- ent cultures and settings.

The four countries represent different conti- nents and very diverse cultures. Brazil is the most populous and economically important South American country. France is the largest, most populous, and most economically developed Latin European country. Egypt is the largest and most populous Arab country. China is the fast growing giant economy with unprecedented growth in its economic and diplomatic power in the world. We chose these countries to provide context specific analysis leading to general recommendations for global executives. Our choice of countries was guided by our efforts to cover a wide range of

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cultures. Before turning to our hypothetical sce- nario, we will examine common cultural dimen- sions that characterize nations and discuss why these dimensions are important for the develop- ment of global leaders.

CommonCulturalDimensions

To be open minded and to understand the cul-tures of the different countries, managers needto be able to compare their own cultures with those of other countries. After a review of the available literature, especially the work of Hofst- ede, Trompenaars, and Kluckhohn and Strodt- beck,11 GLOBE conceptualized and developed measures of nine cultural dimensions. These are aspects of a country’s culture that distinguish one society from another and have important mana- gerial implications. While a few of these dimen- sions are similar to the work of other researchers, the manner in which we conceptualized and op- erationalized them was different.12 We reconcep- tualized a few existing dimensions and developed a few new dimensions. In all cases, the scales designed to capture and measure these cultural dimensions passed very rigorous psychometric tests. A brief description of each cultural dimension is provided below along with the basic research de- sign of GLOBE. Further details can be found on GLOBE’s website, http://www.thunderbird.edu/ wwwfiles/ms/globe/.

It might be noted that the GLOBE Project has been called “the most ambitious study of global leadership.”13 Our world-wide team of scholars proposed and validated an integrated theory of the relationship between culture and societal, organi- zational, and leadership effectiveness. The 170 researchers worked together for ten years collect- ing and analyzing data on cultural values and practices and leadership attributes from over 17,000 managers in 62 societal cultures. The par- ticipating managers were employed in telecommu- nications, food, and banking industries. As one output from the project, the 62 cultures were ranked with respect to nine dimensions of their cultures. We studied the effects of these dimen- sions on expectations of leaders, as well as on organizational practices in each society. The 62 societal cultures were also grouped into a more

parsimonious set of ten culture clusters (list pro- vided in the next section). GLOBE studies cul- tures in terms of their cultural practices (the ways things are) and their cultural values (the way things should be). The nine cultural attributes (hereafter called culture dimensions) are:

Performance Orientation. The degree to which a collective encourages and rewards (and should encour- age and reward) group members for performance im- provement and excellence. In countries like the U.S. and Singapore that score high on this cultural practice, businesses are likely to emphasize training and devel- opment; in countries that score low, such as Russia and Greece, family and background count for more.

Assertiveness. The degree to which individuals are (and should be) assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in their relationships with others. People in highly assertive countries such as the United States and Austria tend to have can-do attitudes and enjoy competition in business; those in less assertive coun- tries such as Sweden and New Zealand prefer harmony in relationships and emphasize loyalty and solidarity.

Future Orientation. The extent to which individ- uals engage (and should engage) in future-oriented behaviors such as delaying gratification, planning, and investing in the future. Organizations in countries with high future oriented practices like Singapore and Swit- zerland tend to have longer term horizons and more systematic planning processes, but they tend to be averse to risk taking and opportunistic decision mak- ing. In contrast, corporations in the least future ori- ented countries like Russia and Argentina tend to be less systematic and more opportunistic in their actions.

Humane Orientation. The degree to which a col- lective encourages and rewards ( and should encourage and reward) individuals for being fair, altruistic, gen- erous, caring, and kind to others. Countries like Egypt and Malaysia rank very high on this cultural practice and countries like France and Germany rank low.

Institutional Collectivism. The degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices en- courage and reward (and should encourage and re- ward) collective distribution of resources and collec- tive action. Organizations in collectivistic countries like Singapore and Sweden tend to emphasize group performance and rewards, whereas those in the more individualistic countries like Greece and Brazil tend to emphasize individual achievement and rewards.

2006 69Javidan, Dorfman, Sully de Luque, and House

In-Group Collectivism. The degree to which in- dividuals express (and should express) pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families. Societies like Egypt and Russia take pride in their families and also take pride in the organizations that employ them.

Gender Egalitarianism. The degree to which a col- lective minimizes (and should minimize) gender in- equality. Not surprisingly, European countries gener- ally had the highest scores on gender egalitarianism practices. Egypt and South Korea were among the most male dominated societies in GLOBE. Organizations operating in gender egalitarian societies tend to en- courage tolerance for diversity of ideas and individuals.

Power Distance. The degree to which members of a collective expect (and should expect) power to be distributed equally. A high power distance score re- flects unequal power distribution in a society. Coun- tries that scored high on this cultural practice are more stratified economically, socially, and politically; those in positions of authority expect, and receive, obedi- ence. Firms in high power distance countries like Thai- land, Brazil, and France tend to have hierarchical decision making processes with limited one-way par- ticipation and communication.

Uncertainty Avoidance. The extent to which a society, organization, or group relies (and should rely) on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate unpredictability of future events. The greater the de- sire to avoid uncertainty, the more people seek order- liness, consistency, structure, formal procedures and laws to cover situations in their daily lives. Organiza- tions in high uncertainty avoidance countries like Sin- gapore and Switzerland tend to establish elaborate processes and procedures and prefer formal detailed strategies. In contrast, firms in low uncertainty avoid- ance countries like Russia and Greece tend to prefer simple processes and broadly stated strategies. They are also opportunistic and enjoy risk taking.

Regional ClusteringofGLOBENations

GLOBE was able to empirically verify ten cul-ture clusters from the 62-culture sample.These culture clusters were identified as: Latin America, Anglo, Latin Europe (e.g., Italy), Nordic Europe, Germanic Europe, Confucian Asia, Sub- Saharan Africa, Middle East, Southern Asia, and Eastern Europe. Each culture cluster differs with

respect to the nine culture dimensions (e.g., per- formance orientation). Table 1 shows a summary of how the clusters compare in terms of their scores on cultural practices. The clusters that are relevant to this paper are in bold. For instance, clusters scoring highest in performance orienta- tion were Confucian Asia, Germanic Europe and Anglo (U.S. and U.K. among other English- speaking countries). Clusters scoring lowest in performance orientation were Latin America and Eastern Europe. The Appendix shows the actual country scores for the six clusters in this paper.

ManagingandLeading inDifferent Countries

Given the differences found in cultures aroundthe globe, what does an effective Americanmanager need to do differently in different countries? Everything, nothing, or only certain things? From a leadership perspective we can ask whether the same attributes that lead to successful leadership in the U.S. lead to success in other countries. Or are they irrelevant or, even worse, dysfunctional? In the following sections, we will answer these questions. We will examine some similarities and differences among cultures regard- ing management and leadership practices. We then assert that many of the leadership differences found among cultures stem from implicit leader- ship beliefs held by members of different nations.

Expatriate managers working in multinational companies hardly need to be reminded of the wide variety of management practices found around the world. Laurent, and more recently Trompenaars and Briscoe and Shuler,14 document the astonish- ing diversity of organizational practices world- wide, many of which are acceptable and consid- ered effective in one country but ineffective in another country. For instance, supervisors are ex- pected to have precise answers to subordinates’ questions in Japan, but less so in the United States. As another example, the effectiveness of working alone or in a group is perceived very differently around the world; this would certainly influence the quality, aptitude, and fair evaluation of virtual teams found in multinational organiza- tions.15 An inescapable conclusion is that accept- able management practices found in one country are hardly guaranteed to work in a different coun-

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Table1 Cultural Clusters ClassifiedonSocietal CulturePractices (As Is) Scores

Cultural Dimension High-Score Clusters Mid-Score Clusters Low-Score Clusters Cluster-Average Range

Performance Orientation Confucian Asia Southern Asia Latin America 3.73–4.58

Germanic Europe Sub-Saharan Africa Eastern Europe

Anglo Latin Europe

Nordic Europe

Middle East

Assertiveness Germanic Europe Sub-Saharan Africa Nordic Europe 3.66–4.55

Eastern Europe Latin America

Anglo

Middle East

Confucian Asia

Latin Europe

Southern Asia

Future Orientation Germanic Europe Confucian Asia Middle East 3.38–4.40

Nordic Europe Anglo Latin America

Southern Asia Eastern Europe

Sub-Saharan Africa

Latin Europe

Humane Orientation Southern Asia Middle East Latin Europe 3.55–4.71

Sub-Saharan Africa Anglo Germanic Europe

Nordic Europe

Latin America

Confucian Asia

Eastern Europe

Institutional Collectivism Nordic Europe Anglo Germanic Europe 3.86–4.88

Confucian Asia Southern Asia Latin Europe

Sub-Saharan Africa Latin America

Middle East

Eastern Europe

In-Group Collectivism Southern Asia Sub-Saharan Africa Anglo 3.75–5.87

Middle East Latin Europe Germanic Europe

Eastern Europe Nordic Europe

Latin America

Confucian Asia

Gender Egalitarianism Eastern Europe Latin America Middle East 2.95–3.84

Nordic Europe Anglo

Latin Europe

Sub-Saharan Africa

Southern Asia

Confucian Asia

Germanic Europe

Power Distance Southern Asia Nordic Europe 4.54–5.39

Latin America

Eastern Europe

Sub-Saharan Africa

Middle East

Latin Europe

Confucian Asia

Anglo

Germanic Europe

Uncertainty Avoidance Nordic Europe Confucian Asia Middle East 3.56–5.19

Germanic Europe Anglo Latin America

Sub-Saharan Africa Eastern Europe

Latin Europe

Southern Asia

NOTE: Means of high-score clusters are significantly higher (p � 0.05) than the rest, means of low-score clusters are significantly lower (p � 0.05) than the rest, and means of mid-score clusters are not significantly different from the rest (p � 0.05).

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try. Titus Lokananta, for example, is an Indone- sian Cantonese holding a German passport, man- aging a Mexican multinational corporation producing Gummy Bears in the Czech Republic.16 What management style will he be most comfort- able with, and will it be successful with Czech workers and Mexican CEOs? How does he effec- tively manage if a conflict evolves between man- aging his workers and satisfying his supervisors?

Should we, however, conclude that cultural differences are so vast that common management practices among countries are the exception rather than the rule and will ever remain so? Not necessarily. Companies are forced to share infor- mation, resources, and training in a global econ- omy. The best business schools educate managers from all over the world in the latest management techniques. Using academic jargon, the issue of common versus unique business and management practices is framed using contrasting perspectives embodied in the terms cultural universals versus cultural specifics. The former are thought to be found from the process of cultural convergence whereas the latter from maintaining cultural di- vergence. Perhaps not surprisingly, empirical re- search supports both views. For example, in their event management leadership research program Smith and Peterson found both commonalities and differences across cultures in the manner by which managers handled relatively routine events in their work.17 All managers preferred to rely on their own experience and training if appointing a new subordinate, relative to other influences such as consultation with others or using formal rules and procedures. However, there were major dif- ferences in countries in the degree to which man- agers used formal company rules and procedures in contrast to more informal networks, and these differences covary with national cultural values.18 As another example, Hazucha and colleagues19 found a good deal of similarity among European countries regarding the importance of core man- agement competencies for a Euromanager. Yet there were significant differences among countries in the perceived attainment of these skills. Javi- dan and Carl have recently shown important sim- ilarities and differences among Canadian, Taiwan-

ese, and Iranian managers in terms of their leadership styles.20

Should we also expect that leadership pro- cesses, like management practices, are similarly influenced by culture? The answer is yes; substan- tial empirical evidence indicates that leader at- tributes, behavior, status, and influence vary con- siderably as a result of culturally unique forces in the countries or regions in which the leaders func- tion.21 But, as the colloquial saying goes “the devil is in the details,” and current cross-cultural theory is inadequate to clarify and expand on the diverse cultural universals and cultural specifics eluci- dated in cross-cultural research. Some researchers subscribe to the philosophy that the primary im- pact of culture depends on the level of analysis used in the research program. That is, some view the basic functions of leadership as having univer- sal importance and applicability, but the specific ways in which leadership functions are enacted are strongly affected by cultural variation.22 Other researchers, including the contributors to this ar- ticle, question this basic assumption, subscribing more to the viewpoint that cultural specifics are real and woe to the leader who ignores them.

DoRequired LeadershipQualitiesDiffer AmongNations?

It has been pointed out that managerial leader-ship differences (and similarities) among nationsmay be the result of the citizens’ implicit as- sumptions regarding requisite leadership quali- ties.23 According to implicit leadership theory (ILT), individuals hold a set of beliefs about the kinds of attributes, personality characteristics, skills, and behaviors that contribute to or impede outstanding leadership. These belief systems, var- iously referred to as prototypes, cognitive catego- ries, mental models, schemas, and stereotypes in the broader social cognitive literature, are as- sumed to affect the extent to which an individual accepts and responds to others as leaders.24

GLOBE extended ILT to the cultural level of analysis by arguing that the structure and content of these belief systems will be shared among indi- viduals in common cultures. We refer to this shared cultural level analog of individual implicit

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leadership theory (ILT) as culturally endorsed im- plicit leadership theory (CLT). GLOBE empirically identified universally perceived leadership at- tributes that are contributors to or inhibitors of outstanding leadership. Project GLOBE’s leader- ship questionnaire items consisted of 112 behav- ioral and attribute descriptors (e.g., “intelligent”) that were hypothesized to either facilitate or im- pede outstanding leadership. Accompanying each item was a short phrase designed to help interpret the item. Items were rated on a 7-point Likert- type scale that ranged from a low of 1 (this be- havior or characteristic greatly inhibits a person from being an outstanding leader) to a high of 7 (this behavior or characteristic contributes greatly to a person being an outstanding leader). Project GLOBE also empirically reduced the huge number of leadership attributes into a much more under- standable, comprehensive grouping of 21 primary and then 6 global leadership dimensions. The 6 global leadership dimensions differentiate cultural profiles of desired leadership qualities, hereafter referred to as a CLT profile. Convincing evidence from GLOBE research showed that people within cultural groups agree in their beliefs about leader- ship; these beliefs are represented by a set of CLT leadership profiles developed for each national cul- ture and cluster of cultures. For detailed descrip- tions of the statistical processes used to form the 21 primary and 6 global leadership dimensions and development of CLT profiles see House et al.25 Using the six country scenarios, in the last half of this paper we will show the range of lead- ership responses that should be effective in each cultural setting. The six dimensions of the CLT leadership profiles are: