comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

concepts such as transformational or transactional leadership may be universal, there
can be significant differences in the expression of these attributes across cultures.
The Interaction of Culture and Leadership
In cross-cultural leadership research, cultural theories offer an explanation of why and
how cultures influence organisational behaviour. Leadership theories try to provide an
understanding of what leadership means and what kind of behaviour it includes.
Societies, organisations, and groups evolve ways of passing on their culture to their
members. Until one has extended, intimate personal experience with another culture one
my underestimate the effectiveness of these processes. Once an individual has
undergone the socialisation process and entered into the culture, he or she interprets the
outside world through this cultural framework. A culture provides the frame of
reference (Ronen, 1986: 18) or mental programming (Hofstede, 2001) for its members.
Individuals are generally unconscious of these learned patterns. A prolonged stay
abroad and close contact with the local people can lead to becoming more self-aware of
the mental programmes operating in one’s home culture.
The effect of culturally embedded values, beliefs, and ideals on organisational practices
and methods used and the organisational behaviour of individuals and work groups have
long attracted the attention of researchers. Although opinions vary, most researchers
seem to agree that the concept of culture is a very important explanatory variable in
research on management (Adler and Bartholomew, 1992: 562; Safranski and Kwon,
1987; Tayeb, 1994: 429). Adler and Bartholomew (1992: 562) surveyed academic and
professional journals and found that almost all (93.8%) of the articles dealing with
culture concluded that culture was important to an understanding of organisational
behaviour and human resource management.
SUMMARY
In this chapter I have discussed and supported my rationale for selecting the LBDQXII
survey as the operationalisation of my selected theory of preferred leader behaviour. I
have dicusses my reasons for not choosing other theories such as the leader–member
exchange (LMX), e.g. on the advice of Graen and Hui, and the fact that the theory in
China would be more descriptive than analytical; there are similar reasons for not
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