Transformational Leadership

VS.
Transactional Leadership:
The Influence of Gender and Culture on Leadership Styles
of SMEs in China and Sweden

The Department of Business Studies

Master in International Business
FEC 685, Master Dissertation
December 2006

Tutors: Christer Ekelund

Lisa Kllstrm
Viveca Fjelkner

Authors: Pan Xiaoxia

Pan Xiaoxia
Wu Jing

Acknowledgements

Kristianstad University, 2006

There are many people to whom we owe the acknowledgements.

First of all, we would like to express our most sincere and warmest appreciation to our
supervisors, Christer Ekelund and Lisa Kllstrm, who have been generous enough to
give us valuable comments on the whole thesis. Many thanks also give to Annika
Fjelkner for her patient improvement in our English writing. Then we are indebted to
Dr. Hoon Halbauer at Lund University, Dr. Ingemar Ottosson and Dr. Leif Holmberg
at Kristianstad University for their kind help. Particular thanks also to Zhang Lin,
Pierre Carbonnier, Duoc Lu and Yang Xinzheng for their sincere help in our
questionnaire and data analysis.

Last but not least, we owe our profound gratitude to all our friends and all the Chinese
and Swedish managers who have offered us lots of support and encouragement.

Pan Xiaoxia

Pan Xiaoxia

Wu Jing

Abstract

Transformational and transactional leadership, which focus on the relationship between

leaders and employees, are the most recent development of leadership theories. Yet
studies on the impact of gender and culture on transformational and transactional
leadership styles are limited. This Master Dissertation therefore aims to shed new light
on that issue. First, it attempts to compare leadership styles adopted by managers of
SMEs in China and Sweden. Second, it tries to evaluate which element - gender or
culture - exerts a more important influence upon leadership styles.

Based on empirical researches, ten hypotheses are formulated and a new model is
developed in the dissertation. In addition, the deductive approach is chosen as
methodology and quantitative data is gathered with the help of an empirical study of
an online questionnaire.

Eventually, the present research indicates that both Chinese managers and Swedish
managers of SMEs are prone to be more transformational than transactional. It also
shows that there is no gender influence upon leadership styles. In contrast, culture
exerts a little more impact on leadership styles of SMEs in China and Sweden.
Key words: transformational leadership style, transactional leadership style, gender,
culture, China, Sweden

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Background ...........................................................................................................1
1.2. Problem ..................................................................................................................2
1.3. Purpose...................................................................................................................2
1.4. Limitations.............................................................................................................3
1.5. Research Questions ...............................................................................................3
1.6. Outline....................................................................................................................3
2. Methodology .............................................................................................................5
2.1. Choice of Methodology .........................................................................................5
2.2. Data Collection ......................................................................................................5
2.2.1. Secondary Data....................................................................................................5
2.2.2. Primary Data .......................................................................................................6
2.2.3. Qualitative Method and Quantitative Method .....................................................6
2.3. Research Approach ...............................................................................................6
2.4. Research Philosophy .............................................................................................7
3.Theoretical Framework............................................................................................8
3.1. An Overview of Theories of Leadership .............................................................8
3.1.1. Introduction: Concepts of Leadership .................................................................8
3.1.2. Characteristics of Leadership Theories...............................................................9
3.1.2.1. Four Types of Leadership Theories...................................................................9
3.1.2.2. Summary ......................................................................................................... 11
3.1.3. Traditional Theories of Leadership.................................................................... 11
3.1.4. New Leadership in the 21st Century..................................................................12
3.1.4.1. Introduction.....................................................................................................12
3.1.4.2. Transformational Leadership ..........................................................................12
3.1.4.3. Connective Leadership....................................................................................13
3.1.4.4. Summary .........................................................................................................13
3.1.5. Summary of Leadership Theories ......................................................................13
3.2. Transformational VS. Transactional Leadership.............................................14
3.2.1. Introduction........................................................................................................14
3.2.2. Components of Transformational Leadership ...................................................15
3.2.3. Components of Transactional Leadership .........................................................15
3.2.4. Summary ............................................................................................................16
3.3. Gender and Leadership ......................................................................................17
3.3.1. Overview of Theories of Gender and Leadership ..............................................17
3.3.1.1.Stereotypes of Male and Female Leaders ........................................................17
3.3.1.2. Role Incongruity .............................................................................................18
3.3.1.3. Gender Differences in Actual Leadership Styles ............................................18
3.3.2. Gender Persepective on Transformational and Transactional Leadership .......22
3.3.2.1. Introduction.....................................................................................................22
3.3.2.2. Gender Difference Camp ................................................................................22

3.3.2.3. Non-Differences Camp ...................................................................................24

3.2.2.4. Summary .........................................................................................................24
3.4. Culture and Leadership .....................................................................................25
3.4.1. An Overview of Theories of Culture and Leadership Styles25
3.4.1.1. Theories of Culture .........................................................................................25
3.4.1.2. Theories of Previous Researches on Culture and Leadeship Styles ...............25
3.4.1.3. Hofstedes Four Cultural Dimensions of National Culture.............................27
3.4.2. Hofstedes Four Cultural Dimensions VS. Leadership Styles ............................29
3.4.2.1. Power Distance VS. Leadership Styles...........................................................29
3.4.2.2. Collectivism/Individualism VS. Leadership Styles ........................................29
3.4.2.3. Femininity/Masculinity VS. Leadership Styles ..............................................30
3.4.2.4. Uncertainty Avoidance VS. Leadership Styles ...............................................31
3.4.2.5. Summary .........................................................................................................32
3.4.3. Hofstedes Four Cultural Dimensions Index of China and Sweden...................34
4. Discussion of the PWP Model ...............................................................................36
4.1. Introduction.........................................................................................................36
4.2. Explanation for the PWP Model........................................................................36
4.3. Hypotheses ...........................................................................................................45
4.3.1. Hypotheses of Influence of Gender on Leadership Styles..................................45
4.3.2.Hypotheses of Influence of Four Cultural Dimensions on Leadership Styles ....46
4.4.Conclusion......................................49
5. Empirical Method ..................................................................................................50
5.1. Research Strategy................................................................................................50
5.2. Sample Selection..................................................................................................50
5.3. Questionnaire Design..........................................................................................51
5.3.1. Questions Concerning Background Information ...............................................51
5.3.2. Questions Concerning Leadership Styles ..........................................................52
5.3.3. Questions Concerning Cultural Dimensions .....................................................54
5.3.4. Summary ............................................................................................................56
5.4. Response Rate......................................................................................................56
5.5. Credibility ............................................................................................................56
5.5.1. Reliability...........................................................................................................56
5.5.2. Validity ...............................................................................................................57
5.6. Generalisability ...................................................................................................58

6. Analysis of the Research Survey ...........................................................................59

6.1. Introduction.........................................................................................................59
6.2.Leadership Styles..60
6.2.1. Result of Survey on Leadership Styles60
6.2.2. Comparative Study on Leadership Styles...63
6.2.3. Summary ............................................................................................................66
6.3. The Influence of Gender on Leadership Styles ................................................66
6. 3.1 Result of Gender Influence on Leadership Styles ..............................................66
6.3.2 Answers to Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 ........................................................67
6.3.3. Comparative Study by Gender ...........................................................................68
6.3.4. Summary ............................................................................................................69
6.4. The influence of Culture on Leadership Styles ................................................70
6.4.1 Result of Four Cultural Dimensions of China and Sweden................................70

6.4.1.1. Power Distance ...............................................................................................72

6.4.1.2. Uncertainty Avoidance....................................................................................73
6.4.1.3. Collectivism/Individualism.............................................................................73
6.4.1.4. Femininity/Masculinity...................................................................................74
6.4.1.5. Summary .........................................................................................................75
6.4.2. Answers to Hypothesis 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 .............................................................76
6.4.3. Summary ............................................................................................................77
6.5. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................77
6.5.1. Result of Hypotheses Testing............................................................................77
6.5.2. Answer to Research Questions...........................................................................78
6.5.2.1. Answer to the First Research Question...........................................................78
6.5.2.2. Answer to the Second Research Question ......................................................79
7. Final Conclusions ...................................................................................................80
7.1. Summary of the Dissertation .............................................................................80
7.2. Applicability of the Model ..................................................................................82
7.3. Self-Criticism.......................................................................................................82
7.4. Future Research ..................................................................................................83
7.5. Practical Implication ..........................................................................................84
Reference.....85
Appendices
Appendix 1a: Instructions of the Questionnaire (English Version)
Appendix 1b: Instructions of the Questionnaire (Chinese Version)
Appendix 1c: English version of the Questionnaire
Appendix 1d: Chinese version of the Questionnaire
Appendix 2:

Comparisons of Transformational Leadership between China and

Sweden

Appendix 3: Comparisons of Transactional Leadership between China and Sweden

Appendix 4a: The Age-Level the Whole Participants
Appendix 4b: The Age-Level of Chinese Participants
Appendix 4c: The Age-Level of Swedish Participants
Appendix 5a: The Size of Companies of China and Sweden
Appendix 56: The Size of Chinese Companies
Appendix 5c: The Size of Swedish Companies
Appendix 6: Comparisons of Transformational Leadership between Males and
Females (Means and Significances)
Appendix 7: Comparisons of Transactional leadership between Males and Females
Appendix 8: Comparison of Cultural dimensions between China and Sweden
Appendix 9: Correlations: Cultural Dimensions and Leadership styles

List of Figures/ Tables

Figure 1.1 Definitions of SMEs of China and Sweden.2
Figure 3.1 Characteristics of Transformational and Transactional Leaders........16
Figure 3.2 Key Differences between Small Power Distance and Large Power
Distance Countries in Terms of Leadership styles.29
Figure 3.3 Key Differences between Collectivist and Individualist Countries in
Terms of Leadership Styles......29
Figure3.4 Key Differences between Feminine countries and Masculine countries in
Terms of Leadership Styles..30
Figure3.5 Key Differences between Weak Uncertainty Avoidance and Strong
Uncertainty

Avoidance

Countries

in

Terms

of

Leadership

Style..31
Figure 3.6 The key Characteristics of Four Cultural Dimensions...32
Figure 4.1 The PWP Model.38
Figure 6.1 The Questions related to Transformational Leadership Style....60
Figure 6.2 The Questions related to Transactional Leadership Style..61
Table 6.1 Comparison of Transformational Leadership between China and
Sweden........61
Table 6.2 Comparison of Transactional leadership between China and
Sweden62
Table 6.3 The Age-Level of Chinese Participants ..... 64
Table 6.4 The Age-Level of Swedish Participants..64
Table 6.5 The Size of Chinese Companies..65
Table 6.6 The Size of Swedish Companies......65
Table6.7 Comparison of Transformational leadership between Males and
Females...66
Table 6.8 Comparison of Transactional leadership between Males and Females...67
Table 6.9 The scores of Hofstedes cultural dimension concerning China and
Sweden......70
Table 6.10 The Questions related to Cultural dimensions.. 71
Table 6.11 Comparison of Cultural dimensions between China and Sweden.72
Table 6.12 Correlations Cultural Dimensions and Leadership styles..76
Table 6.13 Result of Hypotheses-Testing ...78

Chapter 1 Introduction
For the past decades, the topic on the influence of gender and culture on leadership styles
has aroused significant research interests. In this chapter, the purpose of the dissertation is
explained, an overview of the background is presented, and the research questions and
limitations are discussed. Finally, the outline of the dissertation is presented.

1.1. Background
As Chinese exchange students majoring in International Business in Sweden, we show our
great interest and aspiration to valuate and compare the leadership styles between China and
Sweden. Furthermore, we explore two possible reasons: gender and culture. Then, in the
following chapters we try to find out which element gender or culture - exerts a more
important impact on the leadership style of Small-and-Medium Sized Enterprises (It will be
called SMEs for short thereafter) in China and Sweden.

Leadership is a topic of enormous interest in business circle. Anyone who has been reading
either popular works on leadership or academic literature on the subject will be likely to have
noticed the emergence of a new concept in this field, transformational leadership and
transactional leadership.

Due to gender and cultural differences, managers probably lead their companies in different
ways even in similar industries. From a gender perspective, some researchers indicate that
male managers have a more transactional leadership style, while female managers leadership
style could be described more as transformational (Rosener, 1990). Others show that female
managers see themselves and their superiors as androgynous; whereas male managers see
themselves as masculine or feminine (Vinneicombe and Cames, 1998). On the contrary, some
researches report that female managers lead companies in ways that are more similar than
different to men in male-dominated industries (Gardiner and Tiggemann, 1999). This
argument reversely indicates that a companys management practices are somewhat
influenced by the nationality of the leaders rather than the gender differences (Laurent, 1987).
We observe that there are various opinions toward the same issues among the researchers.
Some show that the different leadership styles result from the different cultural contexts.

Others report that the differences lie in gender orientation.

We delimit our research setting to SMEs. The reasons lie in that SMEs are more independent
in leadership than MNEs and they may typically represent their own national leadership
styles from our viewpoint. As to the definition of SME, it varies from different countries. The
details are presented in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Definitions of SMEs of China and Sweden

Countries

Definition of SMEs

China

In China, the definition of SMEs is varied

with different industries.

Sweden

In Sweden, SMEs are defined as autonomous

firms with less than 200 employees.

Number of
employees
Usually < 100
employees
In handicraft
industries
< 20 employees
In heavy industries:
< 1000 employees
< 200 employees

Source: Globalization and Small and Medium enterprises, Vol. 1 Synthesis Report, 1997

1.2.Problem
From the literature review and discussion, we know that most of the related studies focus on
either the relationship between leadership and gender, or the relationship between leadership
and culture. On the other hand, research on the influence of gender and culture on leadership
of SMEs in China and Sweden is limited. Gibson (1995) also recommended more research
into gender characteristics and cultural orientations, particularly Hofstedes dimensions, in
order to gain a greater understanding of the influence of culture on leadership. This present
research will hopefully shed new light on that issue.

1.3.Purpose
The main purposes of this research are as follows:

Firstly, we broaden the current framework of research on two different leadership styles:
transformational and transactional, to empirically evaluate managers leadership styles of
SMEs in China and Sweden. Secondly, we try to analyze and identify the influence of gender
2

and culture on leadership styles of SMEs between the two countries. Finally, we attempt to
build our own model concerning the correlation between gender and leadership styles, and
the relation between culture and leadership styles, and hopefully it can be generalized and
applied in different cultural context other than China and Sweden.

1.4. Limitations
One of the limitations of our dissertation is that we may have missed some of the latest
researches on transformational and transactional leadership. Another limitation is that we
ascribe the different leadership styles of SMEs in China and Sweden only to gender and
culture. In this sense, other important reasons could be ignored, for instance, managers
personal traits, which have often been said to have important impact on leadership styles and
organizational performance. Finally, there are perhaps other limitations that have been
neglected.

1.5. Research Questions

z

What characterize the leadership styles of SMEs in China and Sweden? Are they
transformational or transactional?

Which element - gender or culture - exerts a more important impact on the leadership
styles of SMEs in China and Sweden?

1.6. Outline
The outline of the dissertation is presented in the following:

Chapter 2: The methodology, including data collection, research philosophy and research
approach, is introduced.

Chapter 3: The theoretical framework is presented. The theories of leadership styles,

including transformational and transactional leadership, are described and analyzed. Besides,
the theories and recent research about gender and leadership styles are presented and
explained. Further, the relationship between leadership styles and the four dimensions of
Hofstedes Theory Power Distance, Collectivism versus Individualism, Masculinity versus
Femininity, and Uncertainty Avoidance - are discussed and analyzed.
3

Chapter 4: An explanatory model of our own is created, with the purpose to explain the
influence of gender and culture on leadership styles of SMEs in China and Sweden. Finally,
ten hypotheses developed from the theories are put forth.

Chapter 5: The empirical method is stated in detail. The chapter starts with a research strategy,
which aims to explain or approach in answering the research questions. The chapter
concludes with a discussion on the reliability, validity and generalisability of the study.

Chapter 6: The result of our study is analyzed, the ten hypotheses are tested and evaluated.
Finally, the two research questions are answered.

Chapter 7: The conclusion is drawn in this chapter. The applicability of the explanatory
model is evaluated. Finally, suggestions for future research and practical implications are
presented.

Chapter 2 Methodology
This chapter explains the different choices concerning the methodology. The methodology,
including data collection, research philosophy as well as research approach is introduced.

2.1. Choice of Methodology

The main purpose of our dissertation is to evaluate the relationship between gender and
leadership styles, and the correlation between culture and leadership styles. Therefore, we
studied previous researches in the area of leadership style theories, and focused on
characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership. We also studied traditional
cross-cultural management theories and the theories of gender and leadership. Among the
materials we found Bass theories and Hofstedes theories of four cultural dimensions to be
helpful. Therefore, we brought forth ten hypotheses based on their theories. Further, we
developed our own model and attempted to make it generalized.

We hereafter conducted an

online questionnaire to do the research.

2.2. Data Collection

2.2.1. Secondary Data

Secondary data include both quantitative and qualitative data, and they are used principally in
both descriptive and explanatory research. There are three main subgroups of secondary data:
documentary secondary data, survey-based secondary data, and multiple-source secondary
data (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2007).

In our research, extensive literature was reviewed on the relatively new concepts of
transformational and transactional leadership. We focused on documentary secondary data,
such as journals, books, business reports, magazine articles. The following criteria had to be
met: contemporary, written in English or Chinese. And the most important criterion is that it
should be concerned with the three factors: leadership styles, gender and culture.

This dissertation is mainly based on Bass transformational and transactional theories and
Hofstedes theories of four cultural dimensions. Besides, some of the most recognized
researchers are Burns, (1978), Avolio (1992), and Kark (2000).

2.2.2. Primary Data

Primary data are new data that are needed for a special research. The data can be collected in
a number of ways, e.g. observations, semi-structured, in-depth and group interviews, as well
as questionnaires, (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2007).

However, we found that

questionnaire technique was most appropriate to our research questions and objectives,
because it can provide us with an efficient way of collecting responses from a large sample
prior to quantitative analysis. With the purpose of testing our model, we conducted a survey
by using an online questionnaire. The questions in the questionnaire were linked to our ten
hypotheses. More details concerning the questionnaire are explained in 5.3.

2.2.3. Qualitative Method and Quantitative Method

A data can be either qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative data is non-numerical data or data,
which have not been quantified, for example, interviews. This form of method might create a
deeper understanding of the problem that is being studied ( Andersen, 1998).

The opposite of qualitative data is quantitative data. It consists of numerical data or data,
which has been quantified, one example is a survey based on a questionnaire (Sounders,
Lewis & Thornhill, 2007). This method is characterized of diligent use of statistics and
mathematics (Andersen, 1998).

We selected quantitative approach in order to make our results more reliable and scientific.
Our data was analyzed by the statistical analysis software SPSS.

2.3. Research Approach

There are two main research approaches: deductive approach and inductive approach. The
appropriate research approach provides the guidelines for the methodology.

The deductive method is when you begin with a theory and then perform an investigation in
order to confirm or reject the specific theory. Thus, a deductive approach is often
accompanied by a survey as a means of collecting data. On the other hand, the inductive
approach is when you observe a phenomenon and tries to explain it in a theoretical manner, in
other words, the deductive approach reversed (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2007).

We adopted a deductive approach since we started the process by a literature review. As we

6

gained adequate knowledge we were ready to develop our model and state our own
hypotheses. Then, we tried to test them on Swedish and Chinese managers by doing a survey.
The questionnaire met our needs well as it enabled us to reach a large number of participants.
The advantage of such a method was that we could get an adequate response of our selection
while the disadvantage was that a questionnaire could be misinterpreted if the questions were
not so good.

2.4. Research Philosophy

In the research process, there are three common philosophies: positivism, realism and
interpretivism. The principle of positivism was used through our dissertation since we used
existing theory to develop hypotheses and had them tested by using a quantitative survey.

Researches who adopt a positivistic view strive to be independent, which means that they do
not want to affect or be affected by the subject or the research (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill,
2007). When we conducted our research we tried to stay neutral and not let our expectations
make influence on the result.

We did not find the interpretivistic approach practicable because we wanted to generalize our
model and applied it in different cultural context other than China and Sweden. However,
interpretivistic approach emphasizes that generlisability is not vital(Saunders, Lewis &
Thornhill, 2007).

Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework is presented. The theories of leadership styles, including
transformational and transactional leadership, are described. Besides, the theories and
recent research about gender and leadership styles are discussed. Further, the relationship
between leadership styles and the four dimensions of Hofstedes Theory are presented.

3.1. An Overview of Theories of Leadership

3.1.1. Introduction: Concepts of Leadership
A day seldom passes without stories showing in the media about leadership. The word
leadership is one of the worlds oldest concepts. In earlier times, words meaning head of
state, military commander, principles, proconsul, chief, or king were very
common in most societies; these words differentiated the ruler from other members of society
(Bass, 1997). The word leadership first occurred mainly in countries with Anglo-Saxon
heritage (Bass, 1997), but it did not appear in Britain until the first half of the nineteenth
century.

As for the meaning of leadership, there are various opinions among different researchers.
Pfeffer (1977) finds that many of the definitions are ambiguous (Bass, 1997); and Spitzberg
(1986) reports that the meaning of leadership may depend on the kind of institution in which
it is found. In this dissertation, we only focus on leadership in businesses or organizations,
therefore, some definitions will be ignored.

James MacGregor Burns (1978) writes that a study of the definition of the word leadership
reveals 130 definitions. However, several generally-accepted variations on the definition
appear in the management and leadership literature. He concludes by presenting five
characteristics of leadership:
z

Leadership is collective. James Burns regards the notion of one-person leadership as a

contradiction in terms, because both leaders and followers must exist. Also, an
organization may have multiple leaders all acting in correspondence with one another.

Leadership is dissension. Burns claims that leadership coexists with dissent. Indeed,

much of the growth of any organization centers on the management/leadership of dissent,

except in times of war.
z

Leadership is causative. True leadership affects the motives of individuals and groups of
peoples and alters the course of the organizational history. It causes positive change.

Leadership is morally purposeful. Burns sees leadership as goal-oriented, with leaders

and followers pointing the way to some future state of the organization with plans about
how those goals might be met.

Transforming leadership is elevating. Engagement between leaders and followers takes

place on a moral - but not a moralistic - plane, as both leaders and followers rise to live
more principled lives (Burn, 1978).

According to Bass, leadership has been conceived as the focus of group processes, as a matter
of personality, as a matter of including compliance, as the exercise of influence, as particular
behaviors, as a form of persuasion, as a power relation, as an instrument to achieve goals, as
an effect of interaction, as a differentiated role, as initiation of structure, and as many
combinations of these definitions (Bass, 1997).

In conclusion, we think Bass and Burns definitions are much more related to business and
organizations, and much more specific than others.

3.1.2. Characteristics of Leadership Theories

3.1.2.1. Four Types of Leadership Theories
Leadership theories can be featured generally as being concerned with who leads (i.e.,
characteristics of leaders), how they lead (i.e., leader behaviors), under what circumstances
they lead (i.e., situational theories, contingency theories), or who follows the leader (i.e.,
relational theories) (Cleveland, Stockdale & Murphy, 2000). Examples of all four approaches
are presented in the following.

Trait Approaches
It is a conventional vision that great leaders possess special traits that distinguish them from
other people. This vision shares the same idea with great-person theory, which indicates
9

that leaders normally have extraordinary ambition, clear and articulate vision, and a winning
personality that draw people to them; these leaders possess certain traits to a greater extent
than do non-leaders. Moreover, some researchers report that the traits which distinguish great
leaders from others are inherited (Cleveland, Stockdale & Murphy, 2000).

Behavioral Approaches
The behavioral approach focuses on what leader do rather than what traits they possess.
Researchers categorize the leaders behaviors into two attributes: consideration (C) and
initiating structure (IS) (Feishman,1973). Consideration consists of behaviors that show a
concern for people, their needs, and their relationships with others. Initiating structure
constitutes concern for organizing and accomplishing tasks. Note that the two attributes are
uncorrelated, therefore, one leader can demonstrate both C and IS behaviors, one or the other,
or neither. By definition a person who does not engage in either C or IS behaviors is not a
leader. The researches on Behavioral Theories include Blake & Moutons Managerial Grid
(1964); Lipman-Bluman, 1996; Yukl & Van Fleet, 1992; Wall & Lepsinger, 1990; etc.

Contingency Theories
Contingency theories contend that there is not one best way of leadership and that one
leadership style which is effective in some situations may not be successful in others. In other
words, the optimal leadership is contingent upon various external and internal constraints,
including the size of organizations, their environments, differences among resources,
employees, strategies, etc.

There are four representative contingency theories over the decades, which are Fiedlers
Contingency (1967), Path-Goal Theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), Substitutes for Leadership
(1978) and Vroom-Yettoon Decision Tree Model (1973).

Situational Theories
Situational leadership theories try to explain leaders style, behavior, or effectiveness by
understanding how aspects of the situation shape leaders behaviors. The theories presume
that different leadership styles are better in different situations, and that leaders must be
flexible enough to adapt their style to the situation they are in. A good situational leader is
one who can quickly change leadership styles as the situation changes; in contrast, a leader
without changing his leadership style according to the changing situation would doom to
10

failure. The best known model of situational theories is developed by Blanchard and Hersey
(1969, 1999).

Relational-Based Theories
Relational-Based Theories are the more recent development of leadership theories. The
theories seem to move away from traits, behaviors, styles, and situational characteristics that
determine leadership. Instead, they focus on the relationship between leaders and followers.
In other words, the theories are based on social-exchange theory, which states that both the
leader and the followers commit to working together (i.e., the followers are willing to be led
and the leader is willing to provide direction and support) as long as members find the
relationship mutually satisfying (Cleveland, Stockdale & Murphy, 2000).

Two influential relationship-based leadership theories are the Leader-Member Exchange

(LMX) model by Dansereau, Graen, and Haga (1975) and Transformational Leadership by
Bass and Avolio (1994).

3.1.2.2. Summary
According to researchers, trait approaches, behavioral approaches, contingency theories and
situational theories belong to traditional theories of leadership; and Relational-Based
Theories are most recent development of leadership theories. The discussion is continued in
the following sections.

3.1.3. Traditional Theories of Leadership

Based on the discussion of characteristics of leadership theories above, traditional leadership
theories include trait approaches, behavioral approaches, situational theories and contingency
theories. From some empirical researches, contingency and situational theories are the two
most influential and representative approaches among all the traditional theories (Cleveland,
Stockdale & Murphy, 2000).

The Contingency Theory is similar to situational theory in that there is an assumption of no

simply one right way. The main differences is that the Situational Theory tends to focus more
on the behaviors that leader should adopt, given situational factors (often about follower
behavior), that is, leaders should change their leadership styles due to changing situations;
whereas the Contingency Theory takes a broader view that includes contingent factors about
11

leader capability and other variables within the situation. Put in another way, contingency
theories suggest that leaders should change their situation to achieve effectiveness, rather than
change their leadership style.

3.1.4. New Leadership in the 21st Century

3.1.4.1. Introduction
During the last two decades, the leadership styles in organizations have been changing rapidly.
On the one hand, the rapid pace of technological developments exerts a crucial influence on
the organizational development and leadership styles. On the other hand, the participation of
women in business is challenging a male-dominated society in the form of organizational
culture, leadership styles, etc. Therefore, a simple and single approach, based on traits,
behaviors, etc, is insufficient for understanding all the attributes leaders must possess and all
the strategies they must adopt in order to thrive. In the following sections, two influential
modern approaches transformational leadership and connective leadership are presented
to offer a better understanding of new leadership in the 21st century.

3.1.4.2. Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is the process of influencing major changes in the attitudes and
assumptions of organizational membersand building commitment for major changes in the
organizations objectives and strategies (Yukl & Fleet, 1992, 174).

Transformational leadership goes beyond the day-to-day, reward/punishment-based styles

described in transactional theories of leadership, for instance, leader-member exchange
theory (Ohio State leadership studies). Transactional leadership produces incremental
changes in way followers behave, for instance, transactional leaders generally reward or
disciplines the follower depending on the adequacy of the followers performance; whereas
transformational leadership produces fundamental changes in followers beliefs and attitudes
about the organization, for example, transformational leaders always aim to intellectually
stimulate the followers use of their abilities (Cleveland, Stockdale & Murphy, 2000).

In the age of increasing turbulence, many scholars suggest that transformational leadership
should be more suitable for organizational effectiveness. There exist the theories of Bruns
(1978); Conger & Kanungos (1987); R.J. House (1997); Bass (1985); Bass & Avolios
(1994).
12

3.1.4.3. Connective Leadership

According to Lipman and Blumen (1996), the leadership styles are a consequence of
childhood learning on what we see as effective ways to get things done. The Connective
Leadership Model (CLM) is about leaders preferences: how they achieve goals, not what
those goals are. The CLM has three behavioral styles, each of which has three further
achieving styles.

Direct: intrinsic, competitive and power styles

Relational: vicarious, contributory and collaborative styles
Instrumental: entrusting, social and personal styles

3.1.4.4. Summary
The theories of transformational leadership and connective leadership are the most recent
development of leadership theories. The main difference which new leadership theories
distinguish from the traditional leadership theories is that the former is associated with the
influence of gender on leadership, whereas the latter only focuses on the leadership in
male-dominated industries.

3.1.5. Summary of Leadership Theories

Based on the empirical studies above, traditional leadership theories are characterized by
situational and contingency theories, whereas new leadership theories are characterized by
relational-based theories. In a rapidly changing business society, however, the traditional
theories are insufficient for understanding the relationship between leaders and employees. In
contrast, new leadership theories are the most recent development of leadership theories;
more specifically, the Transformational Theory is more fully developed than other new
theories and it has received more attention than most. Besides, the Transformational Theory
is associated with the influence of gender on leadership, which has been ignored by
traditional leadership theories in male-dominated industries. Therefore, we will focus on the
transformationnal leadership theory and choose it as the main research topic in our
dissertation.

3.2. Transformational VS. Transactional Leadership

13

3.2.1. Introduction
For the past decades, as we have discussed above, many researchers have attempted to
explore leadership theories, among a vast amount of which, transformational leadership and
transactional leadership stand out amongst many other theories. There are lots of evidence
that transformational leadership is associated with superior performance.

J M Burns (1978) first coined the term transforming leadership to describe a relationship in
which leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.

Building on this initial conceptualization, Bass (1998) extended the concept of

transformational leadership to describe those who motivate followers to do more than they
originally intended to do by presenting followers with a compelling vision and encouraging
them to transcend their own interests for those of the group or unit. In fact, a defining
characteristic of transformational leadership is the enormous personal impact it has on
followers values, aspirations, ways of thinking about work and interpreting events.
Transformational leaders transform followers by transforming followers values and beliefs.

Bass and Avolio later developed the full range of leadership model which comprises three
styles: (a) transformational (b) transactional (c) laissez-faire. In this model, transactional
leadership, building on the work of Burns, is characterized by an exchange relationship in
which leaders motivate followers by providing them with rewards (or punishments) in return
for follower effort (or lack of effort). Laissez-faire leadership is a hands off style in which
the person in charge abdicates responsibility, delays decisions, gives no feedback, and makes
little effort to help followers satisfy their needs. Laissez-faire leaders permit followers to
direct themselves. Broadly speaking, Laissez-faire belongs to transactional leadership (Bass
& Avolio, 1998).

Within the transformational leadership construct, Bass identifies four factors, or types of
leadership behaviors that are classified as transformational: (1) Idealized Influence (II); (2)
Inspirational Motivation (IM); (3) Intellectual Stimulation (IS); (4) Individualized
Consideration (IC). Moreover, Bass also presents three components that are characteristic of
transactional: (1) Contingent Reward (CR); (2) Management-By-Exception (MBE); (3)
Laissez-Faire Leadership (LF). The components of transformational and transactional
leadership will be discussed in details in the following sections.
14

3.2.2. Components of Transformational Leadership

According to Bass and Avolio (1994), there are four components of transformational
leadership Idealized Influence (or Charismatic leadership), Inspirational Motivation,
Intellectual Stimulation, Individualized Consideration - which are labeled as the Four Is.

Idealized Influence (II)

Idealized Influence indicates whether leaders hold subordinates trust, maintain their faith and
respect, show dedication to them, appeal to their hopes and dreams, and act as their role
model.

Inspirational Motivation (IM)

Inspirational motivation measures the degree to which leaders provide a vision, use
appropriate symbols and images to help others focus on their work, and try to make others
feel their work is significant.

Intellectual Stimulation (IS)

Intellectual stimulation shows the degree to which leaders encourage others to be creative in
looking at old problems in new ways, create an environment that is tolerant of seemingly
extreme positions, and nurture people to question their own values and beliefs and those of
the organization.

Individualized Consideration (IC)

Individualized consideration indicates the degree to which leaders show interest in others
well-being, assign projects individually, and pay attention to those who seem less involved in
the group.

3.2.3. Components of Transactional Leadership

According to Bass and Avolio (1994), there are three components of transactional leadership:
Contingent Reward, Management-by-Exception and Laissez-Faire Leadership.

Contingent Reward (CR)

Contingent reward shows the degree to which leaders tell others what to do in order to be
rewarded, emphasize what leaders expect from them, and recognize their accomplishments.
15

Management-by-Exception (MBE)
Management-by-exception assesses whether leaders tell others the job requirements, are
content with standard performance, and are a believer in if it aint broke, dont fix it.

Laissez-Faire Leadership (LF)

Laissez-faire measures whether leaders require little of others, are content to let things ride,
and let others do their own thing.

3.2.4. Summary
The characteristics of transformational and transactional leaders are summarized in the Figure
3.1.
Figure 3.1 Characteristics of Transformational and Transactional Leaders

Transformational Leaders
Idealized Influence (Charisma): Provide vision and sense of mission, instills pride, gains
respect and trust.
Inspiration: communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses
important purposes in simple ways.
Intellectual Simulation: promotes intelligence, rationality, and careful problem solving.
Individualized Consideration: gives personal attention, treats each employee individually,
coaches, advises.

Transactional Leaders
Contingent Reward: Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises rewards for good
performance, recognizes accomplishments.
Management-By-Exception: Watches and searches for deviations from rules and standards,
takes corrective action; intervenes only if standards are
not met.
Laissez-Faire: Abdicates responsibilities, avoids making decisions.

In conclusion, according to the result of Basss Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ),

managers who behave like transformational leaders are more likely to seen by their
colleagues and employees as satisfying and effective leaders than are those who behave like
16

transactional leaders(Bass & Avolio, 1994).

3.3. Gender and Leadership

3.3.1. Overview of Theories of Gender and Leadership
Gender refers to the distinctive culturally created qualities of men and women apart from
their biological differences (Brandser, 1996).

An ongoing debate has appeared in the management literature over the past two decades as to
whether male and female managers use different leadership styles.

3.3.1.1. Stereotypes of Male and Female Leaders

When evaluating the different ways women or men lead, it is important to determine whether
comparisons are based on stereotypical conceptions of male and female leaders or whether
such comparisons are based on observed styles or traits of male and female leaders.

Such stereotypes not only carry messages about how various groups are perceived but also
convey expectations about how various group members should behave and what
characteristics are valued by the dominant groups. According to the definition given by
Jeanette & Margaret (2000), Gender stereotypes are socially shared beliefs about the
characteristics or attitudes of men and women in general that influence our perceptions of
individual men and women.

There is strong evidence for the existence of a leadership prototype (Lord, 1985). This
prototype of a "good leader" is found to be cloaked in masculine terms. Extensive research of
Schein (2001) confirms, on an international level, the hypotheses that managers are perceived
to possess characteristics commonly ascribed to men. Women are typically perceived as less
competent, as less effective. There are also some more subtle forms of bias. For example, it is
more likely that womens success on a masculine task will be attributed to luck or effort than
to ability, compared to men, whereas womens failure is more likely to be attributed to lack of
ability than to bad luck (Deaux &Taynor, 1973).

17

3.3.1.2. Role Incongruity

Stereotype will guide and influence our judgment towards the leadership style between men
and women. Individuals hold some beliefs about what constitutes masculinity and femininity
and these beliefs shape our perception of who is likely to perform certain behaviours and
what behaviours are appropriate at management. When someone or certain gender does not
follow the expectation that he or she should act based on his or her own gender, here comes
the new concept: Role incongruity. When someone does not meet that expectation,
perceptions of leadership ability can wane, regardless of the leader's actual effectiveness
(Cummings, 2005).

The aspiration to be successful puts pressure on women to adopt a masculine style (Eagly
& Johnson, 1990). But as the role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders (Eagly
& Johnson, 1990) states, incongruence between the female gender role and the traditional
leadership role accounts for less favorable perceptions of female leaders and their leadership
behavior. Female leaders who adopt stereotypical masculine styles (e.g., autocratic or
directive styles) face role conflicts (Heilman, Block, & Martell, 1995). They also receive
more negative evaluations, are called iron ladies, and perceived as aggressive, manipulative,
and domineering leaders, in comparison to men who are not penalized for adopting a
feminine style (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992; Heller, 1982).

3.3.1.3. Gender Differences in Actual Leadership Styles

The present study investigates changes in the observed leadership style. The stereotype of
leadership may be different from the actual leadership style in the reality. Several reasons
foster the general assumption: First, the images of female leaders should have changed due to
increasing numbers of females at least in middle management positions. Second, the female
stereotype should be particularly dynamic due to the greater changes in the roles of women as
compared with those of men (Diekman & Eagly, 1999). In other words, it can be assumed
that while female stereotypes have changed over the past decades, male stereotypes have
remained quite invariant. Bearing these in mind, we examine the recent researches on gender
differences in actual leadership behaviors.

18

 Non-Difference Camp
A large number of scholars have written extensively on gender and leadership styles. The
numerous theories can be divided into two groups. One is the no-difference camp. Here it is
commonly concluded that in general, comparative research indicates that there are few
differences in the leadership style of female and male designated leaderships (Bartol and
Martin, cited in Eagly and Johnson, 1990).

Bartol (1978, 806) summarizes her examination of different organizations as follows: In

most cases, there are either no differences or relatively minor differences between male and
female leaders on leadership styles, whether the leaders are describing themselves or being
described by their subordinates.

Comprehensive researches by others have come to the same conclusion. A meta-analysis by

Eagly and Johnson (1990), which statistically review the results of 167 studies, comparing
between the leadership styles of male and female, partially confirm the above conclusions.
They find that laboratory studies-mostly with students as research objects typically show sex
differences in leadership style, while in contrast of the stereotypic expectation, female and
male leaders do not differ in these two styles in organizations. The explanation of the former
may be that in laboratory settings, the rules about how one should behave are unclear, which
means that people fall back on gender roles to provide guidance and therefore behave more
gender-stereotypically than in other situations, or that the subjects are students rather than
managers. In organizational settings, that is, studies of real managers, those occupying
these positions are selectively recruited and have typically adapted norms for appropriate
behaviors. They (1990; as cited in Carless, 1998) argue that female leaders are less likely
than their male counterparts to be interpersonally oriented or use participative leadership
styles when they worked within a male-dominated organization or industry.

In another study, Gary Powell, a professor of management at the University of Connecticut,

summarizes the major studies that have investigated differences in male and female
leadership styles and found that although men tend to have greater company loyalty,
motivation to advance within the company, and attentiveness to power structures compared to
women, women tend to have greater administrative ability, interpersonal skills and sensitivity,
written skills, energy, and work standards compared to men. Powell argues that any gender
differences in leadership style can be explained by situational factors. When women are in
19

situations requiring autocratic leadership (e.g., the military), they are more likely to be
autocratic than democratic. Similarly, men tend to use participative leadership styles in
situations that require it. (Powell, 1993)

Such failure to find differences between men and women in their leadership styles might have
been importantly affected by a selection effect. First, as the recruitment of middle managers
is done with this masculine role model in mind, a disproportional amount of women that do
not fit into it are selected out. Second, as Lazear and Rosen (1990) explain in the context of
job ladders, women that self-select into the long process of pursuing a managerial career must
be productive enough as managers (within the masculine manager paradigm) to balance
their higher opportunity cost in terms of household production.
Gender-Difference Camp
Recently, as opposed to the above mentioned studies, a number of researchers maintain that
there are clear differences between women and men in their leadership styles. These may be
seen as a response to a certain de-masculinization of traditional leadership ideals in corporate
practice.

In 1990, following the publication of a Harvard Business Review article, Ways women lead
(Rosener, 1990), the previously researched conclusion of no gender differences in leadership
styles was called into question. Even Bass, who had previously been a strong advocate for no
female-male differences in leadership styles, began to question his previous conclusions
(Bass et al., 1996).

Feminine Leadership Style

Earlier thinking emphasizes that women who had achieved leadership positions are imitators
of male characteristics, but contemporary theories recognize feminine leadership styles
(Helgesen, 1990; Stanford et al., 1995)

Female leadership tends towards a style defined as interactive leadership (Rosener,

1990).As a result of the interview process, Rosener develop this phrase to describe the style
these women were using. They encourage inclusion through participation, share power and
information, and enhance other people's self-worth, using "win-win" approaches. The
participants are comfortable using a variety of management styles, depending on the situation,
20

but indicate a preference for a participatory approach.

Rosener's study finds that most of the women interviewed are in medium-sized organizations
experiencing fast change, where the focus is on results that give them an important break. She
observes that this finding suggests that in an environment of rapid change, interactive
leadership may emerge as the management style of choice for many organizations, and
points out that

this style is not directly linked to gender.

Masculine Leadership Style

The style of leadership traditionally used by men is command and control.

Men tend to

see their power as coming from their organizational position and formal authority.

One research classifies leaders as directive and achievement-oriented leaders. These are
leaders who give specific instructions to others, and expect them to be followed. They
challenge and prod others to accept the challenges and achieve those elusive goals. These
directive achievement-oriented leadership styles resemble the masculine mould, where the
leader is more like an authoritarian father figure with masculine values, and expectations.

Androgynous Leadership Style

Androgyny is a combination of masculinity and femininity. Several previous studies suggest
that a combination of masculinity and femininity provides the maximum benefits rather than
either masculinity or femininity (Blanchard and Sargent, 1984; Chusmiar and Parker, 1991;
Kent and Moss, 1993). Kaplan and Sedney (1980) also explain several premises about
androgynous identity and leadership style: broad repertoire of responses; flexibility
inresponse to situational demands and effectiveness.

To summarize, the person wanting a clear and simple answer to the question of whether
women manage in a different way to men is bound to be frustrated, no only by the research
available, but also by the complexity of the issue.

Although there may be mixed results in specific pieces of evidence, womens style tend to be
more people-oriented than that of men.

21

3.3.2. Gender Perspective on Transformational and Transactional Leadership

3.3.2.1. Introduction
Following the general relationship between gender and leadership, a closer inspection of
more specific styles of leadership may reveal interesting gender associations. With the
increasing diffusion of transformational leadership theory, there is growing interest in the
gender comparison of transformational and transactional leadership.

Most studies focus on examining if women and men leaders differ in the extent they apply
transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Several studies focusing on
transformational leadership indicate that women are perceived, and perceive themselves, as
using transformational leadership styles more than men (Bass et al.,1996; Druskat, 1994;
Rosener, 1990). However, there have also been studies that failed to discover gender
differences in transformational leadership (Komives, 1991; Maher, 1997).

3.3.2.2. Gender Difference Camp

Some latest studies have shown gender differences in these styles of leadership. Among the
studies, two different types of conclusions can be distinguished. One assesses the
androgynous aspects of transformational leadership, and the other, focuses on the female
advantage of transformational leadership.

Androgynous Traits and Transformational Leadership

Some work has been done on the relationship between androgyny and transformational
leadership. These studies stress that transformational leaders may employ a

more

androgynous style calling for the best in both masculine and feminine sex-typed behaviour
(Hackman et al., 1992; Kark, 2000). This gender balance perspective promotes a new ideal of
leadership that mixes notions of masculinity and femininity. The results of Heckman et al.s
(1992) and Karks (2000) studies support these assertions by demonstrating that
transformational leadership correlates strongly with both feminine and masculine gender
characteristics.

Feminine Traits and Transformational Leadership

The second stream of study that stresses the female advantage in transformational
leadership, or even more radically, states that transformational leadership itself as a feminine
form of leadership for both men and women. (Bass, 1985; Shamir et al. 1993)
22

While transactional leadership emphasizes stereotypic masculine activities such as goal

setting and rational exchange processes, transformational leadership emphasizes the
development of followers, their empowerment and the creation of emotional bonds between
leaders and followers. These qualities are more consistent with stereotypic female styles of
leadership than with stereotypic male styles.

In a sample of middle to upper level managers in Fortune 500 high-tech industrial firms, Bass
and Avolio (1992) find that female managers are rated as more transformational than male
managers by both male and female subordinates. Differences are also found for transactional
leadership: female managers are rated as exhibiting significantly more contingent reward
behaviors and fewer management-by-exception behaviors, than male managers.

Similar results is obtained by Druskat (1994), who studies evaluations of female leaders in
all-female religions orders and evaluations of male leaders in all-male religious orders in the
Roman Catholic Church. Female leaders are evaluated as being more transformational by
female subordinates than male leaders who are evaluated by male subordinates. Female
leaders are also rated as exhibiting fewer management-by-exception behaviors by their
female subordinates than male leaders as evaluated by their male subordinates.

Bass and Avolio (1992) and Druskat (1994) offer similar explanations for their findings.
These gender differences in transformational and transactional leadership might be due to
differences between men and women in their tendency to be nurturing and promote the
development of their subordinates, which is a component of transformational leadership.
Druskat (1994) further suggests that transformational leadership may be a more feminine
style of leading, and is more likely to emerge in all-female organizations where women
control the resources and so are less constrained in their leadership styles.

Results from these two studies are thought-provoking. Women have been evaluated as more
transformational in both an organizational (Bass & Avolio, 1992) and in a more
nontraditional context (Druskat, 1994). As organizations call for more transformational
leadership to guide their organizations through change, women may be more accepted as

23

leaders. Moreover, transformational leadership has been positively linked to business-unit

performance, and is associated with leadership effectiveness more so than transactional
leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1992). If women typically exhibit transformational leadership
behaviors, this may contribute to breaking the "glass ceiling", as women are increasingly
selected to occupy executive-level positions.

3.3.2.3. Non-Differences Camp

However, gender differences have not been found in all samples. Some researchers have
discovered no gender differences in transformational and transactional leadership.

Komives (1991) investigates differences in transformational and transactional leadership with

a sample of both same-gender and cross-gender pairs of residence hall directors and residence
hall assistants. Leaders rate their own transformational and transactional leadership styles.
Their followers also rate their leaders styles on these same dimensions. In contrast to the
findings of Bass and Avolio (1992) and Druskat (1994), Komives (1991) finds no significant
gender differences in transformational or transactional leadership ratings for residence hall
directors across seven campuses. Moreover, Komives (1991) reports that male and female
hall directors did not generally differ in their self-evaluations of the degree to which they
exhibit transformational leadership.

3.2.2.4. Summary
In sum, although the results are inconsistent, they do indicate a tendency for women to be
rated as slightly more transformational.

Given the positive correlations of transformational leadership with performance effectiveness

and job satisfaction, it follows that if women are more transformational than their male
counterparts, they will be more effective and satisfying.

With the current trend toward a corporate culture emphasizing feminine caring and concern
for others without diminishing the importance of completing the work to be done (Offerman
&Gowing, 1990), it is meaningful to investigate the possible relationship between gender and
transformational leadership style in the certain context of China and Sweden.
24

3.4. Culture and Leadership

3.4.1. An Overview of Theories of Culture and Leadership Styles
3.4.1.1. Theories of Culture
Several definitions of the word culture are found in the existing literature. Normally, culture
is accepted by some researchers as civilization or refinement of the mind and, in
particular, the results of such refinement, including education, art, and literature. This is
culture in the narrow sense (Hofstede, 2005, 3). However, we choose to use another
definition defined by Hofstede (2005), which refers to the collective programming of the
mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category [nation] from another.

According to Hofstede (2005), Culture consists of various levels, since almost everyone
belongs to a number of different groups and categories at the same time, and every group or
category of people carries a set of common mental programs that constitutes its culture.
Different layers of culture exist at the following levels:

The national culture: It is associated with the nation as a whole.

The organizational culture: it is associated with the particular culture of an

organization. Moreover, it is applicable to those who are employed.

The regional culture: It is associated with ethnic, linguistic, or religious differences

that exist within a nation.

The gender culture: It is associated with gender differences (female vs. male)

The generation culture: It is associated with the differences between grandparents and
parents, parents and children.

The social class culture: It is associated with educational opportunities and with a
personas occupation or profession.

Concerning various layers of culture mentioned above, we choose to only focus on national
culture, which defined by Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven (2001) as: profound beliefs and values,
and practices that are shared by the vast majority of people belonging to a certain nation.
The reason why we only focused on national culture is that we choose two different nations
China and Sweden as our research targets.

3.4.1.2. Theories of Previous Researches on culture and Leadership Styles

25

Nowadays, there is a growing awareness of the need for a better understanding of the way the
leadership is enacted in various cultures (House, 1995, 443). Many cross-cultural studies
suggest that culture has a great influence on leadership concepts, styles, and practices (House
& Aditya, 1997; Gerstner & Day, 1994; Hofstede, 2001). Laurent (1987) showes that a
companys management practices are often a reflection of the value system of the leaders
who created them, and that these value systems varied considerably according to the
nationality of that leader. Thus, we think leadership styles in different countries should be
tightly connected with the national culture.

Besides, Bass (1997) argues that there is universality in the transformationaltransactional

leadership paradigm. He maintains that the same conception of phenomena and relationships
can be observed in a wide range of organizations and cultures, and exceptions can be
understood as a consequence of unusual attributes of the organizations or cultures. Moreover,
Bass (1991) also considers that it may be possible for a single transformational and
transactional leadership theory to explain leadership and its consequences across differing
cultures. Thus, according to Bass, leaders who engage in transformational behaviors will be
more effective than those who dont, regardless of culture. As noted by Chemers and
Ayman (1993), the Bass Transformational Theory is interested in the transformational
characteristics of outstanding leaders across different cultures. Moreover, Bass acknowledges
that the Transactional and Transformational theory may have to be fine-tuned as it applies to
different cultures, and the specific behaviors and decision styles may change to some extent.

Furthermore, Den Hartog et al. (1999), finds that, although cross-cultural research
emphasizes that different cultural groups are likely to have different conceptions of what
leadership should entail, certain attributes associated with transformational leadership are
universally endorsed as contributing to outstanding leadership, and some other leadership
attributes are universally seen as impediments to outstanding leadership. Jung et al. (1995)
speculates that transformational leadership is more effective in collectivist cultures than in
individualist cultures, being enhanced by the respect for authority and obedience
characteristics of collectivist cultures. Further, Jung et al. (1995) hypothesizes that high
uncertainty avoidance cultures may require more transaction-based leadership, while low
uncertainly avoidance cultures will tolerate more innovative, transformational behaviors
(Jung et al. 1995). Elenkov (1998) argues that since Russian managerial culture is
characterized by high power distance and a strong collective mentality, Russian employees
26

expect an autocratic leadership style, which is offset by the support given to subordinates
families.

Accordingly, we find all the literatures mentioned above are relevant to our research topic,
which is to what extent national culture exerts an influence on leadership style, especially
transformational and transactional leadership styles. However, among all the theories we have
viewed, one of the most widely cited theories addressing the effects of culture on crosscultural management are developed by Geert Hofstede (1980). As Triandis (1993) notes,
through the study of cross-cultural leadership, we may better understand how cultural
variables function as parameters of leadership theories. Thus, we choose to use Hofstedes
four dimensions of national culture to identify to what extent national culture exerts influence
on leadership style.

3.4.1.3. Hofstedes Four Cultural Dimensions of National Culture

Based on a large number of survey data about the values of IBM employees in over 50
countries around the world, Geert Hofstede identified common problems among societies. All
these 116000 IBM employees he analyzed were similar in all respects except nationality,
which improved the authenticity of influences on nationality differences.
The four basic problem areas defined by Inkeles and Levinson and empirically found by
Hofstede (2005, 23) in the IBM data represent four cultural dimensions in the following:
Social inequality, including the relationship with authority
The relationship between the individual and the group
Concepts of masculinity and femininity: the social and emotional implications of having
been born as a boy or a girl
Ways of dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity, which turned out to be related to the
control of aggression and the expression of emotions

All the four dimensions mentioned above have been named:

Power distance (from small to large)
Collectivism versus Individualism,
Femininity versus Masculinity,
Uncertainty Avoidance (from weak to strong).

27

Power Distance can be defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of
organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed
unequally (Hofstede, 2005, 46).

Collectivism versus Individualism means the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into
groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are
loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family.

On the

collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into
strong, cohesive in-groups. Moreover, in collectivist society, the interests of the group prevail
over the interests of the individual.

The issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely

fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.

Masculinity versus Femininity refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is
another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. A society
is called masculine when emotional gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be
assertive, tough, and focused on material success, whereas when are supposed to be more
modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life. On the other hand, a society is called
feminine when emotional gender roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be
modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life (Hofstede, 2005, 120).

Concerning masculinity versus femininity issue, there are two levels of analysis. Firstly, if we
try to compare individuals within societies, the individual can be both masculine and
feminine at the same time. This means even if she is a woman, she may be assertive and
tough just like a man supposed to be. Secondly, if we try to compare the cultures of entire
societies, then the national culture may be either predominantly masculine or predominantly
feminine. Since China and Sweden are our basic research objects, we choose to use second
level of analysis: comparing the cultures of entire societies.

Uncertainty Avoidance can be defined as the extent to which the members of a culture feel
threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations. This feeling is, among other things,
expressed through nervous stress and in a need for predictability: a need for written and
unwritten rules (Hofstede, 2005, 167).

28

3.4.2. Hofstedes Four Cultural Dimensions VS. Leadership Styles

3.4.2.1. Power Distance VS. Leadership Styles
According to Hofstedes view of power distance in workplace, there are big differences
between countries with small power distance and large power distance. Key differences are
described in the following in the Figure 3.2:

Figure 3.2. Key Differences between Small Power Distance and Large Power Distance
Countries in Terms of Leadership styles
Small Power Distance

Large Power Distance

Decentralization is popular.

Centralization is popular

There are fewer supervisory personnel.

There are more supervisory personnel.

Subordinates expect to be consulted.

The ideal boss is a resourceful democrat

Subordinates expect to be told what to do.

The ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat, or
good father.

Managers rely on their own experience

Managers rely on superiors and on formal

on subordinates.

rules.

Subordinate-superior relations
are pragmatic.

Subordinate-superior relations are emotional

Hierarchy in organizations means

Hierarchy

in

organizations

reflects

an inequality of roles, established

existential inequality between higher and

for convenience.

lower levels

Source: Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Geet Hofstede & Gert Jan Hofstede, 2001

3.4.2.2. Collectivism/Individualism VS. Leadership Styles

According to Hofstedes view of collectivism versus individualism in workplace, key
differences in leadership style between collectivist countries and individualist countries are
described in the following in Figure 3.3:

29

Figure 3.3 Key Differences between Collectivist and Individualist Countries in Terms of
Leadership Styles
Collectivism

Direct

appraisal

of

Individualism

subordinates

spoils

Management training teaches the honest

harmony.

sharing of feelings

Relationship prevails over task.

Task prevails over relationship.

Relationship-oriented.

Task-oriented

Hiring and promotion decisions take an

Hiring and promotion decisions are supposed

employees in-group into account.

to be based on skills and rules only.

Employees are members of in-groups who will

pursue their in-groups interests.

The

employer-employee

relationship

pursue the employers interest if it coincides

with their self-interest

is

basically moral, like a family link. Pay more

attention on employees development

Employees are economic men who will

The employer-employee relationship is a

contract between parties on a labour market.

Source: Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Geet Hofstede & Gert Jan Hofstede, 2001

3.4.2.3. Femininity/ Masculinity VS. Leadership Styles

According to Hofsteds view of masculinity versus femininity in workplace, there exist some
differences between masculinity countries and femininity countries. Key differences are
described in the following in the Figure 3.4:

Figure 3.4 Key Differences between Feminine countries and Masculine countries in Terms of
Leadership Styles

30

Femininity

Masculinity

Managers tend to intuition and consensus.

Mangers tend to decisive and aggressive

Careers are compulsory for men, optional for

Careers are optional for both genders.

Humanization

of

work

by

contact

women.
and

Humanization

of

work

by

job

content

cooperation.

enrichment.

Resolution of conflicts by compromise and

Resolution of conflicts by letting the strongest

negotiation

win.

Managers more likely to reward people on the

basis of equality, according to employees
competency and skills

Managers stress results and try to reward on

the basis of equity

Sources: Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Geet Hofstede & Gert Jan Hofstede, 2001

3.4.2.4. Uncertainty Avoidance VS. Leadership Styles

According to Hofstedes view of uncertainty avoidance in workplace, some differences
between countries with weak uncertainty avoidance and strong uncertainty avoidance are
described in the Figure 3.5:

Figure3.5 Key Differences between Weak Uncertainty Avoidance and Strong Uncertainty
Avoidance Countries in Terms of Leadership Style

31

Weak Uncertainty Avoidance

Strong Uncertainty
Avoidance

Focus on decision process.

Focus on decision content.

Belief in generalists and common sense.

Belief in experts and technical solutions.

More changes of employer, shorter service.

Fewer changes of employer, longer service.

There are fewer self-employed people.

There are more self-employed people.

Better at invention, worse at implementation.

Worse at invention, better at implementation.

There is tolerance for ambiguity and chaos.

There is a need for precision and formalization.

Top managers are concerned with strategy.

Top managers are concerned with daily

operations.

There should be no more rules than strictly

There is an emotional need for rules, even if

necessary.

there will not work.

Motivation by achievement and esteem or

Motivation

belonging.

belonging.

by

security

and

esteem

or

Source: Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Geet Hofstede & Gert Jan Hofstede, 2001

3.4.2.5. Summary
Key differences of four cultural dimensions in leadership style are presented in
Figure 3.6 in the following:

32

Figure 3.6 The key Characteristics of Four Cultural Dimensions

National-Cultural

Characteristics of Cultural Dimensions

Dimensions

in Leadership styles
The ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat, or good

Large
Power
Distance
Power

father
Centralization is popular
Subordinates expect to be told what to do
subordinates and superiors consider each other as
existentially unequal
The ideal boss is a resourceful democrat.

Distance
Small

Decentralization is popular.

Power

Subordinates expect to be consulted.

Distance

Superiors and subordinates consider each other

as existentially equal.
Heavy reliance on informal controls
Relationship prevails over task.

Collectivism

Collectivism

Relationship-oriented
The employer-employee relationship is basically
moral, like a family link

Versus

Heavy reliance on formal controls

Task prevails over relationship.

Individualism
Individualism

Task-oriented
The employer-employee relationship is a
contract between parties on a labour market.
Mangers tend to decisive and aggressive in

Masculinity
Versus
Femininity

decision-making process
Managers are stress results and try to reward in
Masculinity

on the basis of employees performance

A humanized job should give more opportunities
for recognition, advancement and challenge.

33

 Managers tend to intuition and consensus In

decision-making process
Managers more likely to reward people on the
Femininity

basis

of

equality-----that

is,

to

everyone

by

contact

according to need.
Humanization

of

work

and

cooperation.
There is an emotional need for rules, even if
these will not work.
Strong

There is a need for precision and formalization.

Managers try to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity,

Uncertainty

and they dislike deviant ideas and behaviors.

Avoidance

Managers more easily accept the uncertainty

Weak

inherent.
They

are

more

flexible,

and

encourage

innovation and creation.

Source: Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Geet Hofstede & Gert Jan Hofstede, 2001

3.4.3. Hofstedes Four Cultural Dimensions Index of China and Sweden

The Power Distance Index (PDI)
Hofstedes research shows the score of PDI in China is 80, which ranks 12-14. When it
comes to Sweden, it gets 31 scores, which ranks 67-68 among the 74 countries. Thus, it is
obvious that PDI in china is rather high, while in Sweden is rather low.
The Individualism/Collectivism Index
Concerning China, it scores only 20, while Sweden gets 71 scores, whose rank among 74
countries and regions is 13-14. Thus, it is obvious that China is typically collectivism country,
and Sweden belongs to individualism country.

The Masculinity/Femininity Index

Scores are put into a range from about 0 for the most feminine to about 100 for the most
masculine country. Regarding China, it scores 66, which ranks 11-13 among 74 countries.
However, Sweden gets only 5 scores, whose rank among 74 countries and regions is 74. Thus,

34

Hofstedes view of masculinity value in China is high, and Sweden belongs to femininity
country.

The Uncertainty Avoidance Index

With regard to China, it scores 30, which is almost the same as Sweden, whose score is 29.
Thus, both China and Sweden have relatively low uncertainty avoidance in this experiment.

35

Chapter 4 Discussion of the PWP Model

An explanatory model of our own is created, with the purpose to explain the influence of
gender and culture on leadership styles of SMEs in China and Sweden. Finally, ten
hypotheses developed from the theories are put forth.

4.1. Introduction
Based on our theoretical study, we found that few studies have been done a relation analysis
of the three factors: leadership styles, gender and culture. Therefore, we try to develop our
own model with the aim to find out the influence of gender and culture on leadership styles,
namely, transformational leadership style and transactional leadership style.

Furthermore, our research target is placed within the background of SMEs. The leadership
styles of the entrepreneurs may be different from their counterparts in the MNEs
(Multinational Enterprises). They may approach risk and establish relationship with the
employees in a particular different way. SMEs seem more flexible to adapt themselves to the
changing environment than the larger ones. Especially after we enter the new century, they
have become the focus of business interest. But there is a lack of literature concerning the
leadership style of managers in SMEs, especially the cross-cultural and cross-gender
comparison connected with transformational and transactional leadership. Therefore, it is of
interest for us to build our model placed in the SMEs background.

4.2. Explanation for the PWP Model

We have created our own model named PWP Model, which is an acronym of the three
authors of this dissertation, namely, Pan Xiaoxia, Wu Jing, Pan Xiaoxia. The aim of the
model is to explain and evaluate the influence of gender and culture on transformational and
transactional leadership styles. We mainly base the model on one core factor and two
explanatory factors. The core factor is related to transformational leadership and transactional
leadership. The two explanatory factors are gender and culture. First, we classify the gender
factor into two parts, male and female. Second, when it comes to culture factor, we base it on
Hofstedes

four

Cultural

Dimensions,

which

refer

to:

power

distance,

individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity and uncertainty avoidance. Last but not

least, the most essential issue of our model lies in the correlation between the core factor and

36

the two explanatory factors.

The PWP Model is presented as below:

37

Culture

Power
Distance

Masculinity
Versus
Femininity

Collectivism
Versus
Individualism

Uncertainty
Avoidance

Gender
PDI
High

PDI
Low

IDV

COL

Hypothesis 4

MAS

Hypothesis 6

Hypothesis 3

FEM

UAI
Strong

UAI
Weak

Hypothesis 10

Male

Female

Hypothesis 8
Hypothesis 2

Hypothesis 5
Hypothesis 7

Transactional leadership

Hypothesis 9

Hypothesis 1

Transformational leadership

Figure 4.1 The PWP Model

44

We aim to generalize the model in different cultural contexts besides China and Sweden. For
instance, if we put specific results of two explanatory factors in the model, say, gender and
culture, then we can help our readers to get a general idea about what kind of leadership style his
or her company adopts.

For bettering explain our model, the hypotheses are introduced in the following.

4.3. Hypotheses
4.3.1. Hypotheses of Influence of Gender on Leadership Styles
Even though the vast body of past research concludes that gender differences in leadership style
do not exist, more recent investigations suggest that there are differences in leadership styles
employed by males and females. Some researchers argue that the evidence of differences is not
conclusive (Loden, 1985; Grant, 1988; Rosener, 1990; Bass, 1996).

Considering the characteristics of the research background (SME) we are going to investigate, it
may be easier for female leaders in SMEs to break the glass ceiling which is a normal
phenomenon in MNEs. Female leaders will be probably prone to bring forth their feminine traits
in their leadership style. The differences between transformational and transactional leadership
style from the gender perspective might be more obvious and clear.

After presenting the literature in chapter 3, we find that Bass findings are most useful for our
dissertation. So we will base our assumption on Bass gender comparison of transformational and
transactional leadership and try to find out whether our survey conducting in China and Sweden
resemble Bass finding. Thereby, we posited the following hypotheses:

H1: Female leaders tend to be more transformational than male counterparts in the SMEs of
China and Sweden.

H2: Male leaders are prone to be more transactional than their female counterparts in the SMEs
of China and Sweden.

45

4.3.2. Hypotheses of Influence of Four Cultural Dimensions on Leadership Styles

Based on Hofstedes theories, we summarized key characteristics of the four cultural dimensions
in terms of leadership styles in table 8. We found that there were some connections between the
four cultural dimensions and transformational and transactional leadership style. More details
about our hypotheses with respect to the influences of four cultural Dimensions on leadership
style are explained below:
Large Power Distance
In a large power distance situation, superiors and subordinates consider each other as unequal.
Organizations centralize power as much as possible in a few hands. Subordinates expect to be
told what to do (Hofstede, 2005). According to the characteristics of transactional leadership
identified in previous chapter, transactional leaders seldom give their subordinates personal
attention and advices. Besides, their subordinates expect to be told what to do. Based on the
factors above, we can see that some characteristics of large power-distance in terms of leadership
style share similarities with those of transactional leadership style. Thus, we posited our
hypothesis 3 in the following:

H3: Managers in countries with high power distance tend to employ a more transactional
leadership.

Small Power Distance

In a small power-distance situation, subordinates and superiors consider each other as equal. The
ideal boss is a resourceful democrat (Hofstede, 2005). Superiors pay more attention to how to
intellectually stimulate the followers use of their abilities, and their subordinates expect to be
consulted. Transformational leaders care more about their subordinates advices, and they give
their subordinates adequate rights to take part in decision-making process. Then we can see that
some characteristics of small power-distance in terms of leadership style share similarities with
those of transformational leadership style. Thus, we posited our hypothesis 4 in the following:

H4: Managers in countries with small power distance tend to employ a more transformational
leadership.

46

Collectivism
In a collectivist culture, managers stress employees dependence on the organization. The
employer-employee relationship is basically moral, like a family link. Relationship prevails over
task (Hofstede, 2005). According to characteristics of transformational leadership identified in
previous chapter, transformational leaders pay more attention to the relationship between
managers and employees, and they care more about their subordinates. Based on the factors
above, we can see that some characteristics of collectivism in terms of leadership style share
similarities with those of transformational leadership. Thus, we posited our hypothesis 5 below:

H5: Managers in collectivist countries tend to employ a more transformational leadership.

Individualism
In an individualist culture, managers stress the employees independence from the organization.
The employer-employee relationship is a contract between parties on a labour market.
Management in an individualist society is management of individuals. Task prevails over
relationship. If incentives or bonuses are given, these should be linked to an individuals
performance (Hofstede, 2001, 101). Transactional leaders generally reward or discipline the
follower depending on the adequacy of the followers performance. Accordingly, we can see that
some characteristics of individualism in terms of leadership style share similarities with those of
transactional leadership style. Thus, we posited our hypothesis 6:

H6: Managers in individualist countries tend to employ a more transactional leadership.

Masculinity
In a masculine culture, a humanized job should give more opportunities for recognition,
advancement and challenge. Besides, organizations in masculine societies stress results and try to
reward it on the basis of employees performance (Hofstede, 2005). Transactional leaders
generally reward their subordinates depending on the adequacy of the followers performance.
Therefore, we can see that some characteristics of masculinity in terms of leadership style share
similarities with those of transactional leadership. Thus, we posited our hypotheses 7 below:

H7: Managers in masculine countries tend to employ a more transactional leadership.

47

Femininity
In a feminine culture, a humanized job should give more opportunities for cooperation and social
contacts. This means managers in feminine cultures tend to ask their subordinates for advice and
give their subordinates adequate rights to take part in decision-making process. Besides,
organizations in feminine societies are more likely to reward people on the basis of equality, that
is, to everyone according to need (Hofstede, 2005). According to characteristics of
transformational leadership identified in the previous chapter, transformational leaders encourage
their subordinates to share their ideas with them, and allow them to take part in the
decision-making process. Based on these factors mentioned above, we can see that some
characteristics of femininity in terms of leadership style share similarities with those of
transformational leadership style. Thus, we posited our hypothesis 8:

H8: Managers in feminine countries tend to employ a more transformational leadership.

Strong Uncertainty Avoidance

In a strong uncertainty avoidance society, managers try to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity by
providing stability for their subordinates, establishing more formal rules. They tend to discard
deviant ideas and behaviors. There is a strong need for written rules, formalization, regulations
and rituals (Hofstede, 2005). According to characteristics of transactional leadership identified in
previous chapter, transactional leaders focus on formal rules, standards, they intervene the idea
only if standards are not met. So we can conclude that some characteristics of strong uncertainty
avoidance in terms of leadership style share similarities with those of transactional leadership
style. Thus, we posited our hypothesis 9:

H9: Managers in strong uncertainty avoidance countries tend to employ a more transactional
leadership.

Weak Uncertainty Avoidance

In a weak uncertainty avoidance society, managers more easily accept the uncertainty inherent in
workplace. Thus, they encourage innovation and creation. Besides, managers in weak uncertainty
avoidance cultures are more flexible, and depend not as much on experts as on themselves
(Hofstede, 2005).According to characteristics of transformational leadership identified in

48

previous chapter, transformational leaders encourage others to be creative in looking at old

problems in new ways, and create an environment that is tolerant of seemingly extreme
positions.

Thus, we can see that some characteristics of weak uncertainty avoidance in terms of leadership
style share similarities with those of transformational leadership style. Thus, we posited our
hypothesis 10 as following:

H10: Managers in weak uncertainty avoidance countries tend to employ a more transformational
leadership.

4.4. Conclusion
This study may give some contribution to understanding how to handle management issues in a
cross-national context. It is important to understand leadership style in different countries in
order to avoid culture clashes.

49

Chapter 5 Empirical Method

The empirical method is stated in detail. The chapter starts with a research strategy, which aims
to explain or approach in answering the research questions. The chapter concludes with a
discussion on the reliability, validity and generalisability of the study.

5.1. Research Strategy

The purpose of this dissertation is to empirically evaluate the different leadership styles of SMEs
in China and Sweden and identify the influence of gender and culture on leadership styles. In
order to answer our research questions of the dissertation, we formulate ten hypotheses
concerning the correlation between gender, culture and leadership. With the aim to test the
hypotheses, we decide to do a survey using a questionnaire because it can provide us with an
efficient way of collecting responses from a large sample prior to quantitative analysis. Another
reason for conducting a questionnaire is that we strive to provide our readers with reliable results
by using the statistical analysis software SPSS, whose data should be based on the questionnaire.

We choose to use self-administered questionnaire, to be more specific, an internet-mediated

questionnaire. Two main advantages are that it is cheap and convenient to collect enough
samples in a short time limitation. Further, it enables us to ensure that the respondent is the
manager whom we wish to answer the questions. Only the managers to whom we sent the emails
or interviewed personally could access to the website address of our questionnaire. Thus it
improves the reliability of the data.

5.2. Sample Selection

Surveys on managers of SMEs in China and Sweden are conducted to obtain the data necessary
for testing our ten hypotheses. We mainly focus our research background on Small and Medium
sized companies in China and Sweden. We only delimit our investigation to the import and
export companies in China and Sweden in order to avoid possible deviation resulted from
different industries. We think that it is easier for us to get replies from the import and export
companies because we have many reliable contacts in China

50

However, due to time constraints, we also collected a few replies from companies which only
focus on either national or international markets. For instance, we visited a female manager of
T&T Information, whose trade is only limited to Sweden. But we think it does not matter since
the companies are typical Swedish SMEs.

The procedure of our data collection is presented below:

Firstly, we chose a neutral time, that is, Tuesday (Nov. 7, 2006), to send out all the emails to our
contacts. The responses from China should be reliable since we sent the questionnaire directly to
the managers whom we already know or whom are the managers of our friends.

Secondly, we found a professional company catalogue website www.lokaldelen.se

with the

email addresses of the Swedish companies, especially import and export trading companies all
over Sweden. A cover letter was sent to the participants to clarify our intent, research topic,
introduction and confidentiality. They were asked to use a link in the email, which led to the
website of our questionnaire: http://www.octosoft.cn/q/ECQuestionnaire.aspx. Their answers
could be then obtained from our admin portal: http://www.octosoft.cn/q/login.aspx. In order to
get a high response rate, we not only contacted companies via email, but also visited the
companies around the city of Kristianstad, and even demanded a face-to-face opportunity to talk
with the managers in order to invite them to answer our questionnaires.

5.3. Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire consists of three parts: background information, leadership styles and cultural
dimensions (See Appendix 1a).
5.3.1. Questions Concerning Background Information
Five general questions were formulated in order to get some information about respondents,
including their gender, nationalities, ages, positions and the size of companies. The questions are
showed in the following:

Q1: Are you a female or a male?

Q2: Whats your nationality?
Q3: How old are you?

51

Q4: Whats your position at the company?

Q5: How many employees in your company?

5.3.2. Questions Concerning Leadership Styles

There were 24 questions concerning leadership styles in the questionnaire.

This part of questionnaire was based on a modified version of the Multi-Factor Leadership
Questionnaire (MLQ) developed by Bass and Avolio (1998). The MLQ is a well-known
instrument used to measure perceived frequency of transformational and transactional leadership
behavior. It has been used in many studies (Bass, 1995; Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003;
Carless, 1998; Den Hartog, Van Muijen& Koopman, 1997). It was designed to collect
information about a managers leadership style from multiple sources: the manager
herself/himself; the managers subordinates, the managers superiors, and the managers peers.
The questionnaires were not delivered to their subordinates or superiors in our research because
of practical consideration. Supposing that we involve at least three co-workers to evaluate each
manager, it would be very difficult and costly for us to collect such a big research sample in a
very limited time scale. But we must keep in mind that a managers perceived leadership style
may be different from actual leadership style as managers might tend to rate themselves as more
competent than others rate them.
As for our own questionnaire, the MLQ was modified. The reason for modification was, on the
one hand, due to the difficulty to find the whole copy of MLQ because it is a license-imposed
patent. We could only find part of the questions. On the other hand, the English language in the
questions is somewhat obscure. In order to make sure that our participants can fully understand the
questions, we reexamined the questions word by word and changed the recondite vocabularies to
simpler ones. In addition, the original MLQ use a five-point rating scale from 1 to 5, which was
changed to a range from zero to six. The reason was that we try to reduce the possibility of
choosing neutral answers by respondents. Besides, the seven-point is much easier for us to
examine and analyze different choices leading to different results. The number 0-6 stands for
scores, by which the participant can show the extent of his agreement to all the statements. 0 point
stands for totally disagree. On the contrary, 6 points is the highest score of the answer which
means totally agree.

52

In our questionnaire, the transformational leadership style consists of five dimensions, including
15 questions. Each dimension is followed by three questions. The five dimensions include
Idealized

Influence,

Inspirational

Motivation,

Intellectual

Stimulation,

Individualized

Consideration, and Risk Acceptance. The index of Risk Acceptance is added since we find that
transformational leaders tend to accept risk more positively and view risk as opportunity rather
than threat. The dimension aims to test to what extent manager is willing to accept risk when
choosing among alternative courses of action.

The specific questions are showed in the following:

Transformational Leadership Style
Idealized Influence
Q6: I make others feel good to work with me.
Q14: Others are proud to be associated with me.
Q22: I talk about my most important values and beliefs to my employees.

Inspirational Motivation
Q7: I encourage employees to make the most of their real skills and capacities to their jobs.
Q15: I help others find meaning in their work.
Q23: I articulate a compelling vision for the future.

Intellectual Stimulation
Q8: I enable others to think about old problems in new ways.
Q16: I provide others with new ways of looking at puzzling things.
Q24: I get others to rethink ideas that they had never questioned before.

Individualized Consideration
Q9: I let others know how I think they are doing.
Q17: I give personal attention to others who seem rejected.
Q25: I give careful attention to the working conditions of my employees.

Risk Acceptance
Q10: I think making risky decisions alone does not bother me.

53

Q18: I think intuition is the best guide in making decisions.

Q26: I make quick decisions when necessary.
Transactional Leadership Style
Contingent Reward
Q11: I tell others what to do if they want to be rewarded for their work.
Q19: I provide recognition/rewards when others reach their goals.
Q27: I clearly clarify the responsibility for achieving targets.

Management-By-Exception
Q12: I am satisfied when others meet agreed-upon standards.
Q20: As long as things are working, I do not try to change anything.
Q28: I tell others the standards they have to know to carry out their work.

Laissez-Faire Leadership
Q13: I am content to let others continue working in the same way as always.
Q21: Whatever others want to do is O.K. with me.
Q29: I don't care much what others do unless the work is absolutely essential.

5.3. 3. Questions Concerning Cultural Dimensions

16 questions concerning cultural dimensions were presented. They were based on Hofstedes
Theory of Cultural Dimensions. Since Hofstede did his research only in a multinational company
IBM early in the1970s. His conclusion may not be held true under the current cultural contexts.
Especially for the Chinese part, it might be more applicable to Chinese state-owned companies,
but not SMEs. The values and ideas hold by the entrepreneurs in SMEs might be quite different
from those of the managers in the Stated-Owned Enterprises after Chinas reform and opening up
in 1978. Therefore, we want to test whether the result of our research consistent with Hofstedes
conclusion.

The four dimensions of Hofstedes theory are Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance,
Individualism/Collectivism, and Masculinity/Femininity. Each dimension is followed by four
questions. All the questions aim to test whether there is any cultural difference between China

54

and Sweden. The answers in the cultural dimension part were of two different kinds; one where
the participants could choose between two different options marked 0 and 1, and the other type is
a Likert-Style rating scale, the same as the leadership style part did.

The questions in this part are showed in the following:

Power Distance
Q30: I am entitled to privileges compared to my subordinates.
Q34: There is a wide salary range between the top and bottom of the organization.
Q38: I think my subordinates should only follow my order without knowing why it should be
done.
Q42: I think that my subordinates are afraid to disagree with me, even if they have better ideas.

Uncertainty Avoidance
Q31: I think company rules should not be broken even when the employee thinks his decision is
within the companys best interests.
Q35: It is important to be on time to business appointments.
Q39: I only consider written contracts to be binding.
Q43: In my organization, change is viewed as a threat.

Individualism/Collectivism
Q32: Once given tasks, I prefer to work: individually or in a group?
Q36: In my workplace, I consider myself to have close family like bonds with my subordinates.
Q40: I consider

to be most important: individual achievements or group performance?

Q44: When it comes to decision making, I prefer: a single leader or group consensus?

Masculinity/Femininity
Q33: What is more important about the job: a high salary or feeling satisfied.
Q37: What is more important: a better position or employment security?
Q41: I tend to put more emphasis on: work goals or personal goals?
(Note: work goals refer to earnings, advancement; while personal goals refer to friendly, getting
along well with your subordinates.)
Q45: I prefer to solve the conflict though: negotiation and compromise or confrontation and

55

argument?
5.3.4. Summary
Last but not least, all the questions are intermixed in the questionnaire in order to avoid the same
answer pattern. All the 45 questions in the questionnaire are required to be completely filled. The
result can only be submitted when all the questions are done. Otherwise, the website system will
remind respondents of the missing questions.
Before the large scale research, a pilot research was carried out to identify any potential problem
with the questionnaire used in our research. We chose both a Chinese manager and a Swedish
manager to take a look at our questionnaire and make sure that there wasn't any misunderstanding
both in our questions and answers. They said the questions in the questionnaire were too many.
Nevertheless, we think 45 questions are necessary in order to do our research.

5.4. Response Rate

A total of 825 emails have been sent out to Swedish managers of export and import trading
companies. 66 were returned due to wrong email addresses or mailbox delivery mistakes. The total
replies from Sweden were 45, indicating the response rate of 6%. In contrast, 62 replies of 68
were mainly obtained by personal contacts from our friends companies in China, leading to the
response rate above 90%.

All in all, 107 firms of 827 participated in our research, resulting in an active response rate 13%.
Among all the 107 responses, 17 samples were invalid due to the non-requirements of our purpose.
Thus, the combined samples of 90 participants are available for analysis.

5.5. Credibility
Credibility is a crucial factor to a good research. It is very important to reduce the possibility of
getting the wrong answer, which means that attention has to be paid to both: reliability and validity.
(Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2007) In this dissertation, we try our best to write in a way that
minimizes the threats to reliability and validity.

5.5.1. Reliability
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of threats to the reliability.
Reliability refers to consistency, stability, or the repeatability of results (Christiansen, 2004, 182).

56

In other words, the reliability of the data is about the extent to which the measures will yield the
same results on other settings and if the similar results will be reached by other researches. That is,
the reliability is high if the results are the same findings each time by testing. (Saunder, Lewis &
Thornhill, 2007).

We conduct a method of questionnaire about leadership style, gender, and culture. And we believe
that a reliable questionnaire should give the same results on other occasions and different
observers should reach similar observations. In this dissertation, we regard our research and the
questionnaire as high reliability by avoiding the four threats presented by Saunder et al. The first
threat is the participant error. Considering that the result may vary depending on when the
questionnaire is conducted, we managed to send out all the emails within our contacts in a neutral
time in order to reduce participant error. For instance, we chose Tuesday to send out the emails.
The respondents probably received our questionnaire on Wednesday, but both Wednesday and
Thursday are neutral times. The second threat would be participant bias, which means that the
respondents do not answer truthfully. This factor is rather difficult to avoid, but the way of
anonymity to the respondents not only enhance the chances of the respondents to answer the
questionnaire, but also increased the reliability of the questionnaire. The third threat is observer
error. Of course, the three authors of this dissertation have different opinions on the design of our
questionnaire. However, the questionnaire is mostly based on standardized questions used by the
MLQ. Besides, we communicate quite a lot and choose the most scientific and convincing
arguments. Last but not least, it is important that the researchers are objective when they draw
conclusions from the data. Otherwise, the research will result in observer bias. Undoubtedly, we
try our best to be objective by not allowing our expectation to influence the questionnaire replies.

However, due to limited resources, including time and finance, we have not been able to test the
questionnaire more than once.

5.5.2. Validity
Validity is concerned with whether the findings are really about what they appear to be about
(Saunders et al. 2007, 150). Validity examines if the relationship between different variables is
casual relationship. Without doubt, a good research is characterized by high validity. However, a
researcher can never be entirely certain that the questions will measure what he intended, since

57

there will always be a risk of misunderstandings and wrongly formulated questions. Therefore, the
questions must be well formulated, relevant and suitable for the research.

Besides, operationalisation is a crucial factor of validity. It should be noted that if the

operationalisation fails the result will be misleading. Our questionnaire aims to make something
concrete out of the abstract. In our research we have many questions which measure attitudes,
which are especially difficult to operationalise into quantifiable variables. However, the
questionnaire on which we based has been already widely used and thus guarantees us high extent
of validity.

Another threat to validity, which is a matter of concern, is that the setting of the questionnaire
answers could have been influencing the result of the research. In our questionnaire, we adopt 7
options to each question, which aims to eliminate the risk of choosing neutral answers by
respondents.

5.6. Generalisability
Generalisability refers to the extent to which the research result can be generalized to a larger
population. Or, it aims to show the applicability of the result and if it can be implemented on other
researches in the field (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2007).

However, to be able to generalize about regularities in human social behaviour it is necessary to

select samples of sufficient numerical size (Saunders, 2003, 87). We only conduct research on
firms connected to the Small and Medium sized Enterprises in China and Sweden, so it is
extremely difficult for us to produce a model that could be generalisable to all populations and
organizaitons. But our model is worthy of testing and criticizing because it has been never
presented by any other author before.

58

Chapter 6 Analysis of the Research Survey

The result of our study is analyzed, the ten hypotheses are tested and evaluated. Finally, the two
research questions are answered.

6.1. Introduction
In this chapter, we will present and analyze data based on our online questionnaire. In order to
analyze the gender and cultural effect upon leadership style, we calculate cross-cultural and
cross-gender data by using the statistical software SPSS.

When giving two data sets, each characterized by its mean, standard deviation and number of
data points; we can use some kind of t-test to determine whether the means are distinct, provided
that the underlying distributions can be assumed to be normal. In our case, the two variables are
independent of each other, so we chose to use an independent t-test with a 95% confidence
interval.

If a statistical significance calculated based on two single means is below 0.05, the null
hypothesis that the two groups do not differ is rejected in favor of an alternative hypothesis,
which typically states that the groups do differ.

Through observing the differences between various mean values and the significance coefficient,
we can evaluate the gender differences, cultural differences, and the differences in respect of
leadership.

In order to answer the second research question of our dissertation, namely, which element gender or culture - exerts a more important impact on the leadership style of SMEs in China and
Sweden? We have to conduct the correlation method, which indicates the strength and direction
of a linear relationship between two variables. If two variables are independent and irrelative, the
correlation is 0. The correlation is more important when the correlation is nearer to 1 or -1.
Through studying the correlation figure, we can judge the cultural and gender effect upon
leadership styles.

59

6.2. Leadership Styles

6.2.1. Result of Survey on Leadership Styles
The fundamental research topic of our dissertation is leadership style of SMEs in China and
Sweden. Based on some empirical support, we assumed that Chinese managers tended to adopt a
transactional leadership style, while Swedish managers were prone to employ a transformational
leadership style.

In order to find out what kind of leadership style Chinese and Swedish managers adopt, we
formulated 15 questions to test transformational leadership style and 9 questions to test
transactional leadership style.

The two kinds of leadership styles - transformational leadership style and transactional
leadership style - were respectively tested by their characteristics. The former has the following
characteristics:

Idealized

Influence,

Inspirational

Motivation,

Intellectual

Stimulation,

Individualized Consideration, and Risk Acceptance; whereas, the latter has the characteristics of
Contingent Reward, Management-by-Exception, and Laissez Faire. Figure 6.1 and Figure 6.2
respectively show which questions investigate the characteristics of transformational and
transactional leadership style.

Figure 6.1: The Questions related to Transformational Leadership Style

Q 6, 14, 22

Idealized Influence

Q 7, 15, 23

Inspirational Motivation

Q 8, 16, 24

Intellectual Stimulation

Q 9, 17, 25

Individualized Consideration

Q 10, 18, 26

Risk Acceptance

Transformational
Leadership

60

Figure 6.2: The Questions related to Transactional Leadership Style

Q 11, 19, 27

Contingent Reward

Q 12, 20, 28

Inspirational Motivation

Q 13, 21, 29

Intellectual Stimulation

Transactional
Leadership

Based on SPSS Independent - Samples T Test, we analyzed the responses from 46 Chinese
managers and 44 Swedish managers (SMEs), finding that both Chinese and Swedish managers
tend to be more transformational than transactional. The result was showed by the overall mean
value. On the one hand, the overall mean value of transformational leadership of China is 4.23,
which is higher than 3.84, the overall mean value of transactional leadership of China. On the
other hand, the overall mean value of transformational leadership of Sweden is 4.80, which is
also higher than 3.47, the overall mean value of Transactional Leadership of Sweden (Table 6.1
& 6.2). Therefore, both Chinese managers and their Swedish counterparts adopt a
transformational leadership style.

Table 6.1: Comparison of Transformational Leadership between China and Sweden (Means and
Significance) (See Appendix 2)
China

Sweden

Significance

(N=46)

(N=44)

(2-tailed)

Idealized Influence

4,33

4,80

,005

Inspirational Motivation

4,44

5,10

,000

Intellectual Stimulation

4,43

4,79

,040

Individualized Consideration

4,38

5,00

,000

3,57

4,31

,001

4,23

4,80

,000

Transformational

Risk

Acceptance
Overall

61

Table 6.2: Comparison of Transactional leadership between China and Sweden

(Means and Significance) (See Appendix 3)
China

Sweden

Significance

(N=46)

(N=44)

(2-tailed)

Contingent Reward

4,22

4,08

,403

Management-by-Exception

3,91

4,14

,265

Laissez Faire

3,38

1,86

,000

Overall

3,84

3,47

,036

Transactional

However, there are significant differences between Chinese transformational leadership style
(Mean=4.23) and Swedish transformational leadership style (Mean=4.80). The result was proved
by the overall significance value 0.000, which is below 1%, indicating there are highly
significant differences between the tested variables.

Among all the five characteristics of transformational leadership style, Inspirational Motivation
(Sig.=0.000)and Individualized Consideration (Sig.=0.000)are the two biggest differences
between China and Sweden. First, the result shows that Swedish managers (IM=5.10) are better
than Chinese counterparts (IM=4.44) to encourage employees to make the most of their real
skills and capacities to their jobs. Also, Swedish managers do a better job than Chinese ones to
help employees find meaning in their work and articulate a compelling vision for the future.
Second, the result also indicates that Swedish managers (IC=5.00) are better than Chinese ones
(IC=4.38) to let employees know how they think employees are doing. And Sweden managers
care much more about employees and their working conditions than Chinese counterparts.

As to Risk Acceptance (Sig.=0.001), there is a highly significant difference between China and
Sweden too. The result shows that Swedish managers (RA=4.31) tend to be more risk-taking
than their Chinese counterparts (RA=3.57). Swedish managers make quicker decisions and feel
easier to make risky decisions alone than Chinese managers.

With regard to transactional leadership style, there are also significant differences between
Chinese managers (Mean=3.84) and Swedish managers (Mean=3.47). The result was also proved
by the overall significant value 0.036, which is below 5%, indicating that there are significant

62

differences between the two tested variables. The result further shows that Chinese managers are
much more reward-minded and rule-minded than their Swedish counterparts. In other words,
Chinese managers are much more reluctant to change anything unless the work is absolutely
essential.

6.2.2. Comparative Study on Leadership Styles

Comparatively speaking, Chinese managers are prone to be more transactional, whereas Swedish
counterparts tend to be more transformational. However, both of them adopt a transformational
leadership style, their difference only lies in the degree of transformation. Therefore, we find that
the result of leadership style of Swedish managers coincides with our initial assumption, but the
result of the Chinese part is just opposite to the assumption. In the following, the possible
reasons are presented.

Why do both Chinese managers and Swedish managers tend to be more transformational than
transactional?
First of all, the reason might be related to the design of the questionnaire to test transformational
and transactional leadership style. On the one hand, the MLQ was originally designed to test a
managers leadership style from multiple sources. However, we only tested the managers
self-rating, which could be somewhat subjective without being tested by the feedbacks of their
superiors, peers, and employees. On the other hand, the questionnaire was formulated and
developed in the US by Bass- an American researcher. It was deemed to be an effective
measurement of leadership styles by American managers in American culture. But it is
questionable whether it applies to other countries, such as China and Sweden. As such, MLQ
may not be able to detect many of the differences in leadership styles that exist among
respondents in these two countries. Last but not least, the questions based on the MLQ are
somewhat emotional attitude questions. More specifically, the questions related to
transformational leadership style are much more positive than the questions related to
transactional leadership style. Therefore, it might be leading to unfaithful answers.

Second, the reason might be concerned with the age-level of respondents. Our result shows that
the majority of Chinese respondents are under 30 years old, but the majority of Swedish
participants are above 40 or 50 years old.

63

Table 6.3: The Age-Level of Chinese Participants (See Appendix 4b)

Valid

Cumulative

Percent

Percent

78.3

78.3

78.3

15.2

15.2

93.5

41-55 years old

6.5

6.5

100.0

Total

46

100.0

100.0

China

Valid

Frequency

Percent

up to 30 years old

36

31- 40 years old

Table 6.4: The Age-Level of Swedish Participants

Valid

Cumulative

Percent

Percent

4.5

4.5

4.5

12

27.3

27.3

31.8

15

34.1

34.1

65.9

56 years and older

15

34.1

34.1

100.0

Total

44

100.0

100.0

Sweden

Frequency

Percent

up to 30 years old

31- 40 years old

Valid 41-55 years old

Table 6.3 shows that the Chinese samples engaged in our study are characterized by young
managers (78.3%). We perceive that these young managers would probably employ a more
transformational leadership style than their older generations. These younger Chinese managers
were born and brought up after Chinas reform and opening up since 1978. Most of them would
be probably more educated, more ambitious and more open-minded than the older generations.
Besides, they are less influenced by traditional Chinese culture, for instance, the younger
managers might be more individualistic, and their view of power distance might be much slighter.
More importantly, the rapid globalization and the increasing interdependence of the worlds
economy require more flexible leadership styles. Therefore, it is rather necessary for managers to
employ a more efficient and effective leadership style in order to be competitive. In this sense,
the younger managers might be more adaptable to competitive environment than the older
generations. Thus it is easier for them to adopt a transformational leadership style than their older
counterparts.

64

Table 6.4 indicates Swedish respondents engaged in our questionnaire are mainly middle-aged
managers. We perceive this middle-aged level as typical representatives of their national culture.
Judging from the result of our study, Swedish managers use a transformational leadership style,
which is in line with our previous expectation. That is to say, Swedish managers display a
transformational leadership style when they stimulate their subordinates to move beyond their
own self-interests and work toward the interest of the group/organization as a whole. They
mentor and develop their subordinates, both on a professional and personal level. They challenge
their subordinates to do their best, and provide them with meaning and vision.

Third, the possible reason could be also related to the industry and the size of companies which
we investigated and selected.
Table 6.5: The Size of Chinese Companies (See Appendix 5b)

Valid

Valid

Cumulative

Percent

Percent

30.4

30.4

30.4

19.6

19.6

50.0

100-199

10

21.7

21.7

71.7

200-1000

19.6

19.6

91.3

more than 1000

8.7

8.7

100.0

Total

46

100.0

100.0

China

Frequency

Percent

less than 20

14

20-99

Table 6.6: The Size of Swedish Companies (See Appendix 5c)

Valid

Cumulative

Percent

Percent

68.2

68.2

68.2

15.9

15.9

84.1

4.5

4.5

88.6

200-1000

9.1

9.1

97.7

more than 1000

2.3

2.3

100.0

Total

44

100.0

100.0

Sweden

Frequency

Percent

less than 20

30

20-99
Valid 100-199

65

The samples engaged in our research are mainly import and export companies, most of which
belong to SMEs (See Table 6.5 & 6.6). Those managers within this business field are more
exposed to international market. Since the homogeneity of the selected sample, the managers
behaviour and thinking might be alike. It is probably more dissimilar in the case of a broader
sample of managers from bigger companies within other industries.

6.2.3. Summary
All in all, our research shows one key finding that Chinese managers of SMEs and their Swedish
counterparts somewhat share the similarity in leadership style, that is to say, both of the two
parties are prone to be transformational. The research further suggests that there may be some
leadership behaviors that are universally endorsed among SMEs within the import and export
industry. Statistically speaking, the respondents from the two countries engage in visionary,
inspirational, intellectual, considerable and risk-taking leadership behaviors with equal frequency.
All these behaviors are components of transformational leadership style. Although our study did
not examine the impact of various leadership style practices on performance, it has shown that
leaders from different countries use many leadership practices in similar ways and with similar
frequency. This at least implicitly suggests that they view these practices as effective.

6.3. The Influence of Gender on Leadership Styles

6. 3.1 Result of Gender Influence on Leadership Styles
Table 6.7 Comparison of Transformational leadership between Males and Females
(Means and Significances) (See Appendix 6)
Males

Females

Significance

(N=55)

(N=35)

(2-tailed)

Idealized Influence

4,61

4,50

,523

Inspirational Motivation

4,83

4,66

,329

Intellectual Stimulation

4,70

4,45

,157

Individualized Consideration

4,65

5,00

,000

Risk

3,91

3,97

,783

4,54

4,46

,570

Transformational

Acceptance

Overall

66

Table 6.8: Comparison of Transactional leadership between Males and Females

(Means and Significances) (See Appendix 7)
Males

Females

Significance

(N=55)

(N=35)

(2-tailed)

Contingent Reward

4,30

4,33

,894

Management-by-Exception

3,99

4,08

,658

Laissez Faire

2,43

2,21

,117

Overall

3,57

3,79

,235

Transactional

In an independent t-test, we tend to assess whether the self-reported leadership styles of female
managers differ from those of male managers. The results of these two hypotheses are shown in
table 6.7 and table 6.8. The finding suggests that the leadership style emphasized most by both
male and female managers is transformational leadership style. For the male samples, the overall
mean value of transformational leadership is 4.54, and the female participants have the score of
4.46 in transformational part. Correspondingly, both female and male managers scored lower on
transactional leadership style with the mean value of 3.57 and 3.79. The rank order of leadership
styles are the same for both male and female managers across countries.

6.3.2 Answers to Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2

The first two hypotheses on the gender and leadership style were:

H1: Female leaders tend to be more transformational than male counterparts in the SMEs of
China and Sweden.

H2: Male leaders are prone to be more transactional than their female counterparts in the SMEs
of China and Sweden.

Contrary to our assumption, there are no significant differences in the frequency of male and
female managers exhibition of transformational and transactional leadership styles. This is
proved by the overall significance value 0.570 and 0.235. Both figures are above 0.01, which
means that the difference between male and female samples is non-significant. The particular
gender effect upon leadership style we supposed previously does not actually exist according to

67

our results. Therefore, the first two hypotheses are rejected.

In response to this point, one consideration may be that differences in the behaviours of men and
women who occupy the same or similar leadership role are expected to be small because these
behaviors reflect the dual influence of gender roles, which differ for men and women, and
organizational roles, which do not differ. (Eagly et al., 2000) Thus, knowing that a particular
individual is female or male would not be a reliable indicator of that persons leadership style.

6.3.3. Comparative Study by Gender

Although the result shows that there is non-significant difference in leadership styles between
males and females, we still can find the comparative dissimilarity. When we compare the total
mean values between men and women, there is an unexpected tendency that is not in line with
previous researches on gender and leadership. The former researchers suggested that female
leaders use transformational leadership more often than male leaders (Eagly & Johnson, 1990;
Bass, et al.1998). It is very surprising for us to find that male managers scored higher than
female managers on overall transformational leadership (4.54 VS. 4.46), and they scored lower
than their female counterparts on overall transactional leadership (3.57 VS. 3.79).

A possible explanation for this result is that we only surveyed the managers themselves.
According to Bass (1998), women often rated themselves as significantly lower in
transformational leadership than the subordinates rated them, while mens self-ratings tended to
be more similar to those of their evaluators.

With regard to transformational leadership, male and female managers engage in Idealized
Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Individualized Consideration and Risk Acceptance
behaviours with similar frequency. As for the transactional leadership, they engage in
Management-by-Exception and Contingent Reward to the same degree. When we go deeper into
the subcomponents of the transformational and transactional leadership one item after the other,
we find that there are certain but slight differences in specific items.
Among all the five characteristics of transformational leadership style, Intellectual Stimulation
(Sig.=0.157) are the biggest differences between male and female managers. The result shows

that male managers (IS=4.70) are better than female managers (IS= 4.45) to encourage followers

68

to be creative in problem solving and to question basic assumptions. We argue that the result is
consistent with mens inherent characteristic which is prone to be more innovative than women.
Male managers may also urge their followers to continuously search for new and better methods
of doing things.

Among the five subcomponents of the transformational leadership, all but two behaviours does
not lean in the same direction as the overall tendency, namely, Individualized Consideration and
Risk Acceptance. Female managers exceed males in these two behaviours even though all the
scores of the other three behaviors and the overall transformational leadership style are lower.
This accord with earlier research stating that women are relationship-oriented and men are
task-oriented (Yukl, 1989, 75). Female managers spend significant amount of time in enhancing
the long-term relationship with their subordinates and their colleagues. They are sensitive, warm,
tactful and expressive (Olssson and Walker, 2003; Van Engen et al., 2001). It is no wonder that
female managers get higher score on Individualized Consideration.

However, it is hard to explain why the female samples in our search tend to accept risk more
positively. The result is opposite to our stereotype that males should be more adventurous and
courageous than females. A possible reason may lie in the design of the questions. Take Question
18 for example: I think intuition is the best guide in making decisions. Since females are more
emotional other than rational, they may make quicker decisions, and guide their decisions
through intuition more frequently than males.

However, male managers (LF=2.43) engage in Laissez Faire leadership more often than females
(LF=2.21). This implies that male managers have the greater tendency to let others do their own
thing and be content to let things ride.

6.3.4. Summary
This is an unexpected result according to our pervious assumption. At the beginning we thought
that female leaders would be probably prone to bring forth their feminine traits in their
leadership style and the differences of transactional and transformational leadership style from
the gender perspective would be more obvious and clear. The result of our study contradicts our
hypotheses.

69

Since the differences between male and female managers are not statistically significant in our
result, it supports for some researches that emphasize both men and women in management have
at least equal claim to transformational leadership. They stated that transformational leadership,
behaving in ways that bring out the best in individuals and organizations, may be a more
androgynous style, calling for the best in both male and female sex-typed behavior (Hackman et
al.,1992; Book, 2000).

However, the bias of our questionnaire itself can not be neglected. In our study we only surveyed
the leaders themselves. We are not sure whether the result would be the same if we conducted
our survey in a broader field and involved more participants. And the disproportion of male and
female participants may also result in some deviations.

Out of the expectations, we at least prove that the frequency of male and female leaders
exhibition of transformational leadership does not differ. As transformational leadership style is
perceived as a more desirable and more effective style, it may suggest that both male and female
should have at least equal access to leadership roles.

6.4. The Influence of Culture on Leadership Styles

6.4.1 Result of Four Cultural Dimensions of China and Sweden
The scores of Hofstedes cultural dimension of China and Sweden can be showed in Table 6.9.
Table 6.9 The scores of Hofstedes cultural dimension concerning China and Sweden

70

PDI

Power Distance

IDV

Individualism

MAS

Masculinity

UAI

Uncertainty Avoidance

Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

One of our assumptions is that China is a highly collectivistic, masculine society, characterized
by low uncertainty avoidance and high power distance. In contrast, Swedens cultural dimensions
should be opposite to Chinese culture dimensions except the uncertainty avoidance index.

Since the research targets of Hofstedes cultural dimensions are the employees in the
multinational company IBM, his result may not stand for the whole population of a specific
country. More importantly, since the participants of our questionnaires are demarcated in the
management level, this small group of people may present different cultural characteristics
compared with the whole population. One of the main tasks of our dissertation is to investigate
whether the cultural stereotypes according to Hofstedes study is applicable to our specific
research objects. Therefore, we add the culture part into our questionnaire with the aim to test
whether there are some differences between the theory and the reality.

Table6.10 indicates which questions investigate the four cultural dimensions in China and
Sweden

Table 6.10 The Questions related to Cultural dimensions:

Q 30, 34, 38, 42

Power Distance

Q 31, 35, 39, 43

Uncertainty Avoidance

Q 32, 36, 40, 44

Individualism/ Collectivism

Q 32, 36, 40, 44

Individualism/ Collectivism

71

Table 6.11: Comparison of Cultural dimensions between China and Sweden (See Appendix 8)
China

Sweden

Significance

(N=46

(N=44)

(2-tailed)

Power Distance (overall)

3,20

2,32

,000

Uncertainty Avoidance (overall)

3,48

3,15

,102

Collectivism (overall)

0,78

0,63

,127

Femininity (overall)

0,51

0,62

,014

Cultural Dimensions

In Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance indexes, a scale from 0 to 6 is used, where number
3 allows the respondent to have a neutral opinion, namely, undecided. So if the mean is above
3, we can reckon that this country has relatively high score in these two indexes, vice versa.

As for the Collectivism/Individualism and Femininity/Masculinity indexes, we choose to use a

question with two different options. Each option directs to a cultural characteristic, and has one
corresponding number, 0 or 1. Thus, if the mean is above 0.5, we can presume that country is
relatively collectivistic or feminine society, vice versa.

6.4.1.1. Power Distance

From table 6.9, we can find Hofstedes result of power distance for China arrives at 80, which is
fairly high. When it comes to Sweden, it gets 31 scores. Since our assumptions are based on
Hofstedes research, we would assume that Chinese group should be high on power distance
index, while Swedish group should be low.

The mean responses on the set of cultural dimensions are presented in table 6.11. With a mean
value of 3.20, the Chinese participants place themselves in a higher bound of the scalewhile the
Swedish participants answers give a mean of 2.32, which is in a lower bound. Both of the
cultural groups answer as predicted. Further, power distance index is the only index among the
four whose significance is below 0.05 (Sig=0.000), which means there are significant differences
between Chinese and Swedish participants. The Swedish managers and Chinese managers
respond the same as Hofstedes conclusion.

72

6.4.1.2. Uncertainty Avoidance

In table 6.9, we find Hofstedes result of Uncertainty Avoidance for China arrives at 30, which is
almost the same as Sweden, who score as 29. Thus, we suppose there should be no big
differences between China and Sweden since these two countries rank fairly close in uncertainty
avoidance index.

The result shows that Chinese managers get the mean value of 3.48 and Swedish managers get
the mean value of 3.15. There is no significant difference between China and Sweden in this
index. But to our surprise, the mean values of all the managers in the two countries are above
3.00, which means that both countries have relatively high uncertainty avoidance. This implies
that both Swedish and Chinese managers in SMEs tend to avoid uncertainties and are afraid of
implementing ideas that are beyond the routine ones. There are slim chances that they will
encourage themselves or their subordinates to challenge the status quo. One of the possible
reasons might be that, in both cultures, the leaders must embody their stability and dependability
and avoid ambiguity and unclear rules in order to earn the respect of subordinates.

6.4.1.3. Collectivism/Individualism
Table 6.9 shows that in the Collectivism/ Individualism index, China score 20. However, when it
comes to Sweden, it gets 71 scores, whose rank among seventy-four countries and regions is
13-14. Thus, it is obvious that China is typically collectivism country, and Sweden belongs to
individualism country.

We can see from the table 6.11 that both Chinese and Swedish answers fall in the upper bound
with a mean value of 0.78 and 0.63. The difference between this cultural dimension in China and
Sweden is not overwhelming which is proved by the significance value of 0.127.

Only Chinese group answer as predicted, while Swedish counterparts react just oppositely as the
assumption based on Hofstedes research. In collectivistic society the groups well-being and
group consensus is stressed. The similarity of Chinese and Swedish managers collectivism/
individualism may be due to the company size involved in our survey. As shown in table 6.5 &
6.6, 50% Chinese companies and 84.1% Swedish companies have employees less than 100.
Especially, for the Swedish part, there are 68.2% companies have employees which are less than

73

10. That means most of the Swedish companies in our survey are very small-sized and may be
family-owned enterprises. In this kind of company, the members relationship is basically moral,
like a family link, or even you can say, they may be real family members who constitute the
company. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that Swedish participants also get a high score in
collectivism dimension.

6.4.1.4. Femininity/Masculinity
Table 6.9 indicates that China is ranked as a masculine society with the score of 66 whereas
Sweden is ranked as a fairly feminine society with the score of 5.

Firstly, we should notice that our questions under this index have the opposite direction to
Hofstedes. With regard to our situation, higher score signifies more feminine. Therefore, the
result of our research is not coherent with the overall tendency based on Hofstedes research to
some extent. Chinese managers get the mean value of 0.51, which signifies China has a feminine
culture, and Swedish managers get the mean value of 0.62, which also signifies a feminine
culture. However, there is significant difference between two cultural groups according to the
significance value 0.014.

Compared with the stereotype of Chinese culture, Chinese managers really get a high score on
femininity index. In the old times of China, males dominated a remarkable position not only in
social life but also in workplace. There was a high level of differentiation and discrimination
against women. But with overwhelming changes of Chinese society these years, peoples
consciousness and values have been changed to a greater extent, especially womens social status
improved greatly. Take our survey for instance, it is much easier for us to find female managers
in China rather than in Sweden. We got 22 Chinese female managers but only 13 Swedish female
managers. Many Chinese women, especially the young generation, have been raised in such an
environment, consider themselves to a great degree equal to men. Therefore, even though it
totally contradicts our stereotype of Chinese culture; our result is still acceptable in such a
specific situation. The other possible reason may also lie in the given research field, SMEs. In
SMEs, it is much easier for women to stride over glass ceiling, which is quite a common
phenomenon in MNEs.

74

6.4.1.5. Summary
Result from our study shows that there are cultural differences concerning power distance and
femininity/masculinity between China and Sweden. Nevertheless, the result is somewhat
contrary to Hofstedes theory.

We can summarize the four cultural dimensions of the two countries as such: China is a highly
collectivistic, feminine society, characterized by high uncertainty avoidance and high power
distance. Sweden is a collectivistic, feminine society, characterized by high uncertainty
avoidance and low power distance.

Our questionnaire is inspired and modified from an old dissertation composed by Marcus
Bornholt, Marianne Elfverson, Andereas Johnsson The Cultural Enigma in a Multi-Task
Experiment (Kristianstad, 2005). It is very interesting to compare our results with theirs. Scores
of our samples are quite different from those obtained by them when they surveyed only ten
Chinese students and ten Swedish students of Kristianstad University. Their results are
summarized as such: Sweden is presented as a feminine culture with a low power distance and
high ranks on the individualism index. China on the other hand, is perceived to be quite the
opposite as it is a masculine culture with a high power distance and a highly collectivistic society.
This indicates that their findings are consistent with the cultural stereotype. The differences
between ours and theirs may be due to the sample difference. The samples in their research are
students, while the participants involved in our survey are the leaders who have the real
management experience. Even though respondents are from the same nations, they may give
different answers due to their own values and beliefs.

Hofstede himself also (2001) argues that all narrow samples (meaning just a few companies or a
certain profession or other category of people) are atypical in some way. But it does not matter,
as long as all the samples are atypical in the same way from one country to another. The quality
of the matching of such samples and the generalizability of conclusions drawn from such
research can only be proven ex post. Since our research only focuses on the managers in SMEs,
and we will only generalize our model within the field of SMEs, we believe that our samples are
representative of this specific kind of companies to some extent. Further research is very
necessary to be conducted in SEMs with other industry categories.

75

6.4.2. Answers to Hypothesis 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Table 6.12 Correlations Cultural Dimensions and Leadership styles (See Appendix 9)
Cultural Dimensions

Transformational Transactional
Leadership

Leadership

-.247(*)

.106

.019

.319

90

90

-.056

.084

.600

.431

90

90

.161

.327(**)

.129

.002

90

90

.141

.056

.186

.603

90

90

Pearson
Power Distance

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Pearson

Uncertainty
Avoidance

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Pearson

Collectivism

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Pearson

Femininity

Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Table 6.12 indicates the correlation between the four cultural dimensions and leadership styles
based on SPSS correlation analysis.

For the Power Distance index, it has no correlation with transactional leadership judging from
the correlation value of 0.106 (Sig.=0.319). Consequently, hypothesis 3 is rejected. But it has a
correlation value of -0.247 (Sig.=0.19), indicating that there is negative correlation between
power distance and transformational leadership, put in another way, managers in countries with
small power distance tend to use a more transformational leadership. As a result, hypothesis 4 is
supported.
Concerning the uncertainty avoidance subscale, there isnt any correlation between this item and

76

any kind of leadership style. This is proved by the correlation value of 0.600 and 0.431.Thus,
hypothesis 9 and 10 are rejected.

With respect to collectivism index, it has a correlation value of 0.327. That is to say, there is
positive correlation between collectivism and transactional leadership. This result is also
opposite to hypothesis 5 and 6. As a result, hypothesis 5 and 6 are rejected.

As for the last dimension femininity, we find that there is no correlation between femininity and
transformational leadership style either, so hypothesis 7 and 8 are rejected.

6.4.3. Summary
In short, our research shows there is a very slight influence of culture upon leadership styles,
especially when examining the specific dimensions, we find that there is either negative
correlation or no correlation between tested variables.

6.5. Conclusion
Result from our research suggests that both Chinese managers and Swedish managers of SMEs
are prone to be more transformational than transactional. The study further shows the influence
of gender and culture on leadership styles. With respect to the gender, both male managers and
female of the two countries tend to be transformational, indicating that there is no gender
influence on leadership styles. As far as culture is concerned, Hofstedes four cultural dimensions
are slightly correlated to leadership styles. In the following, our result of hypotheses will be
summarized and the research questions will be answered.

6.5.1. Result of Hypotheses Testing

Based on result of our study, the result of hypotheses-testing is summarized in Table 6.13:

77

Table 6.13 Result of Hypotheses-Testing

Testing

Hypotheses
Supported

Rejected

H1

H2

H3

H4

H5

H6

H7

H8

H9

H10

As stated before, the first two hypotheses, which are concerned with gender and leadership styles,
were rejected. That is to say, there is no gender influence on leadership styles. Both male and
females managers employ transformational leadership style based on our research result. The rest
of hypotheses are related to cultural dimension and leadership styles. Except hypothesis 4, all the
others are rejected based on the study.

6.5.2. Answer to Research Questions

6.5.2.1. Answer to the First Research Question
The first research question of the dissertation is:
What characterize the leadership styles of SMEs in China and Sweden? Are they
transformational or transactional?

This fundamental question can be answered based on the research result, which indicates that
Chinese managers and Swedish managers of SMEs are alike in leadership styles; namely, both of
the two parties tend to be more transformational than transactional.

The transformational leaders are characterized by Four I plus One R:

z

Idealized Influence: they may influence their followers through their charming and

78

influential personality and serve as role models.

z

Intellectual Stimulation: they may intellectually stimulate their employees.

Inspirational Motivation: they may persuade employees to believe in the mission and its
attainability.

Individualized Consideration: they may meet the emotional needs of their employees.

Risk Acceptance: they may feel easy to take risks and like business adventure.

The transactional leaders are characterized by:

z

Contingent Reward: they reward their employees according to good performance, and
punish them due to bad performance.

Management-By-Exception: they take advantage of the power to reward or penalize

employees, and they focus on employees errors and try to discipline them.

Laissez-Faire: they may hardly pay attention to their employees unless the work is
absolutely important and essential.

6.5.2.2. Answer to the Second Research Question

The second research question is:
Which element - gender or culture - exerts a more important impact on the leadership styles
of SMEs in China and Sweden?

As stated before, both males and females in the two countries are alike in leadership styles,
indicating there is no gender influence on leadership styles. Similarly, there is a very slight
impact of culture upon leadership styles; that is to say, the three cultural dimensions Uncertainty Avoidance, Collectivism/Individualism and Femininity/Masculinity - have no
correlation with leadership styles from statistical perspective. Only the dimension of Power
Distance with a negative correlation value shows that managers in countries with small power
distance tend to use a more transformational leadership.

To sum up, compared to the gender element, culture exerts a little more impact on leadership
style of SMEs in China and Sweden.

Chapter 7 Final Conclusions

79

The conclusion is drawn in this chapter. The applicability of the explanatory model is evaluated.
Finally, suggestions for future research and practical implications are presented.

7.1. Summary of the Dissertation

The dissertation explores and evaluates two cardinal issues: first, it aims to compare leadership
styles adopted by managers of SMEs in China and Sweden; second, it attempts to test which
element - gender or culture - exerts a more influence upon leadership styles.

Amongst many other theories on leadership, transformational and transactional leadership

theories are chosen as the main research topic in our dissertation. The reason is that the
traditional leadership theories are insufficient for understanding the relationship between
superiors and subordinates in the fast paced world of international business. In contrast,
transformational theory focuses on the relationship between leaders and employees. More
importantly, it is related to the influence of gender on leadership, which has been ignored by
traditional leadership theories in male-dominated industries.

With respect to the gender factor, some scholars report that male and female managers employ
different leadership styles. Several studies also indicate that women are perceived, and perceive
themselves, as using transformational leadership styles more than men (Bass et al.,1996; Druskat,
1994; Rosener, 1990). Others believe that there is no gender difference in leadership style and no
difference in the general effectiveness of men and women as manager either (Komives, 1991;
Maher, 1997).

In terms of the cultural factor, many cross-cultural studies suggest that culture has a great
influence on leadership concepts, styles, and practices (House & Aditya, 1997; Gerstner & Day,
1994; Hofstede, 2001). However, Bass argues that transformational and transactional leadership
theory can be applicable to different cultures (Bass, 1991). In other words, there is no influence
of culture on leadership.

Based on the above-mentioned researches, we formulated 10 hypotheses and created the PWP
model with the aim to evaluate to what extent gender and culture exert impact upon leadership

80

styles. The deductive approach was chosen as methodology and quantitative data was gathered
with the help of an empirical study of an online questionnaire. The respondents were contacted
by email and were directed to the website http://www.octosoft.cn/q/ECQuestionnaire.aspx, where
they could fill in the questionnaire. The response rate of the questionnaire was about 13%.

Drawing upon empirical support and a survey of questionnaire, we formulate our research results
accordingly, which are summarized in the following.

To begin with, the research indicates both Chinese managers and Swedish managers of SMEs are
prone to be more transformational than transactional. It seems that transformational leadership is
perceived as a more effective leadership in face of overwhelming competition in international
business.

Secondly, the statistical result also show there is no significant difference between male and
females managers. It corresponds with some researches stating that transformational leadership
may be a more androgynous style, which is perceived as the best leading behavior both for males
and females (Hackman et al., 1992; Book, 2000).

Thirdly, the impact of culture on leadership styles is quite slight based on our research.

It

shows that there is no correlation between the Hofstedes four dimensions and leadership, except
the index of power distance.

In conclusion, all the hypotheses except hypothesis 4 are rejected according to our results.
Nevertheless, we can still examine some differences on leadership styles between China and
Sweden, proved by the significance value. When comparing these two countries, we find that
China is a bit more transactional while Sweden is a bit more transformational. This may be due
to the significant differences on power distance and femininity/ masculinity index between China
and Sweden. Further research on a broader scale and in a more typical national industry may
lead to different results where the cultural influence is more obvious. Accordingly, we may
conclude that, compared to the gender element, culture exerts a little more impact on leadership
style of SMEs in China and Sweden.
7.2. Applicability of the Model

81

Our research model was based on three factors: leadership styles, gender and culture. We
supposed that both gender and culture would affect the leadership style more than other factors,
such as industry, age and personal traits. We wanted to find the correlation between leadership
style and these two factors.

The foundation of the model is the ten hypotheses we formulated. If we can prove the hypotheses
to be true, we can generalize our model to the SMEs field afterwards. After analyzing the research
result, we realized that nine out of ten hypotheses were rejected.

Both male and female managers tend to be transformational. This may indicate that
transformational leadership is a more androgynous, other than earlier directive or task-oriented
models of leadership.

When it comes to the cultural part, data from this study suggest that the impact of cultural
differences on leadership style cross-countries may be decreasing. However, several factors that
may have led to such results should be noted, such as a limited number of samples, the
homogeneity of the participants, etc.

As a result, the applicability of the model doesnt exist since we could not prove any significant
differences between cultural groups and gender groups.
7.3. Self-Criticism
When reviewing the methodology, which was adopted in this research, we find some methods
worthy of discussing and should be criticized.

First, one of the biggest limitations in our dissertation lies in the questionnaires bias. Only the
self-rating usage of leadership styles was measured, rather than actual performance in the
workplace. Thus, there may exist a difference between the leadership style reported and actually
practiced. However, Basss MLQ is conducted from multiple sources - the manager
herself/himself; the managers subordinates, the managers superiors, and the managers peers which result in more objective and reliable facts. If this bias is stable or similar across countries,
then it is not problematic. However, if it varies across cultures, then it can influence the results of
the study. In our stereotype of Chinese culture, we find that Chinese people are face-conscious;

82

therefore, it might be possible for them to choose some positive and desirable answers rather
than negative ones. Under the circumstances, the subjectivity of the respondents is questionable.
Moreover, the questions can be interpreted in different ways by different respondents. An
accurate judgment is difficult to make, since the respondents may not have noticed the behavior
at the time it occurred. (cf. Schriesheim and Kerr, 1977; Luthans and Lockwood, 1984. Yukl
(1989,p.79) Concerning the language, even though English is widely spoken in Sweden, we may
get more accurate answers if the questionnaire can be translated into Swedish.

Second, we also limited ourselves to firms within import-export trading field. The samples were
relatively small-sized and very homogenous. The values and behaviors of the managers in such
kind of companies could be quite similar as they have more chances to expose to the
international markets and have to adapt themselves to the changing environment. Because of the
nature of the samples, the generalizability of the findings on a larger population is questionable.
The result might have leaned to the opposite direction if we chose a more traditional industry and
local companies.
Third, only firms with an email address could be part of our sample. Therefore, some important
information might be missing.

7.4. Future Research

Since transactional and transformational leaderships are relatively new concepts, it would be
interesting to do further researches within this area. With our research as foundation further
researches can be conducted in the following areas:

1. Since our survey only focuses on managers in China and Sweden, it is difficult for us to get
general results concerning the leadership style of different countries all over the world.

Thus, a

research with a larger sample would give a more dependable and generalized result.
2. Since we only focus our investigation on small and medium import and export companies,
another interesting topic in future would be to replicate this study in various industries to find
out whether our findings can be generalized for other industries.

3. As mentioned earlier, the data for this study were gathered through self-rating. An alternative,
and better but more difficult approach is to distribute the questionnaires also to the managers

83

superiors, peers, and subordinates to rate the managers leadership style. Different results may be
obtained.

4. In our dissertation, we ascribe the different leadership styles only to gender and culture factors.
However, we think it could also be interesting to conduct our researches on other explanatory
factors. More specifically, in order to gain a more clear picture of what factors make influence on
leadership styles, other factors such as managers personal traits, industrial characteristics could
also be taken into consideration in future researchs.

5. It would be of interest to assess the effectiveness of different leadership styles. Maybe in

different cultures, the most effective leadership may not be the same. It is worthwhile to conduct
research on the correlation between leadership styles and organizational performance.
7.5. Practical Implication
Even though all the hypotheses were rejected and the PWP model could not be generalized, our
research does deserve positive criticism. It is helpful for managers to gain a better understanding
of leadership styles, namely, transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Besides,
the research reveals that transformational leadership style tends to be a better choice for
managers to adopt. It also proves that Bass transformational theory is applicable to different
cultural contexts.

Our findings may offer valuable suggestions for further researchers, revealing that personal trait
may play a more important role in leadership styles than the gender and culture factors.
Moreover, different leadership environment may need different kinds of leadership styles and
different personal traits of these leaders.

84

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Appendix 1a

90

English version of the Questionnaire

The questionnaire will probably cost you 10-15 minutes. Please choose the best answer which
you think is the most appropriate to your situation. Try to complete at a time when you are
unlikely to be disturbed. Also, please do not spend too much time on any one question. Your first
thoughts are usually the best!
Please note that your answers are very important for us to test the different leadership styles
between China and Sweden, therefore, we have your attention to complete all the questions even
though some of them do not suit you perfectly. Moreover, all the questions in the questionnaire
will enable us to test the cultural differences between China and Sweden.
Concerning our questionnaire, each question contains 7 options, which stands for 7 different
answers. The number 0-6 stands for scores, by which you can show the extent of your agreement
to all the statements. For example, if you agree the statement totally, then mark 6 scores. On the
contrary, If you disagree the statement extremely, then mark 0 score, which is the lowest score of
our answer.
0.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Totally disagree
Moderately disagree
Slightly disagree
Undecided
Slightly Agree
Moderately Agree
Totally Agree.

Thank you very much for taking the time off your busy schedules. And please do not hesitate to
contact us if you have any questions. Once again, thank you very much for your sincere
cooperation!
Pan Xiaoxia ([email protected])
Pan Xiaoxia ([email protected])
Wu Jing ([email protected])

QUESTIONNAIRE

91

Background information
1. Are you a female or a male?
A). Male

B). Female

2. Whats your nationality?

A). China

B). Sweden

C).

3. How old are you?

A). up to 30 years

B). 31-40 years

C). 41-55

D). 56 years and older

4. Whats your position at the company?

(If you are titled as manager, for instance, sales manager, then you can choose manager for
your answer; otherwise, you may choose employee)
A). manager

B). employee

5. How many employees in your company?

A). less than 20

B).20-99

C). 100-199

D). 200-1000

E). more than 1000

Leadership Styles
6. I make others feel good to work with me.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7. I encourage employees to make the most of their real skills and capacities to their jobs.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
8. I enable others to think about old problems in new ways.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
9. I let others know how I think they are doing.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
10. I think making risky decisions alone does not bother me.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
11. I tell others what to do if they want to be rewarded for their work.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
12. I am satisfied when others meet agreed upon standards.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
13. I am content to let others continue working in the same way as always.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
14. Others are proud to be associated with me.

92

0
1
2
3
4
5
15. I help others find meaning in their work.

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
16. I provide others with new ways of looking at puzzling things.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
17. I give personal attention to others who seem rejected.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
18. I think intuition is the best guide in making decisions.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
19. I provide recognition/rewards when others reach their goals.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
20. As long as things are working, I do not try to change anything.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
21. Whatever others want to do is O.K. with me.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
22. I talk about my most important values and beliefs to my employees.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
23. I articulate a compelling vision for the future.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
24. I get others to rethink ideas that they had never questioned before.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
25. I give careful attention to the working conditions of my employees.
0
1
2
3
4
5
26. I make quick decisions when necessary.

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
27. I clearly clarify the responsibility for achieving targets.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
28. I tell others the standards they have to know to carry out their work.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
29. I don't care much what others do unless the work is absolutely essential.
0

Cultural Dimensions
30. I am entitled to privileges compared to my subordinates.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
31. I think company rules should not be broken even when the employee thinks his decision is
within the companys best interests.

93

0
1
2
3
4
5
32. Once given tasks, I prefer to work
0. Individually

6
: individually or in a group?

1. In a group

33. What is more important about the job, a high salary or feeling satisfied?
0. A high salary
1. Feeling satisfied
34. There is a wide salary range between the top and bottom of the organization.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
35. It is important to be on time to business appointments.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
36. In my workplace, I consider myself to have close family like bonds with my subordinates.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
37. What is more important, a better position or employment security?
0. A better position
1. Employment security
38. I think my subordinates should only follow my order without knowing why it should be
done.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
39. I only consider written contracts to be binding.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
40. I consider to be most important, individual achievements or group performance?
0. Individual achievements
1. Group performance
41. I tend to put more emphasis on
: work goals or personal goals?
(Work goals: earnings, advancement; personal goals: friendly getting along well with your
subordinates)
0. Work goals
1. Personal goals
42. I think that my subordinates are afraid to disagree with me, even if they have better ideas.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
43. In my organization, change is viewed as a threat.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
44. When it comes to decision making, I prefer
0. A single leader
45. I prefer to solve the conflict though
and argument?
0. Confrontation and argument

: a single leader or group consensus?

1. Group consensus
: negotiation and compromise or confrontation
1. Negotiation and compromise

94

Appendix 1b

Chinese version of the Questionnaire

:
!

10-15 ..



6 0-6

0
1
2
3
4
5
6

:
:
:
:
:
:
:

.
.
.

.
.

95

 ([email protected])
([email protected])
( [email protected]) @ Kristianstad ,

1.?
A).

B).

2. ?
A).

B).

C).

3. ?
A).

B). 31-40

C). 41-55

D). 56

4. ?
: (, ), , ,
.
A).

B).

5. ____ ?
A). 20

B).20-99

C). 100-199

D). 200-1000

E). 1000

6., .
0

7. .
0

8.,.
0

96

9..
0

10..
0

11. . ,,
.
0

12., .
0

13. .
0

14. .
0

15..
0

16. .
0

17. ,, ().
0

18..
0

19.,.
0

20. , .
0

21. ,.

97

22. .
0

23..
0

24.,.
0

25.,.
0

26. ,, .
0

27..
0

28. ,.
0

29. ,.
0

30. , .
0

31.,
.
0

32. , :
0.

1.

98

33. __________
0.

1.

34. , .
0

35. , .
0

36. ,.
0

37? ________
0.

1. ()

38,.
0

39.
0

40. ______.
0.

1.

41. _________.
(: , , , ,
.)
0.

1.

42. .
0

43. , . .
0

44. , ________.
0.

1. , .

99

45. , ________
0. .

1.

100

Appendix 2
Comparisons of Transformational Leadership between China and Sweden
Group Statistics

TransformationalLeadershi
p
IdealizedInfluence
InspirationalMotivation
IntellectualStimulation
IndividualizedConsideration
RiskAcceptance

What's your nationality?

China

Std. Deviation
9.20557

Std. Error
Mean
1.35729

46

Mean
63.4565

Sweden

44

71.9773

8.32896

1.25564

China

46

13.0000

2.40370

.35441

Sweden

44

14.4091

2.18151

.32887

China

46

13.3261

2.22165

.32757

Sweden

44

15.2955

2.27810

.34344

China

46

13.2826

2.69702

.39765

Sweden

44

14.3636

2.16839

.32690

China

46

13.1304

2.34387

.34558

Sweden

44

14.9773

1.89845

.28620

China

46

10.7174

2.77819

.40962

Sweden

44

12.9318

3.07577

.46369

101

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for
Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval
of the Difference

F
TransformationalLeadershi
p

Equal variances
assumed

Sig.
.009

.923

Equal variances
not assumed
IdealizedInfluence

Equal variances
assumed

.197

.658

Equal variances
not assumed
InspirationalMotivation

Equal variances
assumed

.004

.949

Equal variances
not assumed
IntellectualStimulation

Equal variances
assumed

1.549

.217

Equal variances
not assumed
IndividualizedConsideration

Equal variances
assumed

1.419

.237

Equal variances
not assumed
RiskAcceptance

Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not assumed

1.507

.223

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean
Difference

Std. Error
Difference

Lower

Upper

-4.598

88

.000

-8.52075

1.85316

-12.20352

-4.83798

-4.608

87.735

.000

-8.52075

1.84901

-12.19543

-4.84607

-2.908

88

.005

-1.40909

.48454

-2.37202

-.44617

-2.914

87.763

.005

-1.40909

.48349

-2.36996

-.44822

-4.152

88

.000

-1.96937

.47434

-2.91201

-1.02673

-4.150

87.571

.000

-1.96937

.47460

-2.91261

-1.02613

-2.090

88

.040

-1.08103

.51726

-2.10898

-.05308

-2.100

85.506

.039

-1.08103

.51477

-2.10444

-.05761

-4.097

88

.000

-1.84684

.45081

-2.74273

-.95095

-4.116

85.705

.000

-1.84684

.44871

-2.73889

-.95479

-3.587

88

.001

-2.21443

.61730

-3.44118

-.98768

-3.579

86.161

.001

-2.21443

.61871

-3.44434

-.98451

102

Appendix 3

Comparisons of Transactional Leadership between China and Sweden

Group Statistics

TransactionalLeadership
ContingentReward
ManagementByException
LaissezFaire

What's your nationality?

China

Std. Deviation
6.33768

Std. Error
Mean
.93444

46

Mean
34.5217

Sweden

44

31.2045

8.32642

1.25526

China

46

12.6739

2.92920

.43189

Sweden

44

13.2273

3.31917

.50038

China

46

11.7174

2.81790

.41548

Sweden

44

12.4091

3.03712

.45786

China

46

10.1304

3.49990

.51603

Sweden

44

5.5682

4.52074

.68153

103

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for
Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval
of the Difference

F
TransactionalLeadership

Equal variances
assumed

Sig.

6.160

.015

Equal variances
not assumed
ContingentReward

Equal variances
assumed

.690

.408

Equal variances
not assumed
ManagementByException

Equal variances
assumed

1.259

.265

Equal variances
not assumed
LaissezFaire

Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not assumed

3.903

.051

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean
Difference

Std. Error
Difference

Lower

Upper

2.133

88

.036

3.31719

1.55554

.22589

6.40850

2.120

80.300

.037

3.31719

1.56488

.20317

6.43122

-.840

88

.403

-.55336

.65915

-1.86328

.75656

-.837

85.558

.405

-.55336

.66099

-1.86746

.76075

-1.121

88

.265

-.69170

.61723

-1.91832

.53492

-1.119

86.759

.266

-.69170

.61827

-1.92063

.53723

5.367

88

.000

4.56225

.85005

2.87296

6.25155

5.337

80.998

.000

4.56225

.85485

2.86137

6.26314

104

Appendix 4a
The Age-Level the Whole Participants
How old are you?

Frequency
38

Percent
42.2

Valid Percent
42.2

Cumulative
Percent
42.2

31- 40 years old

19

21.1

21.1

63.3

41-55 years old

18

20.0

20.0

83.3

56 years and older

15

16.7

16.7

100.0

Total

90

100.0

100.0

The Whole Participants

Valid
up to 30 years old

Appendix 4b

Appendix 4c

The Age-Level of Chinese Participants

The Age-Level of Swedish Participants

How old are you?

How old are you?

China
Valid

up to 30 years old
31- 40 years old
41-55 years old
Total

Frequency
36

Percent
78.3

Valid Percent
78.3

Cumulative
Percent
78.3

15.2

15.2

93.5
100.0

6.5

6.5

46

100.0

100.0

Frequency
2

Percent
4.5

Valid Percent
4.5

Cumulative
Percent
4.5

31- 40 years old

12

27.3

27.3

31.8

41-55 years old

15

34.1

34.1

65.9

56 years and older

15

34.1

34.1

100.0

Total

44

100.0

100.0

Sweden
Valid
up to 30 years old

105

Appendix 5a
The Size of Companies of China and Sweden
How many employees in your company?

Frequency
44

Percent
48.9

Valid Percent
48.9

Cumulative
Percent
48.9

100-199
200-1000
more than 1000

16
12
14
4

17.8
13.3
15.6
4.4

17.8
13.3
15.6
4.4

66.7
80.0
95.6
100.0

Total

90

100.0

100.0

The Whole Participants

Valid
less than 20
20-99

Appendix 5c

Appendix 5b

The Size of Swedish Companies

The Size of Chinese Companies

China
Valid

less than 20
20-99
100-199

Frequency
30

Percent
68.2

Valid Percent
68.2

Cumulative
Percent
68.2

20-99

15.9

15.9

84.1

71.7

100-199

4.5

4.5

88.6

Frequency
14

Percent
30.4

Valid Percent
30.4

Cumulative
Percent
30.4

19.6

19.6

50.0

10

21.7

21.7

Sweden
Valid
less than 20

200-1000

19.6

19.6

91.3

200-1000

9.1

9.1

97.7

more than 1000

8.7

8.7

100.0

more than 1000

2.3

2.3

100.0

Total

46

100.0

100.0

Total

44

100.0

100.0

106

Appendix 6
Comparisons of Transformational Leadership between Males and Females (Means and Significances)
Group Statistics

TransformationalLeadership
IdealizedInfluence
InspirationalMotivation
IntellectualStimulation
IndividualizedConsideration
RiskAcceptance

Are you female or male?

Male

Std. Deviation
10.17672

Std. Error
Mean
1.37223

55

Mean
68.0909

Female

35

66.8857

9.08383

1.53545

Male

55

13.8182

2.48768

.33544

Female

35

13.4857

2.25403

.38100

Male

55

14.4909

2.54495

.34316

Female

35

13.9714

2.28146

.38564

Male

55

14.1091

2.69205

.36300

Female

35

13.3429

2.11358

.35726

Male

55

13.9455

2.36814

.31932

Female

35

14.1714

2.26853

.38345

Male

55

11.7273

3.12963

.42200

35

11.9143

3.13773

.53037

Female

107

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval
of the Difference

F
TransformationalLeadershi
p

Equal variances
assumed

Sig.
.631

.429

Equal variances
not assumed
IdealizedInfluence

Equal variances
assumed

.489

.486

Equal variances
not assumed
InspirationalMotivation

Equal variances
assumed

.605

.439

Equal variances
not assumed
IntellectualStimulation

Equal variances
assumed

1.278

.261

Equal variances
not assumed
IndividualizedConsideration

Equal variances
assumed

.043

.837

Equal variances
not assumed
RiskAcceptance

Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not assumed

.018

.893

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean
Difference

Std. Error
Difference

Lower

Upper

.571

88

.570

1.20519

2.11230

-2.99255

5.40294

.585

78.479

.560

1.20519

2.05927

-2.89411

5.30450

.641

88

.523

.33247

.51896

-.69886

1.36380

.655

77.731

.514

.33247

.50762

-.67819

1.34312

.982

88

.329

.51948

.52900

-.53179

1.57075

1.006

78.266

.317

.51948

.51621

-.50816

1.54712

1.426

88

.157

.76623

.53723

-.30139

1.83386

1.504

84.042

.136

.76623

.50931

-.24659

1.77905

-.449

88

.655

-.22597

.50384

-1.22725

.77530

-.453

74.845

.652

-.22597

.49900

-1.22006

.76812

-.276

88

.783

-.18701

.67738

-1.53317

1.15914

-.276

72.405

.783

-.18701

.67778

-1.53801

1.16398

108

Appendix 7
Comparisons of Transactional leadership between Males and Females
Group Statistics

TransactionalLeadership
ContingentReward
ManagementByException
LaissezFaire

Are you female or male?

Male

Std. Deviation
7.79938

Std. Error
Mean
1.05167

55

Mean
32.1455

Female

35

34.0857

7.00996

1.18490

Male

55

12.9091

3.23907

.43676

Female

35

13.0000

2.97044

.50210

Male

55

11.9455

2.79164

.37642

Female

35

12.2286

3.17236

.53623

Male

55

7.2909

4.62150

.62316

Female

35

8.8571

4.51235

.76273

109

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval
of the Difference

F
TransactionalLeadership

Equal variances
assumed

Sig.

1.850

.177

Equal variances
not assumed
ContingentReward

Equal variances
assumed

.566

.454

Equal variances
not assumed
ManagementByException

Equal variances
assumed

.874

.353

Equal variances
not assumed
LaissezFaire

Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not assumed

.023

.879

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean
Difference

Std. Error
Difference

Lower

Upper

-1.196

88

.235

-1.94026

1.62260

-5.16484

1.28432

-1.225

78.137

.224

-1.94026

1.58430

-5.09426

1.21374

-.134

88

.894

-.09091

.67852

-1.43932

1.25750

-.137

77.119

.892

-.09091

.66547

-1.41601

1.23419

-.445

88

.658

-.28312

.63669

-1.54841

.98217

-.432

65.718

.667

-.28312

.65516

-1.59129

1.02506

-1.582

88

.117

-1.56623

.99023

-3.53411

.40164

-1.590

73.828

.116

-1.56623

.98493

-3.52882

.39636

110

Appendix 8
Comparison of Cultural dimensions between China and Sweden
Group Statistics

CulturalDimensions
PowerDistance
UncertaintyAvoidance
Collectivism
Femininity

What's your nationality?

China

Std. Deviation
6.04080

Std. Error
Mean
.89067

46

Mean
34.6739

Sweden

44

29.5682

6.50723

.98100

China

46

12.7826

4.01615

.59215

Sweden

44

9.2955

4.07248

.61395

China

46

13.8913

3.83103

.56485

Sweden

44

12.5909

3.63650

.54822

China

46

6.2609

1.49718

.22075

Sweden

44

5.6591

2.16680

.32666

China

46

2.0435

.75884

.11189

Sweden

44

2.4773

.87574

.13202

111

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for

Equality of Variances

t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval
of the Difference

F
CulturalDimensions

Equal variances
assumed

Sig.
.605

.439

Equal variances
not assumed
PowerDistance

Equal variances
assumed

.120

.729

Equal variances
not assumed
UncertaintyAvoidance

Equal variances
assumed

.384

.537

Equal variances
not assumed
Collectivism

Equal variances
assumed

4.948

.029

Equal variances
not assumed
Femininity

Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances
not assumed

3.065

.083

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean
Difference

Std. Error
Difference

Lower

Upper

3.860

88

.000

5.10573

1.32280

2.47694

7.73452

3.853

86.770

.000

5.10573

1.32501

2.47203

7.73943

4.089

88

.000

3.48715

.85271

1.79257

5.18174

4.088

87.696

.000

3.48715

.85298

1.79195

5.18235

1.650

88

.102

1.30040

.78807

-.26574

2.86653

1.652

87.995

.102

1.30040

.78715

-.26391

2.86470

1.539

88

.127

.60178

.39113

-.17551

1.37907

1.526

76.080

.131

.60178

.39425

-.18343

1.38699

-2.515

88

.014

-.43379

.17250

-.77661

-.09098

-2.507

85.034

.014

-.43379

.17306

-.77787

-.08972

112

Appendix 9
Correlations: Cultural Dimensions and Leadership styles
Correlations

PowerDistance

Pearson Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N

UncertaintyAvoidance

Pearson Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N

Collectivism

Transactional
Leadership
.106

.019

.319

90

90

-.056

.084

.600

.431

90

90

Pearson Correlation

.161

.327(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.129

.002

N
Femininity

Transformational
Leadership
-.247(*)

90

90

Pearson Correlation

.141

.056

Sig. (2-tailed)

.186

.603

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

113