GLOBE 2020 is the latest phase of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project. An expanded version of its predecessor, this latest phase of GLOBE is a large-scale multi-method research program that continues to focus on the interrelationship between societal culture and organizational leadership. This latest phase of GLOBE includes the same constructs as before, along with a number of new ones, with data from more countries and respondents—144 countries and 59,987 professional and managerial respondents.
This entry describes the theoretical framework of the project, its foundations in studies of leadership and its relationship to cultural norms and influences, and continues with discussions of the cultural contexts of particular societies and the various dimensions of leadership that play a role in determining what constitutes perceptions of effective and ideal leadership, including such factors as religiosity and gender. This is followed by a section that explains the project’s survey design and the instruments used, before concluding with a brief look at the statistical and psychometric analyses currently underway in preparation for the dissemination of this latest phase of GLOBE ’s findings to academic and managerial audiences worldwide.
Much has changed in the world since the initial GLOBE study, which was conducted in the early 1990s. Given the realities of the early 21st century, it is critical to re-examine the relationship on an even broader scale because societal, technological, and organizational changes over the past 30 years are likely to result in new leadership imperatives.
The GLOBE project has found that leadership is culturally contingent, and to fully understand leadership processes in any country, from perceived value of leadership to actual leadership effectiveness, one should have an intimate understanding of the country’s culture. In line with this premise, the basic GLOBE theoretical framework regarding leadership was labeled culturally endorsed leadership theory (CLT). It was built on the foundation of implicit leadership theory, as explained by Robert G. Lord and his colleagues in the review cited at the end of this entry. Empirical research supported this theory, since beliefs about ideal leadership and the concomitant implicit assumptions regarding leaders (ILT) have been found to influence many aspects of organizational life including leadership selection, ratings of leaders, and subordinate job satisfaction and performance.
In earlier phases of GLOBE, researchers designed an instrument containing leadership attributes reflecting a variety of skills, styles, behaviors, and personality traits. Statistical analyses using data from surveys of more than 17,000 managers in 62 countries resulted in two levels of leadership dimensions. The first level consisted of 21 primary leadership dimensions such as visionary, diplomatic, and inspirational leadership. A second-order factor analysis of these 21 primary dimensions produced the second-level leadership dimensions, referred to as six culturally endorsed leadership theories (CLTs).
This latest phase of the GLOBE research program continues this stream of leadership research and focuses on the following topics:
Empirical research shows that cultural context is critical in influencing CLT variation. But why? The answers are both simple and complex. Simple if you consider many anecdotal examples describing how authority figures are viewed in different cultures as kids grow up. In countries with relatively high power distance practices (e.g., Russia and Iran), children typically learn that parents are the decision makers in the family and expect respect and deference. In such cultures, the CLT reflects elements of power and autocratic leadership. As adults, employees in organizations in such cultures tend to be more accepting of authoritarian practices and autocratic leadership styles.
The complete answer regarding cultural influence on leadership, however, is more nuanced. Earlier GLOBE research (discussed in the 2004 and 2014 articles by House and colleagues listed in the Further Readings section at the end of this entry) found strong similarities in leadership attributes thought to be effective and ineffective in diverse cultures. On the positive side, attributes such as trustworthy and decisive and on the negative side loner and dictatorial were found to be universal. In contrast, there were substantial differences in other attributes which varied in effectiveness across cultures. Thus, while cultural context does influence many aspects of leadership, effective leadership is not completely and exclusively contingent on national culture. The challenge is to determine when, where, how much, and why national culture plays a role in determining ideal leadership.
While religion plays an important role in the day-to-day lives of people in many countries, it is an underexplored construct in terms of its implications for people’s perceptions of ideal leadership and antecedents of interpersonal trust. For example, do citizens of highly religious societies desire leaders who demonstrate certain leadership attributes such as honesty? Or do people in religious societies use idiosyncratic bases of interpersonal trust in contrast to those in less religiously oriented societies?
A substantial body of research exists on leadership differences among men and women in leadership positions. Studies have shown that female workers prefer worker-centered leadership that is relationally oriented more than males do, and also that the ideal leadership style preferred by female leaders differed from what male managers viewed as ideal leadership. Female managers showed stronger preference for participative, team-oriented, and charismatic leadership styles, while humane-oriented leadership was valued equally by both genders.
The empirical research in this area has two shortcomings: First, it is predominantly set in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries, and does not examine the role of national culture in great depth. In cultures where men are found in leadership positions disproportionately to women, even in female-dominated fields, it can be culturally difficult for people to envision women in leadership and perceive them as effective in these roles. In this way, prototypes play a crucial role in evaluating individuals as leaders, creating significant gender-based challenges for women when men are afforded leadership attributes because of their gender. Recent research by Amanda Bullough and colleagues showed the significance of in-group collectivism in predicting women’s roles in business when in-group is strong enough to provide support but not so limiting as to obstruct individual pursuit of women’s career and business goals.
Second, the literature generally focuses on gender differences without attention to various moderators that might influence the conditions under which men and women have similar or dissimilar views on ideal leadership attributes. For example, there is little evidence on whether the length of experience in leadership roles affects men’s and women’s views. For example, do men and women with comparable extensive leadership experience have similar views on ideal leadership?
This latest phase of GLOBE research is designed to address both shortcomings. It will examine the link between dimensions of culture and the contrast between men and women’s views of ideal leadership. For example, do men and women have comparable views of ideal leadership in high performance–oriented cultures? Or in gender differentiated cultures?
This phase will also examine the role of other moderating variables to provide a contextualized understanding of gender differences in perceptions of ideal leadership. Because of the number of countries and professional and managerial respondents in diverse organizations and sectors, GLOBE is able to address questions related to influence of gender combined with age, experience, and organizational level, as well as industry and organizational type, on individual perceptions of ideal leadership. For example, GLOBE explores a hypothesis that as male and female leaders gain more experience (i.e. age, level in hierarchy), their perceptions of effective leadership styles converge (e.g., good leaders are assertive and nurturing) and gender gaps in perceptions of ideal leadership narrow. In short, this phase of GLOBE is designed to make major theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature on gender differences by contextualizing the topic in unprecedented ways that could pave the way for future research in this important area.
Interpersonal trust is a new focus of this latest phase of GLOBE research. Research has found trust to be a predictor of leader effectiveness. Also, because leaders inspire followers to accomplish organizational goals, followers who believe in their leaders’ benevolence and sincerity are more likely to accept the leader’s vision and to expend the effort to accomplish their goals. Other researchers have examined trust as an outcome of leadership, finding that transformational leadership resulted in higher levels of employee trust in leaders. Transformational leaders’ actions and words help build their employees’ willingness to accept leaders’ benevolence, consistency, and integrity and therefore trustworthiness.
Despite substantive findings regarding the importance and consequences of interpersonal trust, the field of international management has paid limited attention to the topic of trust. Srilata Zaheer and Akbar Zaheer encouraged further research on this topic recognizing that the nature of trust and institutional and cultural bases of trust differ across national country contexts:
“When partners to an international collaboration come from asymmetric trust contexts, they bring with them different motivations and expectations of behavior. Specifically, they may be more or less willing to invest in trust-building and in other governance mechanisms, with implications for theory and practice of international management. While strategic asymmetries between parties to international collaborations have been studied at some depth, it is time to examine social asymmetries between exchange partners.” (2006, p. 28)
While there has since been some research on trust in interorganizational relations in cross border context, the literature on interpersonal trust in international context is limited and would benefit from further theoretical and empirical work. Patricia M. Doney and colleagues offered a theoretical framework linking Geert Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions to antecedents of interpersonal trust. Studies show that Asian bank managers hailing from family collectivist cultures tended to view family members and people of same ethnicity as more trustworthy than did American managers. Other research shows that Turkish and Chinese subjects found that Turks viewed similarity of identity as a trust antecedent in their supervisor, while the Chinese reported delegation of authority as a trust antecedent.
Although these and other similar studies provide valuable insights into links between culture and trust antecedents, they have two major limitations: First, they tend to focus on one cultural dimension, mostly family collectivism; second, they are based on a small sample of countries, and mostly two-country studies. This latest phase of GLOBE research offers a theoretical framework to test a series of hypotheses linking antecedents of interpersonal trust to national culture. It will use substantial data collected from 144 countries/societies to examine the relationship between national culture dimensions (e.g., performance orientation) and antecedents of interpersonal trust. Such findings will illuminate what trust building approaches are likely more effective for those working in different countries having different cultural profiles.
