Global CEO Leadership and Organizational Change

Globe Research And Education Foundation, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal represents Phase 3 of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Program (GLOBE). Phase 1 concerned scale development and validation of measurement instruments; Phase 2 collected data from 18,000 managers employed in over 1,000 organizations in 62 cultures. These data were used to test hypotheses derived from an integration of implicit leadership theory and structural contingency theory of organizational forms and practices. Phase 3 seeks to test additional hypotheses, some of which would deal with longitudinal relationships in the data. Phase 3 data will be collected from 50 top management teams in each of 23 societies that vary widely on nine core dimensions of societal culture. These data will be related to the nine core societal GLOBE dimensions previously measured in Phase 2. Data for Phase 3 have already been collected in four cultures, with this preliminary data being used to refine research instruments for subsequent data collection. Teams of Country Co-Investigators (CCIs) have made commitments to collect substantial additional data from 50 organizations in 23 cultures, with half of the organizations to be studied to be entrepreneurial for-profit organizations and half non-entrepreneurial for-profit organizations. Approximately 10 executives involved in substantial international business will be included in each country sample. Phase 3 will also assess the degree to which effective strategic organizational changes introduced by CEOs or top management teams are associated with the leader behavior of the CEOs and the effectiveness of the top management team. Interviews will be conducted and analyzed by CCIs to identify country-specific manifestations of the core leadership dimensions and other country-specific leader behavior, as well as major strategic changes in the recent past or planned for the near future. To date, over 100 GLOBE-related research reports have been presented at professional conferences, 30 scholarly articles based on Phase 1 and 2 research have been published, and 30 country-specific chapters based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative research have been completed. Funds are requested for Phase 3 data collection and analysis, further write-up of prior results (particularly editing of a planned anthology of completed chapters). It is anticipaed that Phase 3 findings will make a substantial contribution to the cross-cultural literature concerning leadership, organizational structure and strategy, and organizational change.