Leadership in Effective Organisation

Muenjohn and Armstrong

265

Transformational Leadership:

The Influence of Culture on the Leadership Behaviours

of Expatriate Managers

Nuttawuth Muenjohn

School of Management, RMIT University

239 Bourke St. Level 16 (Office 108.16.42)

Melbourne, Victoria 3000 Australia

nuttawuth.muenjohn@rmit.edu.au

Anona Armstrong

Centre for International Corporate Governance Research (CICGR)

Victoria University, Australia

ABSTRACT

One of the basic reasons that the authors investigated cross-cultural leadership

was to determine the extent to which leadership behaviours can be influenced by

cultural values. Some researchers suggest that certain leadership behaviours are

likely to be particular to a given culture, whereas others argue that there should

be certain structures that leaders must perform to be effective, regardless of

cultures. This study was conducted to determine the possible relationships

between the work-related values of subordinates and the leadership behaviours

exhibited by expatriate managers. Ninety-one Thai subordinates, direct-report of

expatriates, responded on the instruments called the Multifactor Leadership

Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Value Survey Module (VSM). Major results

indicate that the culture of Thai subordinates has a very limited role in predicting

the leadership behaviours of expatriate managers. Furthermore, the study seems

to provide evidence to support a near universalistic position for the

transformational-transactional paradigm.

Keywords: Leadership, cultural values, transformational leadership, expatriate

management

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Acknowledgment: The authors would like to thank the Centre for International

Corporate Governance Research (CICGR), Faculty of Business & Law, Victoria

University, Australia, and the Faculty of Business, Asian University, Thailand, for their

support of this work.

Volume 2, Number 2, December 2007

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Transformational Leadership:

The Influence of Culture on...