Can managers be perceived as good leaders through a culture of empowerment in multinational settings? This question was answered by employing a 3 (delegation styles:advisory; informational; extreme) x 2 (manager gender: male; female) x 2 (country:Malaysia; USA) factorial design--with the first factor as within-subjects and the last two as

between-subjects

Ansari, Mahfooz A.

Jantan, Muhamad

Sim, Daphne L.

English

Repository@USM

Delegation and Leadership PerceptionsRunning head: DELEGATION STYLES AND LEADERSHIP PERCEPTIONSDelegation Styles and Leadership Perceptions:A Comparison of Malaysian and American ManagersDaphne L. SimSchool of ManagementUniversity Science Malaysia at Penang /'11800 USM, MalaysiaTel: (6012) 456-4203Fax: (604) 253-7899E-Mail: daphne.1in.hui.sim@intel.comMahfooz A. AnsariSchool of ManagementUniversity Science Malaysia at Penang /"11800 USM, MalaysiaTel: (604) 653-3888 ext. 3435Fax: (604) 6577448E-Mail: mahfooz@usm.myMuhamad JantanSchool of ManagementUniversity Science Malaysia at Penang "11800 USM, MalaysiaTel: (604) 653-3888 ext. 3343Fax: (604) 6577-448E-Mail: mjantan@}usm.myPresented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA,August 6-11,2004 (the winner or "BestPaperfi"om an Under-represented Country A'vvard"fl'om thefntenwtional A1anagement Division. ]O()4)Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mahfooz A. Ansari, School ofManagement, University Science Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia; E-Mail:mahfooz@usm.mv.Delegation and Leadership Perceptions 2AbstractCan managers be perceived as good leaders through a culture of empowerment inmultinational settings? This question was answered by employing a 3 (delegation styles:advisory; informational; extreme) x 2 (manager gender: male; female) x 2 (country:Malaysia; USA) factorial design--with the first factor as within-subjects and the last two asbetween-subjects. A sample of 218 was drawn from one semiconductor multinational firm--118 from one Malaysian site and 100 from three US sites. The analysis revealed that both theUS and Malaysian managers almost equally favored informational delegation style, but theydiffered significantly in terms of attributing extreme and advisory delegation styles: the USmanagers outperformed Malaysian managers in attributing extreme delegation style, whereasMalaysian managers outperformed the US managers in attributing advisory delegation style.This finding was more pronounced for female than for male managers. Key implications ofthe findings both for theory and for practice are discussed, potential limitations are specified,and directions for future research are suggested.Delegation and Leadership Perceptions 3Delegation Styles and Leadership Perceptions:A Comparison of Malaysian and American ManagersLeadership has attracted much interest among scholars and practitioners for a longtime. However, scientific research on leadership did not begin until the twentieth century andthe focus of most research has been on the determinants of effective leadership (Bass, 1990).The twenty-first century has brought about new challenges and issues in this area of research.Among the key trends of the new century are increasing globalization, new technologies,changing composition, and values and needs of the workforce. Some of the substantiveleadership issues are leadership styles, criteria of effective leadership, multinationalism, andworkforce diversity (Bass, 1990). While some of these issues have been recurring from thepast, they are and will still figure significantly or even more significantly in the present andthe future.In the past few decades, a growing number of leadership researches have advocatedempowerment as a source of motivation and higher performance. Followers are empoweredwhen their leaders increase their autonomy, discretionary opportunities, help them obtain theresources to reach higher goals, and give support for their efforts (Bass, 1990). One of themost important aspects of empowerment is the participation of employees in decision-making. Participative leadership can take on many forms, but most theorists working in thisarea concede that there are four distinct decision-making styles: autocratic, consultation, jointdecision, and delegation (Yuld, 1998). The present study focuses on the styles of delegation.Delegation occurs when the manager gives an individual the authority andresponsibility for making a decision, where prior approval mayor may not be required beforethe decision can be implemented (YukI, 1998). According to Bass (1990), delegationremains a relatively unexplored management option despite evidence of its importance toDelegation and Leadership Perceptions 4.~organization effectiveness, and deserves future research with more fine-tuning of delegationas a style of leadership.In addition, there is the question of how subordinates perceive managers whodelegate. Studies on preferences for idealized styles of supervision or leadership styleabound, but hardly has any focused on a direct link to delegation. Thus, the leadershipperceptions of subordinates toward the practice of delegation are still unclear. There is a needto conceptualize delegation as a process and to research what makes it effective orineffective.Culture is an important element in this study. In a classic study of culture, Hofstede(1980) identified four dimensions on which various cultures could be classified. They areindividualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, andmasculinity/femininity. Later, he (1993) added long-term/short-term orientation as a fifthdimension. There is overwhelming evidence from various cross-cultural studies (Alpander,1991; Gill, 1998; Offerman, 1997; Randoph & Sashkin, 2002) that cultural differences persistfrom country to country. Therefore, cultural constraints still apply to management theories.The trend of multinationalism raises many questions on how managerial decision-makingpractices can be transferred from one country (or culture) to another.With the influx of women into the workforce, there is a need to study women inleadership positions--more so in a developing country such as Malaysia. Performance andeffectiveness appraisals of female managers are mixed and inconclusive (Bass, 1990). WhileBass noted that there might be a bias toward men in leadership positions, no significantdifferences were found in various studies reviewed by Bass. Therefore, there is still a lack ofunderstanding if gender of managers affects the leadership perceptions of their subordinates.In short, the problems discussed indicate the lack of research on the effects ofdelegation and culture on leadership perceptions, and inconclusive findings on whetherDelegation and Leadership Perceptions 5gender of managers affects the leadership perceptions of their subordinates. Also, we areaware of no empirical research that has specifically compared Malaysia and the United Statesof America in terms of delegation styles. As the trend of multinationalism increases, all theseissues are relevant to how managerial practices can be transferred from one country (orculture) to another. Thus, this study aims (a) to examine the impact of delegation styles onleadership perceptions; (b) to examine if gender of the manager moderates the relationshipbetween delegation and leadership perceptions; and (c) to examine if country moderates therelationship between delegation and leadership perceptions.Theoretical Framework and Development of HypothesesImplicit theories of leadership state that subordinates have expectations regardingleadership behavior, as do the leaders themselves (Bass, 1990). In addition, subordinatesattach their own value-laden meanings to the actions of their supervisors. Thus there may bemany factors that may differentiate subordinates' leadership perceptions. Studies conductedby Ansari (1987) and Ansari and Shukla (1987) found that ratings on leadership perceptionswere significantly influenced by leader behavior. In particular, participative and nurturant-task managers produced more favorable ratings in terms of leadership attributes, presentperformance, and anticipated perfomlance. Acting autocratically had a strong negative impacton evaluation ratings. Cellar, Sidle, Goudy, and O'Brien (2001) investigated if the personalityof agreeableness interacted with leader gender and leader style (autocratic vs. democratic) toaffect subordinate reactions to the leader in terms of leader evaluation future effort and, ,future interest. A three-way interaction was predicted, such that leaders will be penalizedmost for behavior that was inconsistent with gender roles by participants low inagreeableness. Results generally supported interaction hypothesis for effort and interestvariables, but not for leader effectiveness.Delegation Styles and Leadership Perceptions

Delegation Styles And Leadership Perceptions: A Comparison Of Malaysian And American Managers.

http://eprints.usm.my/7457/1/Delegation_Styles_and_Leadership_Perceptions_A_Comparison_of_malaysian_and_American_Managers_(PPPengurusan).pdf

Delegation Styles And Leadership Perceptions: A Comparison Of Malaysian And American Managers.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Repository@USM