Abstract

TITLE — Culture influenced leadership AUTHORS — Xiangyuan Wang and Wensong Ma SUPERVISOR — Akmal Hyder THESIS TYPE— Researchstudy DATE — April, 2013

PURPOSE — The purpose of our paper is to figure out what impact culture has on leadership and to study how cultural elements can be utilized for working with leadership more effectively

METHODOLOGY— For conducting this study, qualitative research method has been applied. Data has been collected through interviews with a total of eight business leaders from China and Sweden, four from each country

FINDINGS — Through the analysis of the interviews, it is found that culture influences leadership, but this influence is getting smaller in the global context. The results support that the specific aspects of charismatic/transformational leadership are strongly and universally endorsed across cultures. We also find the differences and similarities between Chinese and Swedish leadership in the globalization context. LIMITATIONS — Our study covers a small number of respondents. Therefore the study result may not be applicable to all categories of cultural influence on leadership. The result may not present all of the leadership styles in China and Sweden. ORIGINALITY— This research discusses cultural factors and how they influence leadership. Additionally, differences and the similarities between Chinese and Swedish leadership styles in the globalization context have been outlined. Meanwhile we compare present related literatures and reality situation of leadership in China and Sweden.. The thesis we conducted speicifically focuses on leadership both in China and Sweden, and the research mainly shows how culture influences the leadership. KEYWORDS — Culture, Leadership, Differences and similarities, leadership style