Leadership Style and Organizational Culture

Ing. Cevher Cevat Akten, B.Sc.

Master's thesis

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the leadership styles demonstrated in business and its’ effects on organizational culture. Main purpose of this research is to find out which type of leadership style is the most effective in multinational corporations and why, what elements of organizational culture do these leadership styles impose in the corporations and how these elements affect the success of an organization and why these elements are important. Eight different hypotheses are tested for this paper relating to transformational leadership and transactional leadership styles, which aspects of organizational culture these leadership styles promote. Data for testing hypotheses and finding answers to questions mentioned in introduction was collected through questionnaire distributed in a multinational corporation’s office in Prague. Questionnaire was prepared by the author and consisted 3 parts which are demographics, leadership style questionnaire and organizational culture questionnaire. Transformational leadership style were found to be the more efficient style of leadership to be applied in multinational companies provided that this leadership style promotes innovativeness, team work, trust and confidence as culture of the organizations while transactional leadership focuses on keeping what is in place more than creating a change. In addition to this it was found that leaders have characteristics of both styles but definer of leaders’ style is from which type a leader has more characteristic. Moreover, all organizations are different, they have different needs, and thus it’s important to analyze the requirement and culture of the organization correct.

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the leadership styles demonstrated in business and its’ effects on organizational culture. Main purpose of this research is to find out which type of leadership style is the most effective in multinational corporations and why, what elements of organizational culture do these leadership styles impose in the corporations and how these elements affect the success of an organization and why these elements are important. Eight different hypotheses are tested for this paper relating to transformational leadership and transactional leadership styles, which aspects of organizational culture these leadership styles promote. Data for testing hypotheses and finding answers to questions mentioned in introduction was collected through questionnaire distributed in a multinational corporation’s office in Prague. Questionnaire was prepared by the author and consisted 3 parts which are demographics, leadership style questionnaire and organizational culture questionnaire. Transformational leadership style were found to be the more efficient style of leadership to be applied in multinational companies provided that this leadership style promotes innovativeness, team work, trust and confidence as culture of the organizations while transactional leadership focuses on keeping what is in place more than creating a change. In addition to this it was found that leaders have characteristics of both styles but definer of leaders’ style is from which type a leader has more characteristic. Moreover, all organizations are different, they have different needs, and thus it’s important to analyze the requirement and culture of the organization correct.

Keywords

'Leadership', 'Leadership styles', 'Organizational culture', 'Transformational Leadership', 'Transactional leadership'

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 17. 4. 2015

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 18. 6. 2015
• Supervisor: Ph.D. Vidhu Maggu
• Reader: MBA Jiří Vicek

University of Finance and Administration

Master programme / field:
Economics and Management / Business Management and Corporate Finance