Despite the substantial number of studies and the developments that have been made in the field of leadership studies, organizations all over the world and across diverse sectors are not able to meet today’s business challenges. Leadership accounts for successful implementation of strategies as well as development of human capital, and social and economic growth. Nowadays, the diversity of work environments, projects, culture and social conditions significantly influence leadership practices and therefore must be carefully and urgently considered. The most important aspect of leadership that makes it hard to measure is people. Leadership is about communicating with people, understanding their diverse perspectives, respecting their cultural values, and reflecting their social identity. Over the years, leadership has been studied, defined and many theories on it have been developed, each one providing a critical understanding of the leadership phenomenon. However, the field research is continuing to expand as demand continues to grow. The aim of this research project is to understand the current leadership behaviours that are present within organizations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in order to positively influence leadership practices and, overall improve organizations’ performance and productivity. The researcher conducted an in-depth study in which all aspects of the context are examined, including leadership, cultural influence and the organization’s unique context. The adaptation of the grounded theory analytical approach and the use of in-depth interviews allow the researcher to better understand the study’s findings. The generated substantive theory of leadership has been represented and named as “collective leadership in action” and is demonstrated and clarified by the introduction of the conceptual model and the theoretical model. This substantive theory is broken down into three critical categories, namely leadership in action, knowledge management in action, and social influential factors. The relationships between these categories are highly important and have been comprehensively discussed. The main conclusion is the new approach to leadership, which assumes that each individual in this world is powerful beyond measure, and that human capital and individual competences and growth are therefore the greatest aspects of leadership development in Saudi Arabia organizations, with focus on the context and global influence. Future research are encouraged examine the generated substantive theory within different contexts and industries.

This thesis describes and analyses how the leadership culture is constructed by the leadership discourse and leadership practices, in the Swedish non-profit organisation ABF, the Workers Education Association. The theoretical framework for the study is based on the practice theory by Swidler (2001) who claim that culture conceptualizes as practices in interaction with discourse. The empirical material consists of policy documents for the study of leadership discourse, and twelve qualitative interviews with leaders about their leadership practices. The empirical results show that the leadership discourse is based on three concepts: Carrying of idéas, Communicating and Developing. The leadership practice of the organisation is demonstrated through six leadership approaches: The communicative, The democratic, The stringent, The development focused, The situated and The positive. These approaches are used in internal and external activities. The conclusion of the study is that there is a clear stringency between the leadership discourse and leadership practices within the organisation which creates the leadership culture within ABF. The values and approaches expressed in the leadership discourse are also described in the interviews as practiced by the leaders.

This research contributes to our understanding of trust in the international business environment, exploring the development of trust, and the influence of culture, structures and hierarchies, and international business communications. The focus is on the management of employees working in foreign-owned, international businesses operating in Morocco. With few notable and very valuable exceptions, there has been very little research exploring the Arab approach to management and even fewer pieces of research focus on the development of trust in this context. A qualitative research approach was employed, as so little is understood about the context and the phenomenon. A total of 30 interviewees from various managerial and organisational levels represented the sample of the study with five participating international companies, from different sectors established in Morocco. Using a content-thematic analysis, the research shows that Moroccan employees prefer working in international companies and their preference is associated to many factors such as the work environment they belong to, the financial and social benefits they receive, career advancement and employees’ development as well as being a part of a defined and organised structure where information is well circulated and communication is encouraged. In this way, this research contributes not only to our understanding of the development of trust in an Arab context but also sheds more light on cultural aspects which was found out in the research that they were interpreted differently such as the case of Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance dimension. In particular the research suggest that some, non-Arabic researchers, may have misinterpreted certain behaviours in Arab cultures. This leads the research to a final conclusion that clearly shows the importance of considering Arab management as a fourth paradigm to explain managerial practices in the Arab World as suggested by Weir (2008) and better understand their practices (Hutchings and Weir, 2006).

The goal of this master thesis is the evaluation of differences in motivation and leadership of employees in chosen companies in the Czech Republic and India. The following methods of research were used: studying of literature, studying of the companies' documents, interviews, questionnaire and data from my own observation. The differences in motivation and leadership are described and I have also suggested the methods for improving the atmosphere in the involved departments.

No description available.

With the rising importance of environmental sustainability, there is a growing need for solutions. Some research indicates that Sweden is performing well in environmental sustainability and the Swedish concept of lagom has been trending in recent years due to its usefulness in leadership. This thesis aims to determine if‘lagom’ can be the key to a sustainable business by examining how the concept is implemented in Swedish companies and how it affects them. Based on the literature review, five semi-structured interviews were held with Swedish business professionals, where questions regarding sustainability, lagom, business culture, and leadership culture were covered. After an analysis of the empirical findings, a correlation between lagom and improved sustainability was found in various aspects. The implementation of trial-and-error was found to be a contributing factor that promotes sustainability. Further, the subconscious cultural influence was also a contributing factor to promote sustainability as the Swedish cultural values promote Laget före jaget (The team before the self), which is incorporated on a societal level. The results would indicate that ‘lagom’ could be a useful aspect to improve sustainability, and potentially of the keys (not the only one) for sustainable business. Although lagom as a concept could be implemented in non-Swedish companies, it is rooted as a Swedish cultural value and is likely not as effective if implemented somewhere where these values are not present. However, due to the nature of the research, this cannot be concretely verified and a need for a case study with several non-Swedish companies would be required to find the true usefulness of lagom.

No description available.

The relative political stability in Uganda resulted In increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and growth in several national/multi-national organisations. Furthermore, business leadership in Uganda has experienced change as the older generation hand over the reins to the younger generation of business leaders who are relatively more exposed to the Mrican management philosophy and leadership models which are congruent with African culture and contextual issues. This study investigated within a Ugandan context, leadership attributes that are perceived as contributors to or inhibitors of outstanding leadership. It then determine whether, when analysed by ethnicity (i.e. Bantu speaking versus non-Bantu speaking), the researcher could identify meaningful differences in the culturally endorsed leadership profiles; and link societal cultural attlibutes to preferred leadership attributes. A triangulation method was used to conduct this cross-cultural research, which combined archival data, a quantitative survey and personal interviews. The sample comprised of 163 junior, middle and senior managers from over 15 organisations within Uganda. An adapted version of Project GLOBE questionnaire was used for the quantitative survey, and results showed that out of the nine societal cultural dimensions, only Power Distance and Institutional Collectivism cultural dimensions indicate significant differences between Bantu speaking as compared to non-Bantu speaking managers. Furthermore, out of the six leadership dimensions only Humane Orientation and Charismatic / Value Based leadership dimensions, indicated significant differences between the above mentioned. However, these results contrasted some avers of the personal interviews. The study concludes that societal cultural differences do exist between the Bantu speaking and non-Bantu speaking managers and this may require some marginal differences In the leadership attributes that a leader portrays. Nevertheless, irrespective of ethnicity, the most preferred leaders' attributes in Uganda are Decisiveness, Performance Oriented and Charisma 2: Inspirational; whilst the least preferred leaders' attributes were Face-Saver, Self Centred and Malevolent. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D. Econ. (Business Leadership)

The relative political stability in Uganda resulted In increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and growth in several national/multi-national organisations. Furthermore, business leadership in Uganda has experienced change as the older generation hand over the reins to the younger generation of business leaders who are relatively more exposed to the Mrican management philosophy and leadership models which are congruent with African culture and contextual issues. This study investigated within a Ugandan context, leadership attributes that are perceived as contributors to or inhibitors of outstanding leadership. It then determine whether, when analysed by ethnicity (i.e. Bantu speaking versus non-Bantu speaking), the researcher could identify meaningful differences in the culturally endorsed leadership profiles; and link societal cultural attlibutes to preferred leadership attributes. A triangulation method was used to conduct this cross-cultural research, which combined archival data, a quantitative survey and personal interviews. The sample comprised of 163 junior, middle and senior managers from over 15 organisations within Uganda. An adapted version of Project GLOBE questionnaire was used for the quantitative survey, and results showed that out of the nine societal cultural dimensions, only Power Distance and Institutional Collectivism cultural dimensions indicate significant differences between Bantu speaking as compared to non-Bantu speaking managers. Furthermore, out of the six leadership dimensions only Humane Orientation and Charismatic / Value Based leadership dimensions, indicated significant differences between the above mentioned. However, these results contrasted some avers of the personal interviews. The study concludes that societal cultural differences do exist between the Bantu speaking and non-Bantu speaking managers and this may require some marginal differences In the leadership attributes that a leader portrays. Nevertheless, irrespective of ethnicity, the most preferred leaders' attributes in Uganda are Decisiveness, Performance Oriented and Charisma 2: Inspirational; whilst the least preferred leaders' attributes were Face-Saver, Self Centred and Malevolent. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D. Econ. (Business Leadership)

In this thesis I explore the relationship between characteristics of the society culture in Bosnia, the organizational culture of Bosnian enterprises and characteristics of the expected leadership in Bosnian companies of three branches of industry (food processing, telecommunications, and financial services). Much of the inspiration for this thesis comes from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) project. The main idea of GLOBE is to advance an empirically established theory, to comprehend and envisage the effect of particular cultural variables on leadership and organizational processes and the effectiveness of these processes. The research instruments build up on both quantitative and selected qualitative GLOBE research methods in order to supply descriptive and scientifically valid data of cultural influences on leadership expectations and organizational practices in Bosnian society. The background theory guiding this thesis is the culturally endorsed implicit theory of leadership (CLT) developed for the GLOBE project. Empirical findings reveal that historically, religiously and politically impacted models of thinking are still predominant features of Bosnian society. Even though internationalization opens Bosnian market for business interactions, various conventional patterns of behaviour seem to be maintained. On the other hand, Bosnian managers expect positive change in the Bosnian society. The existing cultural profiles of organizations in three sectors are rather divergent and shaped under the influence of the industry in which they function. In contrast, organizational culture value profiles of the industries investigated have equalizing effects, which indicates the impact of Bosnian societal culture on the desired cultural profile of Bosnian organizations. Charismatic/value based, team oriented and participative leadership dimensions are accounted to be the most significant dimensions for effective leadership in Bosnia. Furthermore, empirical findings suggest that leadership dimensions are connected with culture in a unique way. It was found that society and organizational culture influence the way people perceive effective leaders, as well as status, influence and privileges granted to leaders. Individual perceptions of effective leadership in Bosnian society and organizations are dependent of society and organizational culture. Furthermore, it was found that organizational culture values were more frequently predictive of leadership dimensions than societal cultural values.