Same same or different. A study of culture´s impact on leadership

Abstract

Due to the globalisation countries, people, cultures and organisations have changed. The purpose of this thesis is to study how the view on leadership can differ in different cultures and what the impact is on leadership when different cultures meet. In the study four Swedish leaders were interviewed to se there apprehension of the phenomenon.

One of the theories that the study is based on is that leadership and our knowledge about it is something socially constructed. In other words, our knowledge about leadership is created in the interaction with other people. So the view on leadership and what an effective leadership is in one culture might be different in another.

The study is a qualitative study and the empirical material that was gathered in the study was based on interviews, done with four Swedish persons, working as leaders in different companies in Brazil. The gathered empiricism was then put up against earlier studies made in the field of cross-culture, cultural dimensions, cultural differences in leadership, global leadership behaviour and Swedish leadership

The result from the gathered empiricism showed that the leaders had experienced cultural differences in the leadership. And that some had felt a need to change their leadership in order to fit the new context.