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Organizational structure and continuous improvement and learning: Moderating effects of cultural endorsement of participative leadership

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Abstract

Building upon the culturally endorsed implicit theory of leadership, we investigated the moderating effects of national culture on the relationship between organizational structure and continuous improvement and learning. We propose that the relationship between organic organizations (characterized by flat, decentralized structures with a wide use of multifunctional employees) and continuous improvement and learning will be stronger when national cultural endorsement for participative leadership is high. We further propose that organizational group culture will moderate the relationship between organizational structure and continuous improvement and learning, but that these moderation effects will be stronger in national cultures with low endorsement of participative leadership. Empirical analysis of secondary survey data collected from 266 manufacturing plants operating in three industries and located in nine countries representing a diverse set of geographical regions provided support for the hypotheses. Overall, our findings indicate that, to fully realize the relationship between organic structures and continuous improvement and learning, managers must actively assess the extent to which the national culture endorses participative leadership. In cases where this endorsement is weak, managers should consider the extent to which the organizational culture will provide alternative support for the relationship.

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Notes

  1. We recognize that it could be argued that assigning values to each organization for the national cultural variables (participative leadership, power distance, and charismatic leadership) based on their country violates the independence of observations assumption for multiple regression. We also conducted alternative analyses that grouped the countries into “high” or “low” cultural support for participative leadership (but did not include power distance and charismatic leadership control variables) and then compared results between the two groups to test both Hypotheses 1 and 2. The results of these alterative analyses were consistent with those reported here. The results of these alternative analyses are available from the second author.

  2. An alternative analysis that deleted the cases with missing data yielded similar results as those presented here. The results of the alternative analyses are available from the second author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Miami (OH) University, Farmer School of Business, Miami (OH) University, Oxford, USA

    Xiaowen Huang & Joseph C Rode

  2. Department of Organization and Strategy, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

    Roger G Schroeder

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  1. Xiaowen Huang
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  2. Joseph C Rode
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Correspondence to Xiaowen Huang.

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Accepted by David C. Thomas, Area Editor, 15 July 2011. This paper has been with the authors for three revisions.

Appendices

Appendix A

Table A1

Table A1 Respondents employed for study measures
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Appendix B

Table B1

Table B1 Results of confirmatory factor analyses and inter-rater agreement
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Huang, X., Rode, J. & Schroeder, R. Organizational structure and continuous improvement and learning: Moderating effects of cultural endorsement of participative leadership. J Int Bus Stud 42, 1103–1120 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2011.33

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