Criticisms

Criticisms:
  • Research does not provide a clear set of assumptions and propositions that can form a single theory about the way culture relates to leadership or influences the leadership process.
  • Labels and definitions of cultural dimensions and leadership behaviors are somewhat vague, difficult at times to interpret or fully comprehend the findings about culture and leadership.
  • This study focuses on what people perceive to be leadership and ignores a large body of research that frames leadership in terms of what leaders do (e.g., transformational leadership, path-goal theory, skills approach).
  • Researchers in the GLOBE study measured leadership with subscales that represented a very broad range of behaviors and as a result compromised the precision and validity of the leadership measures.
  • The GLOBE studies tend to isolate a set of attributes that are characteristic of effective leaders without considering the influence of the situational effects (Northouse, 2007, p. 324-325).
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Sirje Virkus, Tallinn University, 2009