Cultural Orientation, Leadership Style, and OCB 1 The Effect of Cultural Orientation and Leadership Style on Self- versus Other- oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Turkey and The Netherlands

This paper investigated the effects of a paternalistic and an empowering leadership style on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in an experimental design using 100 Turkish and 100 Dutch students who held part-time jobs. Confirming our expectations, a paternalistic leadership style had a more positive effect on job dedication and organizational support in Turkey than in the Netherlands. Disconfirming our expectations, an empowering leadership style did not have a more positive effect on any of the OCB dimensions in the Netherlands than it did in Turkey. However, in the Netherlands an empowering leadership style had a stronger effect on interpersonal facilitation, job dedication, and organizational support than a paternalistic leadership style. Paternalistic and empowering leadership styles both had positive effects on OCB dimensions in Turkey. As expected collectivism moderated the relationship between paternalistic leadership style and other oriented OCB (i.e., interpersonal facilitation). Specifically, people who had more collectivistic tendencies were more positively influenced by a paternalistic leader than people who had low collectivistic tendencies in both countries. However, individualism did not have any moderating effects on the relationship between empowering leadership style and self oriented OCB (i.e., job dedication). Our findings are relevant for understanding the effects of leadership styles and cultural orientations on self versus other oriented OCB in Turkey and the Netherlands. Cultural Orientation, Leadership Style, and OCB 3 Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is defined as employee behavior supporting the social and psychological fabric of the organization (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). Examples of OCB include helping to resolve misunderstandings among fellow workers and taking the initiative to solve a work problem. Empirical research has shown that OCB contributes to overall performance ratings to the same extent as task performance does (Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994). These findings show that types of behavior other than task performance, such as OCB, are important for employees and eventually for organizations to perform effectively. An extensive amount of research has been done on the antecedents of OCB, and has demonstrated that leadership is one of OCB’s strongest antecedents (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000). In a world that continues to globalize at a rapid rate and where interactions across cultures are becoming commonplace, it is important to determine whether leadership-style OCB relationships are comparable across cultural groups. This paper aims to examine Turkish and Dutch cultures, which have different cultural characteristics (Fikret-Pasa, Kabasal, & Bodur, 2001). One of the important differences between both cultures is that Turkish people are characterized by a more collectivistic orientation (Wasti, 2003) whereas Dutch people adhere to more individualistic values (Oppenheimer, 2004). Differences in such cultural values may have implications for leadership practices and employees’ OCB. In collectivistic cultures people define their selfconcepts in terms of their relationships with others. The employee places priority on maintaining good relationships with the leader and high emphasis is on addressing obligations and employees’ loyalty to the organization. The leader expects respect to his/her authority. This dyadic relationship between the leader and the employee is the reflection of collectivism and forms the basic components of paternalistic leadership style (Aycan, 2006). People in individualistic cultures, on the other hand, define their self-concepts in terms of Cultural Orientation, Leadership Style, and OCB 4 their personal choices and achievements. Both the employee and the leader value independence and autonomy more than obligations, loyalty and maintaining a good relationship among each other (Robert, Probst, Drasgow, Martocchio, & Lawler, 2000). The emphasis on autonomy and self-reliance of employees are the expressions of individualism and characterize the core aspects of an empowering leadership style (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 2001). For these reasons, the relationship between leadership behavior and OCB cannot be automatically generalizable from an individualistic (Western) culture to a collectivistic culture. Below, we will first discuss leadership styles (paternalistic vs. empowering) and the way they relate to OCB in both a collectivistic culture (Turkey) and an individualistic culture (the Netherlands). Second, we consider possible moderating effects of cultural orientation of people (individualistic vs. collectivistic orientation) on the relationship between leadership styles and self-oriented OCB (job dedication) versus other-related OCB (interpersonal facilitation, organizational support). More specifically, we will discuss possible differential moderation effects of cultural orientation on the relationship between leadership styles and selfversus other-oriented OCB dimensions. Leadership style, OCB, and Culture Podsakoff et al. (2000) systematically investigated the effects of different types of leadership styles on OCB. Among a sample of salespersons, the authors found that transformational leadership behavior had a stronger effect on OCB than did transactional leadership behavior. The importance of transformational leadership was supported in a study by Whittington, Goodwin, and Murray (2004) among employees from 12 different organizations (representing various job types) such as manufacturing, governmental, and health care organizations, showing that transformational leadership behavior had a significant positive effect on OCB. Cultural Orientation, Leadership Style, and OCB 5 Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Dorfman, and Ruiz-Quintanilla (1999) stated that there were considerable differences in the expression of leadership styles across cultures. For instance, in a Turkish study, Fikret-Pasa, et al. (2001) presented support for a much stronger paternalistic leadership style in more collectivistically oriented organizations. Paternalism has been conceptualized both as a one-dimensional and a multidimensional construct (Aycan, 2006; Cheng, Chou, Wu, Huang, & Fahr, 2004; Pellegrini, 2006). According to the onedimensional definition, paternalism is conceptualized as the employer’s authority and guidance in return for loyalty and respect from his/her subordinates. It implies that one also takes interest in personal problems of one’s employees, tries to promote their individual welfare, and helps them achieve their personal goals. From their side, employees expect sincere warmth and a generous concern about family matters and other personal matters as well as work-related issues (Aycan et al., 2000). A paternalistic leader creates a family environment at work, behaves like a father to subordinates, and gives fatherly advice about work-related issues as well as more personal issues. Although a paternalistic leader is caring and provides help and assistance to subordinates, he/she will also stress status differences at work and does not want anyone to doubt his/her authority. In a study conducted in Taiwan, paternalism had been operationalized with three sub dimensions, namely authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality (Cheng, et al., 2004). However, we adopt a one-dimensional definition for two reasons. First, the authority element of the paternalistic leadership style is salient in Turkey due to the high amount of power distance and uncertainty avoidance in this society In Turkey, any power inequality between the leader and his/her subordinates is in general socially accepted and not disliked by those lower in the hierarchy. This authoritarian leadership is perceived as functional because, due to its ‘fatherly character’, it decreases uncertainty and creates a more stable work environment for subordinates. Subordinates accept authority without questioning because uncertainty is reduced with an authority figure Cultural Orientation, Leadership Style, and OCB 6 (Pelligrini & Scandura, 2006). In the light of these findings, the conceptualization of paternalistic leadership in Turkey would imply that benevolence, morality and authority aspects are more or less integrated and form a uniform concept. Second, because the triadic model of paternalism has not been tested in an individualistic culture, such as the Netherlands, it makes sense to employ a one-dimensional structure of paternalism in the present study (Aycan, 2006). In terms of a differentiation between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, House, Wright, and Aditya (1997) found that leaders in highly collectivistically oriented cultures emphasized paternalism more than leaders in individualistically oriented cultures. Further, some components of individualism and collectivism (autonomy vs. conformity; interdependence vs. self-reliance) have direct implications for paternalism (Aycan, 2006). In collectivistic cultures paternalism is viewed positively, since such cultures are characterized by high conformity, more responsibility for others, and more interdependence between individuals. Aycan’s study showed that paternalism was positively related to agreeing with the norm of fulfilling obligations towards one another in the workplace. In more egalitarian cultures, however, a paternalistic leadership style may be regarded as less favorable, because in such a culture power inequality does not remain unquestioned. Indeed, in a study by Kim (1994), paternalism was negatively related to a work culture that promoted proactive behavior and the taking of initiative. In their ten-country study, Aycan et al. (2000) also reported that paternalism was negatively related to job enrichment endeavors involving more autonomy, supporting the assumption that team-oriented leadership practices (like paternalism) is particularly valued in collectivistic cultures, whereas participative lea