Influence of National Culture on Leadership in Business Management in Business Organisations in India

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, Glasgow Caledonian University, language: English, abstract: This paper investigates the influence of national culture on the aspect of leadership in business management in business organisations in India. The current level of globalisation is very high in the existing business scenario, due to which interactions between people from different nations and from different cultural backgrounds for business purposes is happening at a high rate. People from different nations carry the cultural perceptions and beliefs of that nation and construe different meanings to the same situation. Thus the understanding of the cultural norms & practices of different nations can be helpful in understanding why a person behaves in a given situation. Also, the development of the skill of cultural intelligence can be a valuable asset and those managers which posses this skill can be more successful and obtain better results in business dealings. The cultural variables as propounded by the seminal author Hofstede, namely power distance, individualism & collectivism, masculinity & feminity, and uncertainty avoidance, were used in this research. As per the previously done research by the seminal author Hofstede, India was ranked high in the power distance index, moderate in the individualism index, moderate in the masculinity index, and low in the uncertainty avoidance index. The findings have indicated the power distance in India is lower than what has been previously found out. Also, the cultural variable of masculinity & feminity has been found to be leaning more towards feminity rather than masculinity which is again opposed to the results as previously propounded. The findings have corroborated with the results as obtained by previous research regarding the cultural variables of individualism & collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, that individualism & colle