This paper offers a brief introduction to project GLOBE, which is the acronym for “Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness,” a 61-nation, 11-year study involving 170 researchers worldwide. The project examined national cultures to show that societal and organizational culture influences the kind of leadership found to be acceptable and effective by people within that culture.
The project focussed on nine cultural dimensions 1) uncertainty avoidance; 2) power distance; 3) societal collectivism; 4) in-group collectivism; 5) assertiveness; 6) gender egalitarianism; 7) performance orientation; 8) humane orientation; and 9) future orientation.
Questionnaires were used to collect data from 17,300 middle managers in food processing, finance, and telecommunications industries around the world. Coutries were grouped together in 'clusters' to explore cultural similarities, with a cluster being a group of countries with many similarities.
The clusters covered by the GLOBE project are:
- Southern Asia
- Anglo
- Arab
- Germanic Europe
- Eastern Europe
- Latin Europe
Countries covered by the project are:
Albania; Argentina; Australia; Austria; Bolivia; Brazil; Canada (English speaking); China; Colombia; Costa Rica; Czech Republic; Denmark; Ecuador; Egypt; El Salvador; England; Finland; France; Georgia; Germany (Former FRG); Germany (Former GDR); Greece; Guatemala; Hong Kong; Hungary; India; Indonesia; Iran; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Japan; Kazakhstan; Kuwait; Malaysia;
Mexico; Morocco; Namibia; Netherlands; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Nigeria; Philippines; Poland; Portugal; Qatar; Russia; Singapore; Slovenia; South Africa (Black Sample); South Africa (White
Sample); Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Taiwan; Thailand; Turkey; United States; Venezuela; Zambia;
Zimbabwe.
For information on the findings of the study, please take a look at the other GLOBE papers in this section.