Leadership influence and distance : energizing an organization across geographical and ethnic-cultural distance.

Abstract

An organization can be energized by means of diverse behaviours. The thesis therefore differentiates between different energizing components of leadership and used the full range leadership theory by Bass (1985) as a framework. The analysis of the influences of geographical and ethnic-cultural distance on these components supported the assumption that, in general, they will have an aggravating effect and also change the importance of the different components. Due to their dissimilar nature, a different influence of geographical and ethnic-cultural distance on the different components of energizing leadership could be determined. Geographical distance generally exacerbates the leadership task to energize an organization, whereas ethnic-cultural distance forces a leader to consider cultural differences in his leading style. Consequently, it was not surprising that the effect of the simultaneous occurrence of geographical and ethnic-cultural distance depended on the individual energizing component.