National culture and leadership: Followers' preference of transformational or transactional leadership in a power distance culture

Since norms and values differ significantly among different cultures, it is expected that the concept and prototypes of leadership would be different across cultures. Studies in leadership, cultural diversity, teams and joint ventures have suggested the need for cultural validation of leadership and management theories. While the positive effect of transformational leadership has been widely researched and documented in the North American context, very little is known about its impact in many other cultures. The current quantitative study was intended to explore the applicability of transactional and transformational leadership styles in a high power distance cultural setting and to measure any difference between followers' preference of either leadership style. Samples were drawn from eight banks and financial institutions in Nigeria. Each participant received a questionnaire that combined 45 questions from the MLQ form 5X, (Bass & Avolio, 1995), 18 questions from the JDI (Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969), and four demographic questions. A total of 147 survey forms were received back from the 250 participants invited, out of which 15 were excluded from the study, being partially completed. From the results of the correlation and multiple regression analysis performed on the data three observations were made. First, transformational leadership had a strong positive relationship with employee job satisfaction, while a weak and insignificant relationship was observed between transactional leadership employee job satisfactions. Finally the result and evidence showed that transformational leadership was applicable in Nigeria, and had strong positive relationship with such outcomes as employee job satisfaction, extra effort, and effectiveness.