A comparative study of three leadership approaches in India

The Leadership Quarterly 23 (2012) 146–162

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A comparative study of three leadership approaches in India☆ Rita Palrecha ⁎, 1, William D. Spangler 2, Francis J. Yammarino 3 Center for Leadership Studies, School of Management, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, USA

a r t i c l e

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Available online 3 December 2011 Keywords: Transformational Leadership India Nurturant–Task Computerized Content Analysis

a b s t r a c t We examined the validity of three leadership approaches in an organization in India. We used a multi-theory and multi-method design to competitively test transformational leadership theory, the nurturant–task leadership model, and a local organization-specific leadership model. Transformation leadership theory is one of the most widely studied and accepted theories in Western countries and is viewed as a universalistic leadership approach. The nurturant–task leadership model was developed in India and viewed as a culture-specific leadership approach. We also developed a local leadership model, called RDO, a pseudonym for the organization, and viewed it as an organization-specific leadership approach, using a qualitative analysis of interview data. The overall results of our qualitative–quantitative work provide strong support for the RDO leadership model, some support for a nurturant–task leadership model, and minimal support for transformational leadership theory. These results suggest that research designs that include a multi-theory, multi-methods approach in a single culture have the potential to increase our understanding of leadership processes. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction India has one of the fastest growing economies of the world (Lahiri, 2005). During much of the 2000s, India's GDP has increased more than 9% per year—several times that of the U.S. and nearly equal to that of China (Cappelli, Singh, Singh, & Useem, 2010). Foreign institutional and direct investment has grown rapidly as well, rising by a factor of 13 from $4.9 billion in 1995–1996 to $63.7 billion in 2007–2008 (Reserve Bank of India, 2009). The rapid development of the Indian economy has resulted in a large number of foreign operators entering the Indian market (Budhwar & Varma, 2010). Budhwar and Varma (2010) argue that there is a critical scarcity of empirical research that could help researchers, practitioners, and policy makers understand the emerging patterns of Human Resource Management in the new Indian economic environment. This critical scarcity of empirical research in India extends to the study of leadership as well. A search of the ISI Web of Knowledge using the keywords “India” and “Leadership” in the general category of social sciences and subject areas of business and economics, psychology, and sociology resulted in 96 citations in the last ten years in peer-reviewed journals. A similar search of the PsychINFO database returned only 56 citations. We also searched the ISI Web of Knowledge and PsychINFO using only the keyword “leadership” resulting in 20,510 and 8887 articles, respectively, in peer-reviewed journals in the last ten years. Given the emergence of India as an economic powerhouse and the relative lack of research on leadership in Indian organization, we focus on leadership in an Indian organization in the current research. To study leadership in an Indian ☆ This research was based on Rita Palrecha's doctoral dissertation. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Human Resources Management Department, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA. Tel.: +1 732 979 7400; fax: +1 866 874 5566. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Palrecha), [email protected] (W.D. Spangler), [email protected] (F.J. Yammarino). 1 Rita Palrecha is now affiliated with Human Resources Management Department, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA. 2 Tel.: + 1 607 777 2563. 3 Tel.: + 1 607 777 6066. 1048-9843/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.11.012

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organization, we test three different competing leadership approaches using a multi-theory, multi-method research design that employs both quantitative and qualitative data. We propose that leader behaviors may be classified as universalistic, culturally-specific, and organizationally-specific. We used charismatic/transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1997) as an example of the universalistic leadership approach, the Nurturant–Task leader model (Sinha, 1995) as an example of the culturallyspecific leadership approach for India, and a local leadership model called RDO, a pseudonym for the organization, as an organizationally-specific leadership approach developed on the basis of the organizational context. We propose a research design which enables us to conduct a competitive test for effectiveness of these three leadership approaches relative to one another. A number of research studies have focused on universal and culturally-contingent theories of leadership (Bass, 1997; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004). In addition to focusing on universal and culturally-contingent leadership theories, we propose the following two-fold rationale for developing and studying a local leadership model. First, a series of articles in the Asia Pacific Journal of Management attempted to stimulate more innovative research designs to bring Asian research into top management journals, while being relevant for local stakeholders in the research (Peng, 2005; Tsui, 2004; White, 2002). Meyer (2006) extended this discussion and argued that locally relevant knowledge requires the recognition of the boundaries of existing managerial knowledge and a careful contextualization of new research projects. Meyer (2006) further quotes March (2005) that Asian researchers may thus develop an indigenous discourse on organizational phenomena. This discourse calls for more locally-grounded research and is supported by the argument that context is important for businesses as they develop their strategies and practices to fit specific cultures, legal frameworks, geographies, and industry structures (Meyer, 2006). Although there have been repeated calls for more contextualized research, we see evidence of management research which is focused on general theories and which pays relatively little attention to boundary conditions (Tsui, 2004). Thus context remains an important yet inadequately examined aspect of business process (Johns, 2001). Second, the book Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia (Baltzell, 1979) is a powerful illustration of the importance of studying locally relevant leadership models. In this book, Baltzell (1979) asserts that differences in ethics in Boston and Philadelphia led to a difference in the number of leaders from Boston and Massachusetts versus Philadelphia and Pennsylvania from the colonial period down to the twentieth century. Baltzell (1979) gives evidence for these local differences by comparing fifty first families of Boston with fifty first families of Philadelphia in terms of their influence on the local and national scene. Baltzell proposes that the differences in the quality of leadership in Boston and Philadelphia had a great deal to do with the religious and ethnic compositions of the two colonies. In summary, Baltzell (1979) concludes that Bostonians, whether Puritans, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Jews, agnostics, or atheists, have continued to be influenced by the hierarchical communalism of Puritanism just as their counterparts in Philadelphia are still affected by the egalitarian individualism of the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania (pp. 433–434). This example supports the notion that the study of local leadership can give us an important understanding about the nature of leadership as well as the effectiveness of leadership. The above illustration about the importance of a local leadership approach is relevant for a diverse country like India. The diversity in India extends beyond religious differences. India's diversity in religion and languages is well documented by the people of India in a large-scale ethnographic project undertaken by the Anthropological Survey of India from 1985 to 1992 (Singh, 1992, as cited in Chhokar, Brodbeck, & House, 2007). The survey found that about 75% of the 4635 communities studied followed Hinduism, 12% followed Islam, 7% Christianity, 2.5% Sikhism, 2% each, Jainism and Buddhism; and about 0.2% for both Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Out of these 4635 communities, as many as 393 communities comprised followers of two religions, and 16 had followers of as many as three religions. Linguistically, the survey identified a total of 325 languages belonging to 12 different language families. Apart from the languages, 24 different scripts were found to be in use. The incidence of bilingualism was found to be as high as 65.51% in terms of the number of communities (Chhokar et al., 2007, p. 975). This broad range of diversity leads to aspects of local cultures which are difficult to capture with a broad theory. In line with this need to develop locally relevant knowledge, Lau (2002) recommends the adoption of Asian-developed constructs to study local and global issues and calls for the development and validation of new constructs for the depth of Asian-based issues. Similar suggestions have been made by many others. For example, focusing on cultural values, scholars Kao, Sinha, and Wilper (2000) highlight the need to indigenize management practices in Asian organizations. Due to the strong influence of the socio-cultural context, the applicability of Western management and organization theories in the Asian context is now questionable. To a great extent this is a core issue for Western firms operating in the Asian context (see Kidd, Li, & Richter, 2001). Meyer (2006) suggests that Asian researchers need to focus their research on local phenomena and issues of importance to local managers. In a sense, theories should be adapted to explain locally interesting phenomena; or new theories should be developed to overcome the low explanatory power of adapted theories. In order to develop a local leadership model, our research design incorporates Avolio, Walumbwa, and Weber's (2009) suggestion to use qualitative designs as well as multiple sources and a mixed method approach in addition to solely a traditional survey-based approach. Avolio et al. (2009) note that although cross-cultural research pertaining to charismatic/transformational leadership generally supports the relationships reported for the United States and other Western cultures, it is important to note that these studies largely involve survey-based designs. They further recommend that researchers engaging in cross-cultural leadership research incorporate a number of alternative research designs, including but not limited to experimental designs, longitudinal designs, and qualitative designs, as well as the use of multiple sources and mixed methods studies. Heeding their call, we used quantitative content analysis to convert qualitative data into quantitative data, which was analyzed statistically. Bligh, Kohles, and Meindl (2004) noted that rather than isolating and manipulating central leadership variables outside of their natural contexts, studies that incorporate qualitative approaches allow researchers to examine the leadership relationship within its immediate social, cultural, and political context (e.g., Fiol, Harris, & House, 1999; House, Spangler, & Woycke, 1991). We collected

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qualitative data to build the local, organizationally specific leadership model which we call RDO. We content analyzed the interview data without a-priori categorization to build the RDO leadership model. This approach allowed us to examine the effectiveness of leadership theory within its immediate context, i.e., the local organization of focus. 2. The universal, the culturally-contingent, and the local approach Charismatic/transformation leadership theories are some of the most studied leadership approaches in the United States and other countries (Bass, 1997; Lowe & Gardner, 2000). Bass (1997) presented evidence about the near universality of the transactional– transformational leadership paradigm. A literature review of scholarly articles on leadership in Indian organizations shows that some recent leadership research has focused on charismatic/transformational leadership theories (Giri & Santra, 2010; Singh & Krishnan, 2005). Sinha (1980, 1995) developed a culturally contingent leadership model, the nurturant–task (NT) leadership model, which is considered relevant for the Indian context. Sinha (1995) presented evidence from more than 40 experiments and field studies showing some support for the effectiveness of the NT leader style in Indian context. A small number of recent India-related studies have examined this model (Palrecha, 2009; Sayeed, 2010; Suar, Tewari, & Chaturbedi, 2006). We compare the potentially universalistic transformational leadership model (Bass, 1997) and the culturally contingent nurturant–task leadership model (Sinha, 1980, 1995) for predicting subordinate outcomes in the current research. In addition to these two leadership models, we introduced and compared the predictive ability of a local organization-specific leadership model, called RDO, which is grounded in the local context and unique to the organization we studied. Overall, the three leadership approaches are compared and tested relative to one another using multiple methods, both quantitative and qualitative, in order to draw stronger inferences about leadership in India. 3. Three leadership approaches and hypotheses Transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1997), the nurturant–task leadership model (Sinha, 1995), and RDO leadership model, each lead to an independent hypothesis relating leadership to subordinate performance. This testing allowed us to have a base-line data for further comparison of these three approaches. 3.1. Transformational leadership theory Transformational leadership theory is the most widely studied theory in the genre of neo-charismatic leadership (Conger, 1999). Burns (1978) first introduced the concepts of transformational and transactional leadership with reference to political leadership. Bass (1985) based his theory of transformational leadership on Burns (1978) conceptualization, with several modifications or elaborations. Bass (1985) did not agree with Burns that transformational and transactional leadership represent opposite ends of a single continuum. Bass (1985) argued that transformational and transactional leadership are separate concepts and that the best leaders are both transformational and transactional. Bass (1985) elaborated considerably on the behaviors that manifest transformational and transactional leadership (also see Judge & Piccolo, 2004). At the heart of the transformational leadership model is the notion that transformational leaders motivate their followers to commit to and realize performance outcomes that exceed their expectations. Bass (1985) elaborated on three principal leadership processes which are involved in achieving such outcomes: (a) these leaders heighten followers' awareness about the importance and value of designated goals and the means to achieve them, (b) they induce followers to transcend their self-interests for the good of the collective and its goals, and (c) they stimulate and meet their followers' higher order needs through the leadership process and the mission. Transformational leadership has a positive effect on various outcomes at individual, dyad, group, and organization levels (Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Yammarino, Dubinsky, Comer, & Jolson, 1997; Yammarino, Spangler, & Dubinsky, 1998; Zhu, Chew, & Spangler, 2005). In addition, Gasper (1992), Lowe, Kroeck, and Sivasubramaniam (1996), and Patterson, Fuller, Kester, and Stringer (1995) in their meta-analyses have confirmed significant correlations of transformational leadership components with effectiveness, satisfaction, and the extra effort perceived by the followers as well as their performance. Based on these reviews, we summarize the literature on this universalistic leadership approach in the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1. The factors of transformational leadership will positively predict subordinate performance. 3.2. The nurturant–task leadership model Cross-cultural psychological, sociological and anthropological research shows that many cultures do not share the same assumptions underlying leader behavior and style (Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, & Dorfman, 1999). House (1995) noted that almost all prevailing theories of leadership and most empirical evidence are North American in character. As a result, there is a growing awareness of the need for a better understanding of the way in which leadership is enacted in various cultures, and a need for empirically grounded theory to explain differing leader behaviors and effectiveness across cultures (Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991; Dorfman, 1996; Dorfman, 2004; Dorfman & Ronen, 1991; House, 1995). The nurturant–task leadership model is an extension of a Western approach to leadership, suitable for the Indian context. Early leadership studies in India supported the notion that Indian culture is authoritarian; therefore an authoritarian leader

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was thought to be more effective (Lippitt & White, 1943; Meade, 1967). A number of studies conducted by Sinha (1980) and his associates (Kalra, 1988) did not support the effectiveness of an authoritarian leadership model. Sinha (1980, 1995) developed the NT leader model to reconcile some of the early discrepancies in the leadership research in India. The NT leader model incorporates a combination of leadership styles and suggests that an ideal leader in India is both nurturing and task oriented. According to the theory, NT leaders are warm and considerate, show affection, care for their subordinates, and are committed to their growth. However, their nurturance is contingent on the subordinate's task accomplishment. The leader is a benevolent source, provided the subordinate respects and obeys the supervisor, works hard, and is highly productive. Sinha (1995) identified the following characteristics which might influence leader effectiveness in India. 1. Excessive dependency. Indians seek support, guidance, and encouragement in situations where they are apparently competent to make decisions and function without being patted on the back. 2. Preference for hierarchy. The Indian social structure is based on a caste system which is hierarchically arranged. The preference for hierarchy manifests in a strong status orientation. Seniors and superiors are respected and obeyed. 3. Preference for personalized relationships. Kumar and Singh (1976) observed that Indian managers have a two-dimensional framework to perceive others and to interact with them: own-others and personal–impersonal. Family members are own and personal while strangers are impersonal and others. The nurturant–task leadership model incorporates the above characteristics in leader–follower relationships in organizations and includes a combination of leadership styles: authoritarian, bureaucratic, participative, nurturing, task-oriented, and nurturant-task oriented styles. The nurturant–task leadership style is defined as one where the leader is nurturant to those subordinates who work hard and sincerely. Nurturance is a reinforcer, a reward for subordinates' quality and quantity of performance (Sinha, 1980). Sinha (1995) suggest that the nurturant–task leadership model still suffers from gaps and loose ends requiring further evidence (p. 127). He cites two studies (Habibullah & Sinha, 1980 and Ansari, 1986 , pp. 93–95) with fairly large sample size where the factor structure confirmed the theoretical based structure of leadership styles. He further reports that factor analysis results were mixed in differentiating the proposed theoretical styles in a number of studies (p. 114). Despite this limitation, the nurturant–task leadership model is the only leadership model developed and tested in the Indian context. Thus, we used nurturant–task leadership model representing the culturally contingent approach to leadership. The second hypothesis summarizes the nurturant–task leadership model and related literature: Hypothesis 2. The factors of the nurturant–task leadership model will positively predict subordinate performance. 3.3. RDO leadership model There is a criticism that culture-specific, non-Western models are not always presented in international (specifically American) journals (Dickson, Den Hartog, & Mitchelson, 2003). In spite of this criticism, much research assesses whether a model developed elsewhere is also applicable in a different context. For example, Rowold and Heinitz (2007) assessed transformational leadership in Germany. Dorfman et al. (1997) compared the effects of a set of behaviors in different cultures rather than building new models from the unique vantage point of a specific culture. To address this criticism about lack of a culture-specific, non-Western model, we collected interview data for the development of a RDO leadership model grounded in the cultural and organizational context of the research site, i.e., specific to the RDO organization. Relatedly, Blair and Hunt (1986) argued for an increased use of qualitative research methods that probe more deeply into particular organizational contexts. Such research will often be susceptible to criticism for lack of internal validity, but when coupled with experimentation and survey methods, these methods can provide a powerful basis for theory building and programmatic hypothesis testing (Zaccaro & Horn, 2003). Indeed, Conger (1998) argued that qualitative research methods “can be the richest of studies, often illuminating in radically new ways phenomena as complex as leadership”. A local organization-specific leadership model, labeled as the RDO leadership model, developed in this research addresses both of these concerns as the model is grounded in the cultural and organizational context of the research site and assessed via qualitative methods. We summarize this approach in the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3. RDO leadership model factors, derived from the content analysis of interview data, will positively predict subordinate performance. 3.4. Unique contribution of each leadership model Hypotheses 1 through 3 are necessary but not sufficient to establish the effect of each theory and associated set of factors on subordinate performance. The first three hypotheses test for the total effects, i.e. how much of performance variance is explained by one leadership model. The various factors of these leadership models, however, may be correlated with each other. To test for the direct effect of each of these three leadership models, we developed competing Hypotheses 4a through 4c, which are tests of each leadership model's unique contribution to subordinate performance. That is, in each case, above and beyond the other two approaches, does a universalistic (transformational leadership), a culturally contingent (nurturant–task leadership), or a local context-based (RDO leadership) approach predict subordinate performance?

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Hypothesis 4a. Given the nurturant–task leadership model and the RDO leadership model, the addition of transformational leadership will significantly increase the prediction of subordinate performance. Hypothesis 4b. Given transformational leadership and the RDO leadership model, the addition of nurturant–task leadership model will significantly increase the prediction of subordinate performance. Hypothesis 4c. Given transformational leadership and the nurturant–task leadership model, the addition of the RDO leadership model will significantly increase the prediction of subordinate performance. 4. Methods 4.1. Site and sample The research site is a rural development organization, hence our label RDO, located in Gujarat, a Western state of India. This organization works in close partnership with local communities and government to address natural resource problems. The staff members of three field offices participated in this research project. The total sample consisted of 86 followers and 18 leaders, representing all the field staff for the host organization (i.e., the population). All the leaders were male. 4.2. Leader behavior and subordinate performance measures All the leader behavior surveys and performance measure surveys were translated into Gujarati, the native language, by a professional translator. Another person familiar with the language and the first author checked these translations for any discrepancies and errors. The final surveys had English and Gujarati versions printed side by side. We used the Transformational Leadership Inventory (TLI) developed by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter (1990) to assess transformational–transactional leadership. Although the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, known as the MLQ (Bass, 1985, Bass & Avolio, 1995), is the predominant measure for assessing transformational leadership, this measure is known to suffer from psychometric shortcomings especially in non-US contexts. For example, a Dutch study, undertaken by Den Hartog, Van Muijen, and Koopman (1997), sought to test the factor structure of the MLQ using a Dutch translation of the instrument. The researchers reported finding a structure comprising a transformational, a transactional, and a laissez-faire factor, but did not find any separate dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership. Also, Schriesheim, Castro, Zhou, and DeChurch (2006) cite evidence indicating that the TLI's factor structure, internal reliability, and concurrent and predictive validity are quite good (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996; Schriesheim et al., 2000). Thus, the TLI was used to measure transformational leadership behavior. Responses were on a 7-point scale that ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree. All followers completed this instrument assessing their leader's behaviors. We used the leader's behavior scale to assess the nurturant–task leadership model (Sinha, 1980, 1995). Responses were on a 5-point scale that ranged from never to always. Sample items for the survey for nurturant–task leadership model are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4.

He helps his subordinates grow up in the organization; He maintains impersonal relationships with his subordinates; He does not hurry up in taking decisions and actions; He goes out of his way to help those subordinates who maintain a high standard of performance.

All followers completed this instrument about their leader's behavior. We measured subordinate performance with a seventeen-item scale (Schriesheim, Cogliser, & Neider, 1998; Schriesheim & Murphy, 1976). These items assess quantity, quality, and speed of response to task demands. Responses were on a 7-point scale that ranged from inadequate to excellent. The focal leaders completed this measure for each of their subordinates. Coefficient alpha internal consistency reliability was computed as 0.96 for the performance measure. Many organizations in India use performance measures as part of Human Resource Management (HRM) systems. Budhwar and Sparrow (1997) found, in their survey, that 70% of Indian organizations trained line managers in performance appraisal, the most frequent of all Human Resources Management activities reported for such action (p. 490). Amba-Rao, Petrick, Gupta, and Embse (2000) reported that by exposure to modern management philosophies and performance appraisal practices over the years, Indian managers have come to consider merit and equity as important dimensions of performance management policies (Amba-Rao, 1994; Mendonca & Kanungo, 1990). The RDO used a performance survey as one of their core HRM activities (Personal communication, HR manager); hence we considered a survey form to measure performance as an appropriate instrument for the purpose of this study. 4.3. Interviews A professional journalist, independent of the research team, conducted semi-structured interviews using an interview guide. The interview guide described the general purpose of the interview and encouraged the respondents to discuss the leadership of their boss without imposing restrictions or suggesting the right answers. The seven questions used for these semi-structured interviews allowed the respondents to express their ideas without constraints. The interview questions and the interview

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guide are presented in Appendix A. The non-directive nature of this interview protocol was critical to the whole design of the project. We needed a method that would not impose an external non-local framework on the interviewees. The interviews were conducted in the native language and the interviewer recorded the responses. The interviewer translated and transcribed these responses into English for coding purposes. Content analysis is a class of methods at the intersection of the qualitative and quantitative traditions (Duriau, Reger, & Pfarrer, 2007). Content analysis is considered promising for rigorous exploration of many important but difficult-to-study issues of interest to management researchers (Carley, 1993; Morris, 1994; Woodrum, 1984). For the content analyses in the current study, we used the computerized content analysis software WordStat (http://www.provalisresearch.com). This is a text analysis program specifically designed to analyze textual information such as responses to open-ended questions, interviews, titles, journal articles, public speeches, and electronic communications. The core of WordStat is a dictionary which is a set of categories. Each category consists of a number of words and phrases. During an actual analysis, WordStat scans text and counts the number of occurrences of words and phrases in each of the categories. The result is a frequency count of the words found in each of the categories in the analyzed text. Although there may be general dictionaries available for analysis, we needed to create a unique dictionary that would measure leader behavior in the Gujarati rural development organization, RDO, as manifested in the interviews. 4.4. Dictionary development The dictionary was created as a two-step iterative process. We used WordStat to develop and validate a leadership dictionary for this research through an iterative procedure with randomly selected interviews for the dictionary creation. We randomly chose 28 of the 86 interviews (about one-third) to create a base dictionary. The base dictionary was created by a sentence-by-sentence analysis of four questions from the interviews. The first author used a manual coding system starting with eight interviews and then subsequent increments of four interviews to create the base dictionary. See Table 1 for sample interview items and coding categories. The coding categories were discussed with the second author after each set of interviews. These discussions led to a consensus for categorization. We tried to keep the categories as narrow as possible as aggregating narrow categories is easier than disaggregating broad categories. This base dictionary was used for coding successive sets of four interviews. At each stage, the computer coding results were compared with manual coding of the same interviews. As needed, new categories and words were added to the base dictionary to reflect new terms and leader-related concepts emerging from interviews. Key-word-in-context (KWIC), a feature of WordStat, was used extensively to check for accuracy of content coding. As an example, Table 2 provides further details about KWIC for coding the category explains work. The coding of the interviews was done at the sentence level, where each sentence could be coded as multiple categories or multiple frequencies in the same category. A WordStat dictionary was created by writing rules after coding a set of 4 interviews. We used the word categorization feature of WordStat. This feature uses categorization of words or phrases using existing or user-defined dictionaries. We created a userdefined dictionary based on the randomly selected 28 interviews. This dictionary was created by writing rules for each sentence to categorize it appropriately. These rules are based on Boolean operator (And, Or, Not) and proximity rules (Near, After, Before). We checked for accuracy statistics to make sure that the computer program was learning to code accurately. We calculated accuracy statistics based on following formula: Accuracy ¼ A=ðA þ B þ CÞ :

A B C

the total number of actual leadership terms found by the program (program and manual coding results agree). number of terms which are not leadership but which the computer has identified as leadership (false positives). number of actual leadership terms missed by the program (false negatives).

Total number of actual leadership terms = A + C. At the end of these 28 interviews, the accuracy statistic for WordStat program was 0.70 which we deemed adequate for coding the remaining interviews. All 86 interviews were analyzed by the SimStat–WordStat program using the final dictionary. The final directory had 112 categories, but some of these categories contained only one frequency. To collapse the large number of categories, we used categories with frequencies of three or more. We further aggregated these categories after discussions between the first and Table 1 Example: manual coding of interviews. Sample interview items He expects us to follow orders without questioning them. He will patiently explain the work and discuss how to go about it. Employees don't need to know everything. He makes it very clear about who has to perform what role.

Coding categories derived from sentence Authority_obedience, authority_obedience Explains_work, consultation_positive Not coded Role-clarity

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Table 2 Illustration of key word in context (KWIC) for category — Explains_Work. [Case #25 INTERVIEW = 3 COD1_LDR = 157 COD2_PA = 133 QUE = 3] He will patiently explain the work and discuss how to go about it. [Case #97 INTERVIEW = 11 COD1_LDR = 193 COD2_PA = 200 QUE = 3] There have been instances when someone is not doing his work properly at the village level he has personally gone to the site to explain things to the person concerned and get other people to help him out. [Case #109 INTERVIEW = 12 COD1_LDR = 178 COD2_PA = 172 QUE = 6] He is a good teacher and does take time to explain things. [Case #188 INTERVIEW = 21 COD1_LDR = 127 COD2_PA = 107 QUE = 3] He tells me what work there is and how I should go about doing it. [Case #198 INTERVIEW = 22 COD1_LDR = 115 COD2_PA = 108 QUE = 3] He takes time to explain problems and to work out a solution. [Case #238 INTERVIEW = 25 COD1_LDR = 195 COD2_PA = 172 QUE = 3] He is good at work allocation and at explaining the work to us. [Case #247 INTERVIEW = 25 COD1_LDR = 195 COD2_PA = 172 QUE = 6] I like the fact that he even sits after office hours to explain things to us. [Case #319 INTERVIEW = 33 COD1_LDR = 179 COD2_PA = 198 QUE = 3] He takes time to explain things to us and expects us to be honest if we are not clear about any aspect of the assigned work [Case #323 INTERVIEW = 33 COD1_LDR = 179 COD2_PA = 198 QUE = 4] He is always explaining things to us [Case #404 INTERVIEW = 41 COD1_LDR = 119 COD2_PA = 124 QUE = 3] He is very careful with new staff members and takes care to explain things to them [Case #650 INTERVIEW = 65 COD1_LDR = 160 COD2_PA = 132 QUE = 4] He is very friendly and takes time to explain things to us [Case #712 INTERVIEW = 70 COD1_LDR = 174 COD2_PA = 173 QUE = 4] He is very good at breaking down the work and explaining it simply Case # — Sentence level item. Interview — Interview code. Cod1_ldr — Code number for follower. Code2_PA — Code number for leader. Question — Question number from the interview.

second author. These discussions focused on appropriate labeling and appropriate categorization to create the following factors: facilitator, inflexible, consultative, relationship-oriented, and task manager. The details of the dictionary categories and their definitions are included in Appendix B. 4.5. Statistical procedures We used Partial Least Squares (Wold, 1985) to test the six hypotheses of interest. Specifically we used SmartPLS (Ringle, Wende, & Will, 2005), which allows for the simultaneous testing of hypotheses. Partial Least Squares has the capability to handle single- and multi-item measurement and use of both reflective and formative scales (Fornell & Bookstein, 1982). Our leadership models have reflective and formative measures. The transformational leadership theory and the nurturant–task leadership model have reflective measures, whereas the RDO leadership model has formative measures. The basis of our RDO leadership model was interview data. The interview data were quantified by computerized content analysis into different categories. These categories tapped into different aspects of leader behavior considered to be important by the respondents. Further, the categories of leader behavior considered to be important by respondents may or may not co-vary, so all factors of the RDO leadership model were treated as formative. 4.6. Results: descriptive statistics Table 3 presents the raw score correlations between the different factors of the leader behavior models and the performance measure of subordinates. Factor 1 to factor 7 represents transformational leadership theory categories, factor 8 to factor 13 represents nurturant–task leader behavior categories, factor 14 to factor 18 represents the RDO leadership model categories, and factor 19 represents the performance measure. The quality criteria for reflective measures in PLS models are composite reliability, factor loadings, and average variance explained. For the reflective measures, we used PLS to generate statistics to assess the reliability and validity of TLI and NT leader model measures. We assessed questionnaire item reliability by examining the factor loadings of items; a common rule of thumb is that the factor loadings should exceed .7 because this implies that less than half of the item's variance is due to error. We also computed variables' composite scale reliability (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), a measure of internal consistency similar to Cronbach's alpha. Fornell and Larcker (1981) recommended using a criterion cut-off of .7 or more. Further, we examined the average variance extracted by the variable from its items; Fornell and Larcker (1981) recommended using a criterion cut-off of .5 or more for the average variance extracted by the variable from its items. Factor loadings, composite scale reliability, Cronbach's alpha, and average variance extracted for Transformational Leadership Inventory (TLI) are presented in Table 4.

Table 3 Raw score variables means, standard deviations, and correlations. M

SD

1

5.20 5.04 5.35 4.94 4.72 5.02 5.26 3.15 3.36 3.44 3.58 3.58 3.75 .92 .47 1.55 .45 2.83 5.22

1.33 1.27 1.44 1.44 1.33 1.31 1.15 .55 .56 .81 .68 .76 .84 1.29 .85 1.12 1.17 2.30 .81

– .82⁎⁎ .81⁎⁎ .24⁎ .48⁎⁎ .79⁎⁎ .62⁎⁎ −.19 −.07 .36⁎⁎ .31⁎⁎ .42⁎⁎ .23⁎ .23⁎ −.05 .03 −.25⁎ .22⁎ .17

2 – .76⁎⁎ .20 .52⁎⁎ .73⁎⁎ .65⁎⁎ −.23⁎ −.10 .23⁎ .19 .26⁎ .16 .23⁎ −.11 .04 −.11 .19 .26⁎

3

– .17 54⁎⁎ .74⁎⁎ .59⁎⁎ −.20 .01 .39⁎⁎ .28⁎ .50⁎⁎ .26⁎ .27⁎ −.06 .02 −.18 .18 .26⁎

4

5

– −.17 .28⁎ .15 .22 .36⁎⁎

– .33⁎⁎ .62⁎⁎ −.29⁎ −.24⁎

.03 −.06 −.03 .21 .17 .07 .07 −.09 .16 .02

.21 .10 .34⁎⁎ −.02 .25⁎ −.04 −.02 .22⁎ −.06 .35⁎⁎

6

– .60⁎⁎ −.06 −.01 .32⁎⁎ .32⁎⁎ .31⁎⁎ .29⁎ .16 −.03 .01 −.12 .15 .03

7

– −.22 −.09 .30⁎⁎ .22 .28⁎ .13 .28⁎ .01 .08 −.12 .21 .22⁎

8

– .32⁎⁎ −.11 .14 −.17 .06 −.07 .17 −.22⁎ −.03 −.11 −.10

9

10

11

– .32⁎⁎ .36⁎⁎ .38⁎⁎ .53⁎⁎ −.14 −.03 .05 −.03 −.08 .02

– .70⁎⁎ .78⁎⁎ .79⁎⁎ .14 −.11 .07 −.08 .04 .19

– .59⁎⁎ .61⁎⁎ .14 −.03 −.11 −.08 .03 .13

12

– .74⁎⁎ .09 −.10 −.04 −.22⁎ −.01 .20

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

– .03 −.10 −.03 −.11 .07 .15

– −.08 .10 −.15 .11 .39⁎⁎

– −.01 .04 .07 −.21

– .10 .12 .07

– .05 −.07

– −.10

–

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1. Articulates vision 2. Provides model 3. Fosters goals 4. Expects high performance 5. Individualized support 6. Intellectual stimulation 7. Contingent reward 8. Authoritarian 9. Bureaucratic 10. Nurturant 11. Nurturant–Task 12. Participative l3. Task 14. Facilitator 15. Consultative l6. Relationship l7. InfIexible l8. Task manager 19. Performance

Note. Factor 1 to factor 7 = Transformational leadership theory; Factor 8 to factor 13 = Nurturant–task leadership model; factor 14 to factor 18 = RDO leadership model; factor 19 = Performance. ⁎⁎ Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). ⁎ Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

153

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Table 4 Factor loadings, composite scale reliability, Cronbach's alpha, and average variance extracted for the transformational leadership inventory. Construct/indicator Articulates vision Item 1 (Que. 4 ) Item 2 (Que. 12) Item 3 (Que. 18) Item 4 (Que. 20) Item 5 (Que. 24) Provides model Item 1 (Que. 5) Item 2 (Que. 8) Item 3 (Que. 26) Foster goals Item 1 (Que.16) Item 2 (Que. 22) Item 3 (Que. 25) Item 4 (Que. 28) Expects high performance Item 1 (Que. 1) Item 2 (Que. 10) Item 3 (Que. 14) Individualized support Item 1 (Que. 3) Item 2 (Que. 7) Item 3 (Que. 9) Item 4 (Que. 11) Intellectual stimulation Item 1 (Que. 19) Item 2 (Que. 21) Item 3 (Que. 23) Item 4 (Que. 27) Contingent Reward Item 1 (Que. 2) Item 2 (Que. 6) Item 3 (Que. 13) Item 4 (Que. 15) Item 5 (Que. 17)

Factor loading

Composite scale reliability

Cronbach's alpha

Average variance extracted

.88

.83

.59

.80

.67

.59

.91

.88

.73

.01

.47

.28

.79

.67

.49

.77

.83

.48

.82

.75

.50

.76 .70 .78 .77 .82 .68 .75 .85 .77 .92 .77 .93 .48 .37 −.69 .63 .65 .67 .84 .80 .74 .82 .26 .85 .39 .80 .87 .47

In the TLI scale, all the composite scale reliabilities were in the acceptable range other than expects high performance. The average variances extracted (AVE) were in the range of .28 to .73. The expects high performance factor had a low AVE value of .28. The factor loadings were within an acceptable range. All other factors met the quality criteria for AVE and composite reliability. The factor loadings, composite scale reliability, Cronbach's alpha and average variance extracted for nurturant–task leader model scale are presented in Table 5. In this study, the NT leader model had weak psychometric properties. Sinha (1995) reported serious problems related to measurement of leadership styles (p. 127). He explained these measurement issues in terms of social desirability effects and implicit theories of leadership. The social desirability effects are related to self-ratings of leader behavior. In this study the subordinates rated the leader behavior, so that explanation for the weak psychometric properties due to social desirability effects does not appear to hold. The influence of implicit theories of leadership on survey measures partially explains the weak measure. The weak psychometric properties of the NT leader model possibly led to an underestimation of the model. The RDO leadership model is construed as a formative model. Formative modeling is an alternative measurement approach in which model changes in the indicators are assumed to cause variation in the construct rather than the other way round. In other words, the indicators form or determine the construct and the latter is modeled as a (typically linear) combination of its indicators plus a disturbance term (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Lee, 2003). For the formative model, the most important quality criterion is content validity (Rossiter, 2002). Content validity is an “appeal to reason,” conducted before the scale is developed, that the items will properly represent the construct (Nunnally, 1978, p. 93). In the RDO leadership model, the items were based on the categories generated from quantitative content analysis of interviews about leader behavior. We consider these items to be content valid because they originated from the followers. Other quality criteria applicable for reflective models (e.g., composite reliability, factor loadings, and average variance explained) are not relevant for formative models.

4.7. Tests of hypotheses Table 6 provides results for Hypotheses 1 through 4c based on full and reduced models tests. The R 2 for the overall transformational leadership model was 18.8%. Only one of the seven latent variables, individualized support, predicted subordinate performance significantly. The reduced transformational leadership model, with significant

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Table 5 Factor loadings, composite scale reliability, Cronbach's alpha and average variance extracted for nurturant–task leader model scale. Construct/indicator Authoritarian Item 1 (Que. 3) Item 2 (Que. 9) Item 3 (Que. 21) Item 4 (Que. 24) Item 5 (Que. 32) Item 6 (Que. 43) Item 7 (Que. 46) Item 8 (Que. 50) Item 9 (Que. 51) Item 10 (Que. 57) Bureaucratic Item 1 (Que. 7) Item 2 (Que. 12) Item 3 (Que. 16) Item 4 (Que. 27) Item 5 (Que. 38) Item 6 (Que. 40) Item 7 (Que. 45) Item 8 (Que. 48) Item 9 (Que. 53) Item 10 (Que. 60) Nurturant Item 1 (Que. 5) Item 2 (Que. 10) Item 3 (Que. 18) Item 4 (Que. 22) Item 5 (Que. 30) Item 6 (Que. 42) Item 7 (Que. 47) Item 8 (Que. 49) Item 9 (Que. 55) Item 10 (Que. 58) Nurturant–task Item 1 (Que. 2) Item 2 (Que. 6) Item 3 (Que. 13) Item 4 (Que. 25) Item 5 (Que. 26) Item 6 (Que. 28) Item 7 (Que. 35) Item 8 (Que. 39) Item 9 (Que. 44) Item 10 (Que. 54) Participative Item 1 (Que. 1) Item 2 (Que. 8) Item 3 (Que. 11) Item 4 (Que. 15) Item 5 (Que. 19) Item 6 (Que. 31) Item 7 (Que. 33) Item 8 (Que. 36) Item 9 (Que. 52) Item 10 (Que. 56) Task Item 1 (Que. 4) Item 2 (Que. 14) Item 3 (Que. 17) Item 4 (Que. 20) Item 5 (Que. 23) Item 6 (Que. 29) Item 7 (Que. 34) Item 8 (Que. 37) Item 9 (Que. 41) Item 10 (Que. 59)

Factor loading

Composite scale reliability

Cronbach's alpha

Average variance extracted

.10

.46

.17

.00

.53

.12

.88

.84

.45

.76

.75

.35

.87

.84

.43

.92

.90

.55

−.03 .46 −.11 −.55 .36 .11 −.16 .25 .64 .72 −.35 .43 .27 .02 −.61 −.06 .30 .12 .17 −.52 .52 .62 .74 .84 −.04 .81 .70 .52 .71 .69 .63 .76 .68 −.24 .20 .86 .62 −.19 .45 .77 .75 .68 .81 .78 .72 .54 .77 .32 .74 .04 .76 .78 .80 .74 .81 .78 .81 .77 .17 .76

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Table 6 Partial least square results for hypotheses testing. Hypotheses

R2

Significant factors

H1: Transformational leadership factors will predict subordinate performance H2: NT leader model factors will predict subordinate performance H3: RDO leadership model will predict subordinate performance H4a: Unique contribution of TL model in predicting performance

.182a .164b .216a .164b .397a .346b,c R2 (NT + RDO) = .422 R2 (NT + RDO + TL) = .434 ΔR2 = .012 R2 (TL + RDO) = .384 R2 (TL + RDO + NT) = .434 ΔR2 = .05 R2 (TL + NT) = .263 R2 (TL + NT + RDO) = .434 ΔR2 = .171

Individualized support H1 supported H2 not supported

H4b: Unique contribution of NT leader model in predicting performance H4c: Unique contribution of RDO leadership model in predicting subordinate performance

Facilitatorc, Relationship Orientationc, and Inflexiblec H3 supported NS H4a not supported Significant at p b .01 H4b supported Significant at p b .001 H4c supported

TL — Transformational Leadership, NT — Nurturant-task leadership model, RDO — Rural Development Organization. a Full model test. b Reduced model test. c Path coefficients were >.2.

individualized support, explained 16.4% of the variance in subordinate performance. These results supported Hypotheses 1. We used this reduced one-factor transformational model in testing Hypotheses 4a through 4c. The R 2 for the overall nurturant–task leadership model was 21.6%. Despite the higher R 2 of the nurturant–task leadership model compared to the transformational leadership model, none of the paths linking nurturant–task leadership model factors to subordinate performance were significant. Therefore we rejected Hypothesis 2. The weak psychometric properties of the nurturant–task leadership model may have led to a non-significant finding. To account for this possibility, we decided to include a reduced nurturant–task leadership model in testing Hypotheses 4a through 4c based on a path coefficient criterion cut-off of .2. This path coefficient criterion of .2 is considered a conservative criterion for significant path coefficients. For example, McCann, Langford, and Rawlings (2006) used a cut-off of equal to or greater than .15, and removed paths with coefficients less than .15 for their revised structural equation model. In the current study, the R 2 for the reduced one-factor nurturant–task leadership model was 16.4%. The third model, the RDO leadership model, had a R 2 of 39.7%. The formative model did not bootstrap due to small sample size and large number of indicators. The formative model is based on an index measure in which all the items are considered content valid. So, again, we reduced the formative model based on the criterion of retaining path coefficients of more than .2. Three of the original six factors remained in the reduced model: facilitator, inflexible, and relationship orientation. The R 2 of the reduced RDO leadership model was 34.6%. Hypothesis 3 was supported based on the revised criteria of latent variables with path coefficients greater than .2 being considered significant. To test Hypotheses 4a through 4c, we created hierarchical PLS models, a technique similar to hierarchical regression analysis (Cohen & Cohen, 1983). To test Hypotheses 4a, we first ran a combined model of the reduced nurturant–task leadership model and the reduced RDO leadership model, and then added the transformational leadership model and used an F test to determine the significance of the added model. There was no support for Hypotheses 4a. Specifically, we found that the transformational leadership model did not add significant variance to the nurturant–task leadership model and the RDO leadership model. Using analogous procedures in a series of hierarchical PLS models, we found support for Hypotheses 4b and 4c. The nurturant– task leadership model predicted additional significant variance of 5% (p b .01) to the transformational leadership model and the RDO leadership model. Finally, the RDO leadership model predicted the most additional significant variance of 17.1% (p b .001) to the transformational leadership model and the nurturant–task leadership model.

5. Discussion 5.1. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 The current findings indicate that the Podsakoff et al. (1990) Transformational Leadership Inventory (TLI), used to measure transformational leadership theory, had good psychometric properties with regard to reliability and validity of the scales. If this research design had been a single-theory design with transformational leadership being tested in India, the results would have supported the transformational leadership theory's validity in the Indian context. The results from a single theory test would have supported the prevailing notion that transformational leadership theory is universal. The use of alternate measures representing the culturally contingent view and unique, organization-specific local view (RDO model) of leadership led to the additional conclusion that, in the presence of alternate models, the transformational leadership model did not significantly predict the outcome variable, subordinate performance.

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A direct comparison of the transformational leadership model, the nurturant–task leadership model, and the RDO leadership model resulted in the following respective R 2 values: 18.2%, 21.6%, and 39.7%. These results indicate that despite the weak psychometric properties, the nurturant–task leadership model, representing the culturally contingent view, could better predict subordinate performance than the transformational leadership model. The RDO leadership model predicted subordinate performance best of the three models tested. In a single-theory research design, the absence of competitive models may lead to errors of omission. We addressed this concern by including three leader behavior models in this research design. The support for Hypotheses 1 and 3 indicates that the transformational leadership model and the RDO leadership model were effective in explaining variance in subordinate performance as stand-alone leadership models. 5.2. Hypotheses 4a, 4b, and 4c Tests of Hypotheses 4a through 4c led to the identification of the unique contribution of each model in predicting the outcome variable. The change in R 2 due to the unique contribution of transformational leadership model was .012 (ns); due to the unique contribution of nurturant–task leadership model was .05 (significant at p b .01); and due to the unique contribution of the RDO leadership model was .171 (significant at p b .001). The transformational leadership model did not explain significant variance in performance over and above the nurturant–task leadership model and the RDO leadership model. The nurturant–task leadership model explained 5% of variance in subordinate performance over and above that explained by the transformational leadership model and the RDO leadership model. The RDO leadership model predicted 17.1% of variance in subordinate performance over and above that explained by the TL model and the nurturant–task leadership model. The effectiveness of the RDO leadership model might be rooted in its ability to incorporate the unique context of the organization. The research site is an organization which deals with social changes. The ability to deal with local communities may sensitize the organizational members to the importance of context. This result stands in sharp contrast with the American society, where social change was less significant than social invention (Peterson & Hunt, 1997). Peterson and Hunt (1997) further explain that in the USA, indigenous societies were destroyed and replaced rather than changed in the European sense. Managers familiar with the far simpler problem of organizational redesign recognize that starting from scratch presents fewer problems. The preference for invention rather than change influences many specifics of American leadership concepts and models rooted in de-contextualized technology. This phenomenon contrasts with many cultures around the world, where differing values and perceptions exist regarding change. This research site was located in a different cultural background, which is strongly influenced by the local socio-cultural traditions and its ability to bring out a change from within the community. The effective leadership style might reflect this organizational context of being a facilitator for the social change with the relationship/familial orientation prevalent in local culture. 5.3. Limitations One of the strengths of this research is the combination of multiple sources (subordinate and superior), multiple methods (multiple surveys and interviews and a content analysis), and multiple models (transformational leadership theory, nurturant– task leadership model, and RDO leadership model) in the research design. We dealt with the issue of common-method variance (Avolio, Yammarino, & Bass, 1991; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Richardson, Simmering, & Sturman, 2007) by using two distinct research design elements. First, we used two data collection techniques, surveys and interviews, to measure leader behaviors. Second, the dependent variable was supervisor-rated performance of subordinates, a variable not affected by common-source variance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003), whereas subordinates provided data for the measurement of independent variables. Despite these strengths, to compensate for potential shortcomings, future studies can incorporate objective performance data and culturally contingent performance data to strengthen this research and reduce the impact of common-method variance even further. Another possible limitation in this empirical research is related to small sample size. Two problems may arise from small sample size, and both are related to the issue of generalizing from the sample to some population of interest. First, if the sample is random but small, the standard deviations of estimates are large and estimates of population parameters become imprecise. Second, with small sample sizes, the probability that the sample is unrepresentative becomes larger, and hence generalizations are incorrect. In this research, the population was the organization. We were interested in testing the applicability of three models of leadership in a particular organization. The research aims to compare the effectiveness of different leadership theories for a given organization. Since all field staff of the organization participated in the research, there was no problem with either imprecise estimates or unrepresentative estimates due to small sample size. Dictionary building, another potential problem, depends on subject matter experts (SME) for labeling and classification of individual interviews at the sentence level of analysis. In this case, the first author was the SME. After creating a base dictionary from a subset of the interviews, we applied this dictionary to the remaining interviews. Some subjectivity and personal biases are involved in this kind of dictionary-building exercise. This type of research presents a dilemma. If individuals not familiar with the local culture attempt to build a dictionary for quantitative computerized content analysis, they may be unbiased, but they will also likely overlook or misunderstand important local features of the data. If, on the other hand, the researchers have local knowledge, they may be biased. This is a limitation

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which has to be addressed in future research by use of multiple SMEs to build a base dictionary. We partially addressed this concern by having a consensus building exercise between the first and second authors for dictionary building. One of the major limitations of this research study was a weak culturally contingent model of leadership. This limitation leads to an inadequate test of the culturally contingent leadership model and hypothesis. The nurturant–task leadership model scale has six factors and only two of these six factors, task and participative style, exhibited acceptable factor loadings exceeding .7. There are three possible reasons for weakness in the nurturant–task leadership model. First, the model itself might be valid, but the instrument designed to measure the factors of the model may be poor. Sinha (1995) describes the evolution of the nurturant–task leadership model scale over a period of 15 years (p. 113). He explains that factor analysis results were mixed (p. 114) and attributes this to small sample sizes. He further concludes that despite long years of efforts and a large number of studies, there are still gaps and loose ends in the nurturant–task model which require further evidence (Sinha, 1995, p. 127). This evidence indicates that the nurturant–task leadership model scale needs more refinement. A second issue with the culturally contingent model deals with the presence of sub-cultures in a country like India. Most of the validation studies for the nurturant–task leadership model were carried out in East India (e.g., Sinha & Chowdhary, 1981). The current research site is located in West India, which might have a different sub-culture. A third issue deals with the type of organization. The nurturant–task leadership model was developed and tested in large bureaucratic organizations (e.g., Habibullah & Sinha, 1980; Prasad, 1990), while the current research site is a not-for-profit organization. The differences in types of organizations, as well as the cultural differences between East India and West India, might influence the reliability and validity of the scale. More systematic research is needed to examine the implications of sub-cultural factors and organization types for leader effectiveness.

6. Conclusion Instead of taking a single model and single method approach, we incorporated multiple models and multiple methods in one research study. The use of computerized content analysis can be extended to different qualitative data like interviews, emails, and other organizational communications. This multiple methods approach can be used to expand a local leadership model's dictionary to incorporate the unique characteristics of new host organizations through an iterative process. This iterative process will lead to a bottom-up approach in understanding further the answers to the basic questions about the nature of leadership in Indian organizations.

Appendix A. Interview guidelines and questions The general purpose of the interview is to encourage the respondents to discuss the leadership of his/her boss without imposing restrictions or suggesting the right answers. Following points are for the interviewer a. Introduce yourself and the purpose of the interview. Describe the purpose of the interview (from the viewpoint of the organization), and assure anonymity. Assure that the answers will not be seen or used by management and that management will get a general report about leadership. b. Start off with a warm-up question, probably about the respondent's position and job content. c. If you need more info, ask the respondent to explain something in more detail: ”Could you tell me some more about this,” or “could you give me an example.” Try not to rephrase what the respondent has said in a way that provides an answer to the question. d. If the response goes off the track (= starts answering some other question on your interview list), he/she may be telling you something about one of the other items you are interested in. In this case, encourage the respondent to continue and record the information under whichever item or category is relevant. Later, as you continue the interview, you need not ask this particular question. e. Once you have a good idea of some of the answer, you can guide the respondent to another topic. f. Sometimes the respondent will start to talk about something not on your list. He/she is probably telling you something important about the organization or boss, so encourage this talk with some non-directive questions and then record as much of the respondent's info as you can. Please use following questions for each interview. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Could you give me an overview of your job at b name of the organization > ? Who is your primary manager? Could you describe his main responsibilities? On the basis of your observation how would you describe your manager's leadership style? How does he relate with his subordinates? What does the manager expect from his subordinates? How would you describe your manager in general? Could you tell me a little bit about your work or leadership practices at bname of the organization>?

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Appendix B. Dictionary categories and definitions Category Relationship ACC_MIS AGGRE AUTHO AUTHO_DEC AUTHO_OB BOSS BOSS_NEB BOSS_NEC BOSS_POB BOSS_POC CHANGE CLR_DIR CLR_EXP CONSLT_NE CONSLT_PO CONSULT CONTROL COOL_HEAD CRITICISM DECISION DELEGA DELE_RES DEMAND DISCUSS EFFICI EFFI_MGR ENCO_INNO ENCO_LRN EXPECT EXPLAINS EXPR EXP_WORK FAMILY FIRM FOCUS_BU FOCUS_TR FOLLOW FOLL_ORD FORMAL FRANK FRIEND FRIENDLY GIVES_FR GOAL_ORG GOOD_DEC GUIDE IMPATIEN IMPERSON INFLEX INFO INFO_SHAR INGRP INNOVA INTER_NE INTER_PO LDR_NEC LDR_POC LEADER LEARN MANAGER MGR_NEC MGR_POC

— Friend, Friendly, Family, Imperson, Inter_ne, Inter_po,Definition Resp_po, Supp_per Accepts mistakes: He is ready to accept his mistakes. Aggressive: He is aggressive, he can be aggressive. Authoritarian: He is an authoritative person. Authoritarian decision making: He takes decisions by himself. It is his decision which prevails. Expects obedience: he expects us to follow orders without questioning him, he takes most decisions and expects us to follow it, he expects me to follow his instructions unquestioningly Base category Negative behaviors of boss: He does not respect us. Negative characteristics of boss: He is not a good boss. Positive behaviors of boss: He respects us. Positive characteristics of boss: He is a good boss. Base category Clear direction: He has a clear idea about where we are going. Clear expectation: He has a clear expectation about my performance. Those entrusted with a responsibility should carry it out; we have a clear picture of what we need to do throughout the year. Consultation negative: Does not encourage discussions, not open to consultations, meetings and discussions are controlled and formal. Consultation positive: Open to suggestions, holds meetings to discuss plans, progress, targets. Base category Base category Cool head — Does not lose his temper, deals with mistakes without screaming and shouting Base category Base category Base category Delegate responsibility: He is not reluctant to delegate responsibilities; he believes that responsibility and authority go hand in hand. Base category Base category Efficiency: Expects maximum output, wants us to prevent wastage of resources Efficient manager: Thorough professional, efficient, work oriented manager Encourages innovation: Encourages experiment, new ideas, try new ways to old things, wants us to break the monotony of work with new ideas Encourages learning: Encourages learning, reading, learning computer, learning English Base category Base category Experienced person: He is a very experiences person Explains work: Takes time to explain work Family — Treats us like family, he is like an elder brother Firm — He is firm Focus on budget — Tends to run after budgets, financial limits are sacrosanct Focus on targets — Tends to run after targets, targets have to be met at all costs, target oriented, wants us to abide by our targets Base category Follows order: He exercises very little discretion while planning for the cluster. Does what is told by Area Manager Formal: The meetings and discussions are very formal Frank: He is a frank person Friend: He is a friend, he is like a friend Friendly: He is very friendly; he is very casual with us. He is a cordial person Gives freedom Goals of organization Good decision maker Guide Impatient Impersonal Inflexible Base category Information sharing In group Innovation Interpersonal — Negative Interpersonal — Positive Leader — Negative characteristics Leader — positive characteristics Base category Base category Base category Manager — negative characteristics Manager — Positive characteristics (continued on next page)

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Appendix B. (continued) Category MOTIVAT NEGATION NOT_AUTH NOT_FRDLY NOT_HON NO_CRITI NO_DELEGA NO_EFMGR NO_INGRP NO_INTERF OBEY OPEN ORG PARTI PATIENCE POSITIVE PROBLEM PROBSOL_PO PROBSO_NE PROGRESS QUALITY RELUCT RESPECT RESP_HIM RESP_NE RESP_PO ROLE_CL ROL_MODE RULE RULE_ORG SEEKS_INF SOLUTION SUB_GR SUPP_PER SUPP_PR TAKES_RSK TAKE_PRIDE TCHR_POC TEAM TEAM_BLDG TEAM_LDR TIME TRUST TRUST_NE TRUST_PO UNCLR_EXP VISION WORK_B WORK_QUAL WORK_TIME

Definition Base category Base category Not_Authoritarian Not_Friendly Not_Honest No_Criticism — Does not like being criticized, does not like being questioned Does not delegate responsibilities Not efficient manager Does not believe in in-group (A select group of people who are trusted more) Does not interfere Base category Base category Base category Participative management style — Consults before making decisions, working through consensus rather than imposing decisions, democratic leader Patient Base category Base category Effective techniques for problem solving Ineffective techniques for problem solving Base category Base category Base category Base category Respect — I/We respect him Does not respect us Respect us Role clarity Role model Base category Rules of organization — Follows rules of organization Seeks information Base category Subordinate growth Support — Personal Support — professional Takes risk Makes us take pride in our work Teacher positive characteristics Base category Team building Team leader Base category Base category Does not trust us Trust — Trusts us Unclear expectations Vision — Has a clear idea of where the organization is headed towards Base category Work_ quality Work on time

Facilitator — Enco_inn, Enco_lrn, Gives_fr, Ldr_poc, Sub_gr, Team_bld. Task_Manager — Clr_exp, Effici, Effi_mgr, Exp_work, Focus_tr, Good_dec, Mgr_poc, Prob_po, Rule_org, Seeks_in, Supp_pr, Unclr_ex, Work_qua, Work_tim Inflexible — Autho_de, Autho_ob, Inflex, Ldr_nec, Not_auth, No_criti Consultative — Consult_n,Consult_p, No_inter, Parti. References Amba-Rao, S. C. (1994). Human resource management practices in India: An exploratory study. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 30(2), 190–202. Amba-Rao, S. C., Petrick, J. A., Gupta, J. D., & Embse, T. (2000). Comparative performance appraisal practices and management values among foreign and domestic firms in India. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(1), 60–89. Ansari, M. A. (1986). Need for nurturant-task leader in India: Some empirical evidence. Management and Labour Studies, 11, 26–36 (as cited in Sinha, 1995). Avolio, B. J., Walumbwa, F. O., & Weber, T. J. (2009). Leadership: Current theories, research, and future directions. Annual Review of Psychology, 60(1), 421–449. Avolio, B. J., Yammarino, F., & Bass, B. (1991). Identifying common methods variance with data collected from a single source: An unresolved sticky issue. Journal of Management, 17, 571–588.

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