Effectiveness of Group- and Individual-Focused Transformational Leadership: A Comparative Study between Korean and Japanese Employees from Crossvergence Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to examine how leadership effectiveness is different between Korea and Japan. Recent studies have theoretically and empirically distinguished transformational leadership (TFL) into group-focused TFL (GTFL) and individual-focused TFL (ITFL). Based on extant literature, this paper focuses on the effectiveness of GTFL and ITFL on employees’ organizational commitment (OC). Although Korea and Japan have a shared Confucian culture, the two countries have substantially differed in economic environments. Ralston et al.’s (1997) crossvergence theory explains that national culture and economic environment can influence individuals’ cultural values determining their leadership preference. Therefore, it is expected that the effectiveness of GTFL and ITFL on employees’ OC shows a difference across cultural boundaries such as Korea and Japan. As expected, the results indicated that TFL was positively related to OC in both Korea and Japan. Although GTFL was positively related to OC in Korea and Japan, there was no difference in the effectiveness between the two countries. However, ITFL was positively related to OC in Korea, whereas ITFL had no significant effect on OC in Japan. Furthermore, the moderating effect of CRL (contingent reward leadership) was investigated in the relationships between the two types of TFL styles and OC. CRL had contradictory moderating effects only for the Korean sample. CRL strengthened the positive relationship between GTFL and OC, whereas CRL weakened the positive relationship between ITFL and OC. The research findings provide useful implications for managerial practice on effective leadership styles in cross-cultural contexts.