Executive leadership in China: an investigation into the leadership styles of Chinese executives working for American ventures in mainland China

Leadership and culture are complex fields. Some researchers assert that the transactional-transformational leadership paradigm is universally effective across cultures; whereas, some argue that specific culture traditions and norms, interaction between leaders and followers, as well as core value and belief systems are bound to differentiate leadership styles. It is realized that all these suggestions are subject to challenges and criticism. Adopting a realist philosophy and a case study strategy, this study embodies both qualitative and quantitative perspectives though the quantitative material has been used as an adjunct to the case study interviews rather than as a representative and random survey. Materials have been obtained from sixty five Chinese and American executive level managers within medium to large sized wholly American-owned companies of electronics industry in mainland China. This study argues that leadership seems to be oversimplified in Bass’ two-factor theory since there are a number of flaws that exist within the literature. The case analysis indicates that the leadership styles of Chinese and American executives can be both transformational and transactional. However, the findings suggest that American executives generally exhibited obvious transformational leadership, but also transactional contingent reward; conversely, Chinese executives displayed modest transformational leadership and more transactional management-by-exception (active)