Followers' cultural values and need for leadership

In this study, whether the importance of leadership differs with regard to follower cultural values has been investigated. By building on the cultural value literature and path-goal theory of leadership, we propose that the cultural values increase the need for leadership of individuals and this will in turn increase the strength of the effect of leadership behaviors on work attitudes. Data was collected from a cross functional, cross-organizational sample of 531 white collar employees and 77 managers. As a result of this research, it was observed that the cultural values moderates the relationship between the leadership behaviors and work attitudes, however it was also observed that need for task and relationship oriented leadership did not mediate this effect. On the other hand, it was found that cultural values affect the need for task and relationship oriented leadership of individuals in the predicted direction by the theoretical framework offered by this study. This result reveals that, need for task and relationship oriented leadership is not a significant motivator enough to affect the relationship between culture, leadership behaviors and work attitudes and possibly more strong motivators stemming from cultural values are more effective in moderating these relationships. Basing on the findings, this research concludes that, later cross-cultural leadership studies should investigate the mechanisms that culture moderates the leadership in order to validate that the culture affects the leadership behaviors through proposed mechanisms.