Relationship between geo-cultural identity and leadership characteristic preferences of followers in a virtual environment
type: CreativeWork
description: Advances in technology, transportation, and changing attitudes of working in other cultures have enabled companies to compete in the global marketplace. To create, develop, and manage geographically and culturally dispersed teams, organizations are tasked with understanding the multi-faceted dimensions of a team working virtually. This study was undertaken to explore the relationship between geo-cultural identity and leadership characteristic preference of followers in a virtual environment. A review of earlier research identified five leadership characteristics that were tested in this study - communication, technical skills, trust / relationship building, vision, and collaboration. Information was gathered on how participants ranked these five leadership characteristics, and on the participants' perception of which characteristic was most important to a manager in each of four geo-cultural regions. The participant pool was virtual team members who worked for multi-national companies. Twenty companies participated. There were sixty-two usable responses - forty-nine from North America, ten from Latin America, three from Europe, and none from Asia Pacific. Descriptive and inferential statistics reported that overall, the participants ranked the Communicative and the Trust / Relationship Building leadership characteristics the most significant. The participants ranked the Visionary and Collaborative leadership characteristics third and fourth and the Technological leadership characteristic fifth. The answers to the qualitative question at the end of the survey lent support to the quantitative analysis. Although the North American participants ranked the five leadership characteristics similarly to the overall group, the Latin American participants ranked Communicative first and the remaining four not significantly different. The participants' perception varied of which leadership characteristic was most important to a manager in each region. Participants perceived tha…
abstract: Advances in technology, transportation, and changing attitudes of working in other cultures have enabled companies to compete in the global marketplace. To create, develop, and manage geographically and culturally dispersed teams, organizations are tasked with understanding the multi-faceted dimensions of a team working virtually. This study was undertaken to explore the relationship between geo-cultural identity and leadership characteristic preference of followers in a virtual environment. A review of earlier research identified five leadership characteristics that were tested in this study - communication, technical skills, trust / relationship building, vision, and collaboration. Information was gathered on how participants ranked these five leadership characteristics, and on the participants' perception of which characteristic was most important to a manager in each of four geo-cultural regions. The participant pool was virtual team members who worked for multi-national companies. Twenty companies participated. There were sixty-two usable responses - forty-nine from North America, ten from Latin America, three from Europe, and none from Asia Pacific. Descriptive and inferential statistics reported that overall, the participants ranked the Communicative and the Trust / Relationship Building leadership characteristics the most significant. The participants ranked the Visionary and Collaborative leadership characteristics third and fourth and the Technological leadership characteristic fifth. The answers to the qualitative question at the end of the survey lent support to the quantitative analysis. Although the North American participants ranked the five leadership characteristics similarly to the overall group, the Latin American participants ranked Communicative first and the remaining four not significantly different. The participants' perception varied of which leadership characteristic was most important to a manager in each region. Participants perceived tha…
author: Howard, Tom, author
author: Geroy, Gary, advisor
author: Morgan, George, committee member
author: Yang, Ray, committee member
author: Harbour, Cliff, committee member
language: eng
language: English
keywords: correlation analysis, studies, cultural relations, cultural differences, collaboration, multiculturalism and pluralism
date published: 2004
date modified: 2026-07-27T19:13:11Z
provider: Colorado State University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Colorado State University. Libraries

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/243220

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.25675/3.026074