The Relationship Between Culture, Manager’s Leadership Styles, and Employees’ Motivation Level in a Bahraini Service Organisation Environment
The study explored the interrelation between leadership styles, employee motivation, and culture among Bahraini employees and managers in Victory Training Development Institute (VTDI) - a vocational training organization located in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Using a pragmatic case study design, the study employed a mixed method approach to address the research problem. The theoretical framework, which was developed through the guidance of leadership, motivation, and culture theories, posited that cultural constructs may affect the manager’s adoption of leadership approaches, as well as the employees’ work values. Because Arab culture is characterized by respect for authority, strict enforcement of rules, and tribalistic values and belief, it was expected to affect leadership negatively, as most managers would prefer a traditional passive approach over modern ones. On the contrary, the results of the study revealed that most Bahraini employees apply a combination of transactional and transformational elements in their leadership style, while only few maintains a traditional passive style. Results also showed that Bahraini employees value intrinsic factors more than extrinsic ones. The results also confirmed that a combination of transactional and transformational leadership elements were more effective in motivating employees than a traditional passive laissez-faire approach. Additional findings suggest that cultural factors affect both the manager’s leadership style and the employee’s perception of leadership effectiveness. A new theoretical framework based on the conceptual framework and the results was presented to explain in details the discovered phenomenon as well as the research’s contribution to knowledge.
Manager's leadership styles, Employees' Motivation, Culture
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