CULTURAL VALUES AND LEADERSHIP PERCEPTIONS- AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION ACROSS EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

This research explores complex links between cultural values and leadership perceptions in a sample of European university students, which is based on a comprehensive multi-country data collected over five academic years. The study suggests that deeply held cultural norms, societal beliefs, and value orientations significantly influence students’ preferences for the types of leadership, ethical decision-making and hierarchical engagement they most admire, as well as the antecedents of these preferences. Results reveal that students from collectivist cultures have a significantly stronger preference for participative, transformational, and ethically based leadership and a significantly weaker preference for transactional, competitive, or achievement-based leadership than those from individualistic or high uncertainty-avoidance cultures. Gender, field of study, and socioeconomic status as moderating variables also show that perceptions are nuanced, attesting to the complex relationship among individual, structural, and cultural factors. Locating these results in the current multi-cultural leadership literature, the research offers empirical justification for the importance for culturally aware leadership development in HE, and emphasises on the implications for curriculum, institutional and trans-national managerial training programs.