Supervisory styles and cultural contexts: A comparative study

This paper reports the results of a part of a study into supervisory behaviours in a sample of firms located in Japan, Britain, the USA and Hong Kong. The findings show that supervisors' styles fall into two distinctive and similar forms (genotypes) - task-oriented and employee-oriented, but the employees' perceptions of these two forms and the specific behaviours required of a supervisor (phenotypes) vary depending on their cultural context. On the basis of the present research and similar studies it is argued that an appropriate research design for studying leadership and management styles and processes in organizations should recognize the distinction between genotypic and phenotypic aspects of these processes and devise a methodology which could capture both. © 1995.