Bewertung des Arabian Journal of Business and Management

The Relationship between Managers’ Cognitive Style and Their Leadership Type as Moderated by Organizational Culture

Abstract

Alireza Hejazi

Current research examined the relationship between managers’ cognitive style and their leadership type as moderated by organizational culture. The perceptions of subordinates were surveyed to explore the relationships. The population of the current study was English speaking knowledge workers, who were subordinates under a manager at least for three years. The sample consisted of 140 subordinates gathered through snowball sampling method. The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) and Managerial Behavior Instrument (MBI) were used as measurements. Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to test 24 hypotheses of the study. While the adaptive cognitive style could be a predictor of producer, harddriver, regulator, and monitor leadership types, the innovative cognitive style could not predict any leadership type. The findings of current research contribute to the study of behavioral complexity in leadership by introducing a new paradigm in which the effectiveness of managers originates from the coordination between their adaptive cognitive style and compete and control oriented leadership types.