Leadership across Cultures

Leadership in organizations has become a significant topic in scientific research over the last few decades. As businesses continue to expand their operations beyond their home countries, the topic of attracting, maintaining and developing people who can successfully perform in global environment is receiving more and more attention. It’s important to acknowledge that people from different cultural backgrounds have different expectations of what leadership looks like in various national and organizational contexts, e.g. in public institutions, in multinational companies or in higher education.

By way of illustrating the challenges of leadership, this book will examine several issues related to individual perspective of leadership (competencies and attributes of leaders), mezzo/institutional perspective (leaderless organizations, leading public institutions, leaders of higher education, expatriates on foreign assignment) and macro/national perspective (European and Chinese cases).

This book is a result of the collective efforts of thirteen scholars representing different universities and it is aimed at academics, students, managers and entrepreneurs engaged in intercultural interactions.

Łukasz Sułkowski is professor of Economic and Social Sciences at the Jagiellonian University, Clark University and University of Social Sciences. He is a Vice-President for International Affairs of the Polish Accreditation Committee and Director of Clark University Branch Campus at the University of Social Sciences in Poland. He is also Head of the Chair of Management of Higher Education Institutions at the Jagiellonian University.

Jerzy Mączyński is professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of Social Sciences in Poland. His major interests are managerial effectiveness and management problems associated with the conversion of Poland’s previously centralized economy to a free market economy. He was a visiting professor at several universities in the United States and Western Europe.

Sylwia Przytuła is professor of management sciences at Wrocław University of Economics and University of Social Sciences. She was a visiting professor at Malta University and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid on MBA Program. Her research and scientific interests are expatriation, international HRM, cultural differences in global mobility and migration.