The GLOBE Project

Under the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) Research Project, an international group of social scientists and management scholars studied cross-cultural leadership. In 1993, Robert J. House founded the project at the University of Pennsylvania. The project looked at 62 societies with different cultures, which were studied by researchers working in their home countries. This international team collected data from 17,300 middle managers in 951 organizations. They used qualitative methods to assist their development of quantitative instruments. The research identified nine cultural competencies and grouped the 62 countries into ten geographic clusters, including Latin American, Nordic European, Sub-Saharan, and Confucian Asian.

The Globe Project

Logo for the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) Project.

Bases for Leadership Comparisons

The GLOBE project identified nine cultural dimensions, called competencies, with which the leadership approaches within geographic clusters can be compared and contrasted:

1. Performance orientation refers to the extent to which an organization or society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence.
2. Assertiveness orientation is the degree to which individuals in organizations or societies are assertive, confrontational, and aggressive in social relationships.
3. Future orientation is the degree to which individuals in organizations or societies engage in future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying gratification.
4. Human orientation is the degree to which individuals in organizations or societies encourage and reward individuals for being fair, altruistic, friendly, generous, caring, and kind to others.
5. Collectivism I (institutional collectivism) is the degree to which organizational and societal institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.
6. Collectivism II (in-group collectivism) is the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families.
7. Gender egalitarianism is the extent to which an organization or a society minimizes gender role differences and gender discrimination.
8. Power distance is the degree to which members of an organization or society expect and agree that power should be unequally shared.
9. Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which members of an organization or society strive to avoid uncertainty by reliance on social norms, rituals, and bureaucratic practices to alleviate the unpredictability of future events.

GLOBE Leadership Dimensions

Following extensive review of the research, GLOBE participants grouped leadership characteristics into six dimensions. Researchers then made recommendations about how dimensions of culture and leadership could distinguish behavior in one country or culture from another.

Known as the six GLOBE dimensions of culturally endorsed implicit leadership, these leadership dimensions include:

1. Charismatic or value-based: Characterized by integrity and decisiveness; performance-oriented by appearing visionary, inspirational, and self-sacrificing; can also be toxic and allow for autocratic commanding.
2. Team-oriented: Characterized by diplomacy, administrative competence, team collaboration, and integration.
3. Self-protective: Characterized by self-centeredness, face-saving, and procedural behavior capable of inducing conflict when necessary, while being conscious of status.
4. Participative: Characterized by non-autocratic behavior that encourages involvement and engagement and that is supportive of those who are being led.
5. Human orientation: Characterized by modesty and compassion for others in an altruistic fashion.
6. Autonomous: Characterized by ability to function without constant consultation.