Does “the servant as leader” translate into Chinese? A cross-cultural meta-analysis of servant leadership

verifiedmedium profile · European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology · 2019

McCune Stein, Aaron; Bell, Chris M.; Ai Min, Yan

10.1080/1359432x.2019.1703681 · CrossRef: verified

How this was studied

paradigm: positivistpurpose: explanatory causaldesign: meta analytic synthesisidentification: nonetime: cross sectionaldata: quantitative survey

A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.

analysis: meta analysis · validity (validity): internal unclear · external addressed · construct addressed · statistical addressed · classifier confidence 0.85

What this article reports

The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.

servant leadershiporganizational commitment

r = 0.547 · k=27 · grade A · unverified

Models this article informs

The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.

In the authors’ words

The article’s own abstract.

Servant leadership is a popular style of ethically-based leadership developed in the cultural context of the United States and other Anglo-Saxon (Anglo) countries with a similar culture and managerial context. However, much of the empirical research on this leadership style has been conducted in China, a country with very different cultural and managerial traditions. It is not known whether the results of research conducted in China can be integrated into a general theory of servant leadership. It is also unknown whether servant leadership, which is widely promoted as an effective leadership style in Anglo countries, will be equally effective for all employee outcomes in China. To answer these questions, we perform a meta-analysis of servant leadership research (k = 112, n = 35,716) which compares the effects of servant leadership on employees in China with its effects on employees in Anglo countries. Results show that there is no significant difference in effect sizes between Chinese and Anglo employees for job performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, creative behaviour, affective commitment, and job satisfaction. The effect of servant leadership on leader-member exchange may be stronger for Anglo employees. Implications for servant leadership theory and managerial practices in China are discussed.

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