National leaders reflect national character

Silvio Berlusconi is on holiday. The second longest-serving Italian prime minister since the war, and the third richest man in Italy, is taking a well-deserved rest away from the divorce and sex scandals that have dogged him most of the year. Politicians and sex scandals are nothing new in any country, but the ability of Berlusconi to survive scandal seems to outsiders to be particularly Italian. So, to what can we learn from Berlusconi about the extent to which leaders reflect the characteristics of their countries of origin? This question has gripped social scientists for years. Starting with Geert Hofstede’s study over thirty years ago of IBM managers and employees in over 40 countries, which lead to the book, “Cultures’ Consequences,” researchers have attempted to classify the cultural differences demonstrated by staff working for the same company in different countries. The most recent launched in the early 1990s is the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness research program, (or GLOBE for short) which was set up by Wharton professor Robert House. GLOBE has over 160 researchers surveying and analysing the values and behaviours of 17,000 middle managers drawn from the banking, food processing, and telecommunications sectors, in more than 60 distinct societies.

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