Conceptualizations of Teamwork and Leadership: A Cross- Cultural Analysis

The present study investigated differences in the conceptualization of teamwork and leadership in two countries with culturally diverse backgrounds, Romania and the United States. We expected to find between-culture differences in the conceptualizations of teamwork and leadership based on cultural antecedents (collectivistic societal and in-group values). We also investigated a potential cultural shift in the Romanian nation, based on age. The conceptualizations of teamwork and leadership were examined and compared using Pathfinder.

The Romanian sample displayed higher collectivistic values than the U.S. sample. A cultural shift was observed in the Romanian nation, such that the younger participants reported lower collectivistic in-group values and higher collectivistic societal values when compared to the older Romanian participants. Unexpectedly, the younger U.S. participants reported higher collectivistic in-group values than the older U.S. participants.

The older Romanian participants’ teamwork schemas displayed lower coherence than the older U.S. participants’ teamwork schemas. However, a comparison of the younger groups’ (Romanian and U.S.) teamwork schema structure revealed that their average coherences did not differ.

A comparison of leadership schemas revealed that the younger Romanian’s schema structure was less coherent than that of the younger U.S. participants. Similarly, the older Romanian participants’ leadership schema displayed lower coherence than that of the older U.S. participants’.

In the present study, collectivistic societal and in-group values did not correlate significantly with either teamwork or leadership schema coherence.