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JMD
29,4 Age cohort effects, gender, and
Romanian leadership preferences
Erich C. Fein
364 School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Aharon Tziner
Received 4 July 2008 Schools of Behavioral Sciences and Business Administration,
Revised 24 August 2009
Accepted 27 November 2009
Netanya University College, Netanya, Israel, and
Cristinel Vasiliu
Faculty of Commerce, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to examine preferences for both transformational and transactional
leadership behavior for gender- and age-based cohort differences. The purpose of this research is to
enhance leadership and organizational change initiatives in Romania via the identification of age
cohort and gender effects with respect to attitudes towards common leadership behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach – The research is conducted via a survey through the
administration of questionnaires. The sample consists of 324 managers from commercial and
service organizations in Romania, a country in which this issue has not previously been investigated.
Findings – The findings reveal that there are differences in preferences for leadership behavior
based on age cohorts that reached maturity before or after the fall of Ceauşescu during the 1989
revolution. Also, female participants displayed a greater preference for transformational leadership
behaviors relative to transactional leadership behaviors.
Originality/value – This is the first study to examine the effects of leadership preference based on
age cohorts in Romania. The study also is one of the first to empirically examine the effects of age
cohorts on leadership after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. As such, these findings offer
guidance in the development and implementation of leadership development initiatives and change
management interventions for organizations operating in Romania, and present one example of
cohort-based and leadership-specific attitude change in a country that is transitioning from
communism to a free market system.
Keywords Leadership, Transactional leadership, Transformational leadership, Gender, Romania
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Although the issue of organizational leadership has attracted a great deal of interest in the
social science literature within the last century (e.g., Kaiser et al., 2008), the majority of
these studies are based on conceptual models or data derived from Western cultures. In
recent decades, researchers have increasingly called for a re-examination of current social
science theories with the goal of detecting to what extent theories drawing upon Western
cultural values and precepts are tenable with non-Western individuals (Hofstede, 2001;
Journal of Management Development Hofstede and Peterson, 2000; House et al., 2004; Javidan and House, 2001). For instance,
Vol. 29 No. 4, 2010
pp. 364-376 Peng and Tjosvold (2008) suggest that leader-subordinate relationship quality may relate
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited differently to conflict resolution tactics among Chinese than among Westerner
0262-1711
DOI 10.1108/02621711011039169 individuals, where regardless of salient interpersonal relationships, cultural values
predispose Western individuals to open-conflict management while Chinese individuals Romanian
are predisposed to conflict avoidance. Knowledge of such differences is particularly leadership
important when addressing issues of management development across cultures.
preferences
International management development
Management development is a broad term that describes a range of activities involved
in improving managerial performance. When organizations embrace a strategy of 365
adapting to business in other cultures, creating developmental activities that increase
the cross-cultural communication and relational abilities of managers can become a
key objective (Hawrylyshyn, 1985). In particular, understanding cultural determinants
of behavior is often a critical part of producing higher skills in communication and in
relating to others in cross-cultural contexts. And in the case of an organization that is
venturing into different cultural markets, the degree of fit in a particular new market
may depend largely on the skills of managers in adapting their communication and
other interpersonal behaviors to a new culture.
We consider leadership training to be a central type of management development
for cross-cultural operations. Specifically, leadership training is type of management
training that includes a primary focus on communication with various types of people,
primarily to influence individuals to exert effort towards organizational objectives
(London, 1985). A key aspect of the interpersonal skill required by effective managers
is to effectively modifying interpersonal communication. Modifying communication
styles is particularly relevant when groups of subordinates bring important differences
in values, beliefs, and preferences – such as preferences for specific types of leadership
behaviors – to the work environment. Thus, it makes sense to include information on
preferred leadership preferences when developing and implementing managerial
training for adaption within a new cultural setting.
In this respect, a key aspect of intercultural competence is to develop listening,
observational, and communication skills so that personal values, norms, and
behavioral preferences can be compared to those of managers from other cultures. As
noted by De Bettignies (1985), if managers can be sensitive to such differences they are
then able to adjust their own communication and other interpersonal behavior to best
match the preferences of people from other cultures. Managers who are effective in this
process will tend to decrease perceived uncertainty during cross-cultural operations,
and this type of development can be critical for long-term organizational effectiveness
(De Cieri et al., 2008).
While leadership is a broad term, the essential aspects of leadership tend to focus on
influence processes used in organizations – specifically in influencing employees to
willingly contribute to the attainment of organizational goals (Hackman and Johnson,
2004; Yukl and Van Fleet, 1991). Theories of leadership inhabit a large conceptual
range and include approaches that focus on individual differences, situational
characteristics, or some combination of the two. Most researchers agree that there has
been significant progress from early trait and behavior-based theories to present
thinking that stresses composite theories of leadership (Ilies et al., 2005; Yukl and Van
Fleet, 1991), although consideration of specific perspectives and particular contexts
still appear in the literature (Egri and Herman, 2000; Zaccaro, 2007).
In recent years, interest has been paid to a broad spectrum of leadership behaviors,
such as transactional and transformational leadership, as well as to their cross-cultural
JMD applicability (De Hoogh et al., 2005; Judge and Bono, 2000; Offermann and Hellmann,
29,4 1997; Tsui et al., 2006). Some recent theories assert that two major types of leader
behaviors – transactional and transformational – are both necessary for effective
leaders and may be present in various combinations depending on situational demands
(Avolio and Bass, 2002). Thus, much current work in leadership research asserts the
importance of specific transactional and transformational leadership behaviors,
366 although modifying elements such as situational demands and specific organizational
contexts are still considered relevant (Dvir et al., 2002; Rubin et al., 2005; Schaubroeck
et al., 2007).

Transactional and transformational behaviors


Transactional leadership behaviors involve structuring the performance
environment to assist employees in achieving organizational objectives and
receiving rewards, while transformational behaviors focus primarily on creating
changes in followers’ values, self-perceptions, and psychological needs. A growing
body of research suggests that both types of behaviors are associated with effective
leadership (Antonakis and House, 2002; Dumdum et al., 2002; Judge and Piccolo,
2004). Although transactional behaviors often result in successful leadership (Avolio
and Bass, 1991), it appears that transformational behaviors may make an added
contribution (Antonakis and House, 2002), via an emphasis on intrinsic motivation
that augments the extrinsic elements of the transactional approach. In our present
study, we measured behavioral preferences for both transactional and
transformational leadership, as these categories are frequently used in leadership
research (Bono and Judge, 2004; Eagly et al., 2003). Furthermore, preferences for
types of leadership behaviors have been related to gender in previous studies (Beam
et al., 2004; Vecchio and Boatwright, 2002). Also, the approach of investigating
preferences for leadership behaviors versus actual behaviors enabled us to capture a
broader range of leadership phenomena.
In addition to gender effects, there is evidence that individuals’ receptivity to
transformational and transactional leadership may be moderated by cultural context.
Specifically, the positive relationship between transactional leadership behaviors and
desired employee attitudes (e.g., satisfaction with supervisor, organizational
citizenship) appears to be strongest for employees from individualistic cultures,
while the positive relationship between transformational leadership and desired
attitudes is strongest for employees from cultures with collectivistic values (Walumba
et al., 2007). We therefore explored the relationship between age cohort effects and
preferred leadership style in Romania, where this issue has not previously been
addressed. We feel that age cohort differences will reflect changes in values because
there is evidence of an age cohort effect in Romania, where individuals who reached
maturity after the end of the communist era are closer to Western individuals in respect
to work-related values. In contrast, based on the common life experience of living under
communism, it appears that older individuals have work-related values that are more
authoritarian.
Following Romania’s entry into the European Union (EU), numerous international
companies have begun operating in the country. As the cumulative body of knowledge
indicates that differences in cultural values preclude the automatic transfer of findings
from one culture to another, it is of considerable importance to discover Romanian
leadership style preferences and how they relate to gender and age cohorts in this Romanian
culture in order to ensure the effective functioning of organizations. Finally, we chose leadership
to tap the leadership preferences of managers, as it was felt they would have a
comprehensive view of organizational life. Moreover, managers are not only leaders preferences
with subordinates of their own, but they also have personal experience as followers
(Kelley, 1992), whether prior to their promotion to management or in their present
status in reporting to higher ranking levels. 367
Cross-cultural differences
One area where improvement is needed across current leadership theories is in
understanding how issues of diversity in culture play a role in moderating theories of
leadership. Because gender is a key individual difference that is strongly affected by
cultural background, more research is also need on gender-specific differences that
reflect development with different cultures. To this end, there is recent evidence that
suggests gender and culture may interact within specific national cultures to influence
behavior in work contexts. For example, learning regarding appropriate gender-based
behaviors and gender-relevant behavioral preferences starts in early childhood
through observational learning, and such gender images are reinforced by groups
within a culture (Cross and Markus, 1993). Thus, culturally-based beliefs regarding
gender-specific behaviors are learned early in life, and over time can result in
significant differences in constructs such as values and needs, and specific attitudes,
such as attitudes towards work (Konrad et al., 2000). With the trend toward
globalization, it is becoming even more important to understand how difference across
cultures, including gender-based differences within cultures, may affect theoretical
systems that were developed mainly in North American contexts, such as the dominant
theories of leadership in the organizational literature.

Preferences for leadership behaviors


Based on such interactions between gender and culture, the desirability of specific
leadership behaviors may change across cultures in part due to gender-based
differences in behavioral preferences. The desirability of types of leadership behaviors,
for example, may be related to gender-specific behaviors and roles within different
cultures. Given this assumption, it is important for managers to understand how
different types of leadership behaviors are perceived differently by male and female
employees within specific cultures, and we feel that gender should be considered a
fundamental element of diversity that can have effects on management practices
across cultures.
We have also chosen to examine gender and cultural differences in preferences for
types of leadership behaviors because existing research suggests that females exhibit a
stronger preference for transformational types of leadership behavior such as
consultative behaviors, collaboration, and mentoring, in contrast to transactional
behaviors (Vecchio and Boatwright, 2002). In spite of this finding, understanding
gender-based preferences for leadership behaviors is a deficient area of knowledge
in gender differences research. In particular, we see a need to examine questions related
to gender-specific leadership preferences, such as types of interactions that may be
found between gender and national culture. Accordingly, in this paper we present an
analysis regarding the relatively neglected question of whether gender is associated
JMD with preferences for specific types of leadership behaviors, but we do so in the specific
29,4 cultural context of Romania.

Romanian culture
The concept of culture has become an essential factor in understanding economic and
business environments, and the associated link of how national culture impacts
368 leadership behavior and leadership phenomena is appreciated by most organizations.
There are few organizational leadership studies that have been done in Romania,
although with Romania’s entry into the European Union, such studies may increase
because their results may provide important information for companies that wish to
extend operations into Romania. In general, Romanian cultural history stresses an
autocratic leadership style due to strong historic elements of economic centralization
and the structural remains of communism. Thus, in Romania there is a strong value on
traditionalism, and managers lean towards a more task oriented leadership style
(Aioanei, 2006). During the communist era, monopolized industries were under state
control and forms of leadership where managers displayed significant engagement
with employees were not rewarded. However, because Romania is now in the process
of aligning with western economies, Romanian managers – particularly the generation
of managers that can recall the difficulties of working within a communist labor
system – are beginning to understand the need for a different style leadership.
Accordingly, Aioanei (2006) documents a trend where the balance of preference for
autocratic versus democratic leadership behaviors has shifting in recent years, where
younger Romanians are more likely to lean towards democratic preferences in leader
behavior. We were interested to see if this trend would also appear in our present study
of transformational and transactional leadership, thus we included age-based cohort
effects in addition to gender effects as part of our analysis of preferred leadership
behaviors. In addition to examining national-level cultural aspects, we also recognized
the need to consider the types of organizational cultures that served as the context of
our participants. Therefore, we later discuss aspects of organizational culture while
considering the types of organizations represented in our sample.

Method
Participants
Data were collected from 324 managers in a variety of organizations in Romania. A
total of 66 percent of the participants were employed in the service sector, 28 percent in
commercial firms, 5 percent in industrial companies, and 1 percent in agricultural
organizations. Some 61 percent of respondents were male and 39 percent female, and
over 94 percent had more than 12 years of education. We employed two age cohorts in
this study, where 46 percent of the respondents were age 34 and under, while 54
percent were 35 and above. In respect to number of subordinates, 36 percent had
between one and five, 29 percent between six and ten, 9 percent between 11 and 15, 5
percent between 16 and 20, and 21 percent had 21 subordinates or more.
As noted above, most of the participants in this study (66 percent) were from
service-related organizations, which we found to be characterized by a primary cultural
alignment in accord with the traditional bureaucratic structures of Romania. This
observation is in agreement with Zdorovetchi (2008), who notes the strong connection
between the content of the national culture in Romania and the fundamental values of
organizational cultures. There was also a sizable minority of participants in our sample Romanian
(28 percent) from commercial firms such as banks. As with the service-related leadership
organizations, commercial firms in Romania have largely inherited the bureaucratic
organizational culture of previous decades. This is in accord with Otelea and Popescu preferences
(2009), who note that the culture of most Romanian companies is still highly influenced
by the traditional bureaucratic model, although in some private organizations there is a
shift towards a more entrepreneurial, open-structured, and adaptable cultures. Thus, 369
the dominant organizational culture experienced by the participants in this study was
one of a traditional bureaucratic model with formal hierarchy, standard procedures,
and inflexible organizational boundaries.

Instruments
Ohio State Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ XII). Participants
completed the Romanian version of the questionnaire consisting of items relating to their
preferred leadership behavior. They were asked to indicate the behaviors they desired
from the ideal manager, and not the actual behavior of their own manager or the
behaviors they themselves employed. Responses were marked on a 5-point scale ranging
from 5 (always) to 1 (never). For the purposes of this study, only responses on the two
factors of transformational and transactional leadership behavior were calculated. The
transformational leadership scale was comprised of 15 items designed to measure the
preference for behaviors such as intellectual stimulation, group vision, and challenge.
The internal consistency of this scale was alpha ¼ 0:83 (M ¼ 3:52, SD ¼ 0:65). The
transactional leadership scale consisted of 18 items relating to group and team
maintenance, the direction of group activities, and judgment and group problem solving.
This factor yielded an internal consistency of alpha ¼ 0:84 (M ¼ 3:79, SD ¼ 0:62). Each
participant was assigned a score for each subscale equal to the sum of his or her
responses on the relevant items. This instrument has been widely and successfully used
in previous investigations with participants of various nationalities (e.g., German,
Japanese, Korean, Turkish), including Romanians (Littrell and Valentin, 2005). In
addition to the LBDQ XII, a demographic questionnaire, tapping personal demographics
and employment variables, was also used in this study.

Procedure
The instrument was administered to approximately 400 managers. As noted above, 324
usable questionnaires were completed and returned. The first section of the inventory
consisted of the demographic questionnaire. This was followed by the Ohio State Leader
Behavior Description Questionnaire. Participants were asked to complete all the items
and return the instrument in a sealed envelope to a member of the research team.

Results
Subscale scores
Subscale scores were generated for the transactional and transformational leadership
dimensions of the LBDQ XII and were analyzed based on differences in gender and age
cohort. Table I presents basic descriptive statistics for transactional and transformational
leadership behavioral preferences as well as reliabilities and intercorrelations for these
variables.
JMD Table II presents an analysis of differences in leadership behavioral preference by
29,4 gender. As Table II reveals, several significant differences emerged in transformational
leadership preferences based on gender. Table II reveals a main effect for gender on
transformational leadership (F ¼ 5:49, p ¼ 0:02) where females displayed a preference
for higher levels of transformational leadership behaviors relative to men. However,
gender had no effect on preferences for transactional leadership (F ¼ 1:18, p ¼ 0:28).
370 This effect for gender followed expectations based on previous research (Vecchio and
Boatwright, 2002), where women showed a greater preference for transformational
leadership behaviors.
In contrast with gender-based effects, age-based cohort differences had a strong
effect on preferences for transformational leadership (F ¼ 7:07, p ¼ 0:008) and a no
effect on preferences for transactional leadership (F ¼ 3:66, p ¼ 0:057). Specifically,
we found that managers 35 years of age and older showed a higher preference for
transformational leadership than those of 34 years and lower. However, an age by
gender interaction analysis reveals that male managers of the age 34 and under are
higher on preferences for transactional than transformational leadership (M ¼ 3:5,
SD ¼ 0:61 v. M ¼ 3:3, SD ¼ 0:69; beta ¼ 20:19, p ¼ 0:002). No similar results were
detected for female managers of the same ages, male managers of the age of 35 and
above, or female managers of the age of 35 and above. Based on this comparison of
managers 35 years of age and older, who remember working under the old communist
system, and managers 34 years old or younger, who are too young to remember
conditions under the old communist regime, we feel the results of this study are only
partially in accord with the trend analysis conducted by Aioanei (2006): our
respondents value both types of leadership but they still exhibit a higher preference for
a transactional style (comparable to autocratic) than for transformational. However,
across all respondents the difference between the two cohorts of age is slightly higher
on transformational (age 34 and under, M ¼ 3:61 v. age 35 and over, M ¼ 3:41) than on

Variables Mean SD n 1 2
Table I.
Descriptive statistics, 1. Transformational 3.52 0.65 324 (0.83)
intercorrelations, and 2. Transactional 3.79 0.62 324 0.69 * (0.84)
reliabilities for leadership
preference variables Note: *p , 0.01

Gender effect
n M SD F p

Transformational preferences
Men 199 3.45 0.64 5.49 0.02
Women 125 3.62 0.65
Transactional preferences
Table II. Men 199 3.56 0.61 1.18 0.28
Differences in leadership Women 125 3.64 0.56
behavioral preferences by
gender Note: n ¼ 324
transactional (age 34 and under, M ¼ 3:65 v. age 35 and over, M ¼ 3:53) implying that Romanian
those who remember the former regime differ to a greater extent from their younger leadership
counterparts on transformational than on transactional preferences (see Table III).
preferences
Discussion
This study extends the work of several recent articles (Gunkel et al., 2007; Konrad et al.,
2000; Vecchio and Boatwright, 2002) which address the influence of gender as antecedents 371
of either actual or preferred leadership behaviors. Moreover, it is the first study to
consider this issue in the context of the Romanian culture. Earlier research has shown an
association between gender and a preference for consideration in leadership behaviors –
in that females expressed a stronger preference for consideration-based behaviors
(Vecchio and Boatwright, 2002). Thus, we expected that transformational leadership may
be more attractive to women. This expectation was validated in the present analysis,
where females displayed a preference for transformational leadership behaviors.
The work of Marshall (1994), which considers the origin of value-based differences
between men and women, offers a conceptual explanation for the gender difference that
we found in this study. Accordingly, Marshall (1994) claims that men and women can be
distinguished as broad social groups. In this sense, men and women share essential
similarities but also often approach aspects of life from different perspectives,
particularly in that women often bring different values into the workplace when
compared to male colleagues. While both sexes have access to the same value structures,
because of physical design and outcomes of social learning and social roles women are
more likely to be grounded in collections of values that stress relational interdependence,
contextual awareness, and personal integration (Marshall, 1994). Because
transformational leadership behaviors share conceptual connections with these core
feminine values such as relational interdependence and interpersonal development, it
makes sense that our study results indicated female participants displayed a greater
preference for transformational leadership behaviors compared to men.
In addition to the noted gender difference, we found a significant effect for age
cohort differences in preferences for both transformational and transactional
leadership behaviors. The similarity in preferences across ages may be due to the
fact that there is a common core of engagement oriented behaviors that underlies both
transformational and transactional leadership (Antonakis and House, 2002; Bass and

Age Gender
Age range n M SD F p F p

Transformational preferences
Male up to 34 89 3.30 0.67
Male 35 and above 110 3.58 0.57 7.07 0.008 5.49 0.02
Female up to 34 60 3.59 0.65
Female 35 and above 6 3.66 0.66
Transactional preferences
Male up to 34 89 3.50 0.61 Table III.
Male 35 and above 110 3.61 0.60 3.66 0.057 1.18 0.28 Differences in leadership
Female up to 34 60 3.56 0.59 behavioral preferences by
Female 35 and above 65 3.70 0.52 age and gender
JMD Steidlmeier, 1999; Kark and van Dijk, 2007). Indeed, we discovered a correlation of
29,4 r ¼ 0:69 (p , 0.01) between transformational and transactional leadership preferences
in the present study, which supports the contention that some element of engaged,
effective leadership, whether transformational or transactional, is superior to a
hands-off style of leadership or a general failure to assert influence in managing group
processes and outcomes.
372 The findings reveal several other interesting phenomena. First, it appears that in
understanding preferences for leadership behaviors based on gender and age cohort,
the age cohort differences have a more consistent effect across types of leadership
behavioral preference (transformational, F ¼ 7:07, p ¼ 0:008; transactional, F ¼ 3:67,
p ¼ 0:057). This result may in part be explained because age-based cohort effects are
derived largely from developmental experiences that are based in specific cultures and
times. Conceptually, this suggests that the variance in cultural leadership preferences
are explained most readily by history effects within a culture, although gender-based
effects may interact with effects of culture. Overall, the interaction of age by gender
was found insignificant although one category is excepted from this conclusion: male
managers of the age of 34 and under exhibited the lowest level on transformational
preference and the largest difference between transformational-transactional
preferences when compared with all other categories. This finding is supported by
observations from Gunkel et al. (2007) who found that effects of culture can interact
with gender differences within cultures to produce different patterns of preference for
types of leadership behaviors. Thus, the findings of this study might be interpreted as
a reflection of the Romanian cultural setting in which the study was carried out.
As noted, managers 35 years of age and over significantly preferred transformational
leadership behaviors, while the younger managers preferred the more autocratic
transactional styles of leadership. We feel this finding can be explained by two factors.
First, Romania has experienced some measure of economic decline after the break from
communism, which is not unique to Romania but is shared by a majority of Eastern
European countries. Given that the managers in our sample that are 34 years and
younger are entering work during a period of adjustment to an open economy, and given
that these managers have no memory of working conditions under communism, they
may favor a more transactional style of leadership as an alternative that would seem to
promote faster change in the current undesirable economic status quo.
Finally, we feel it is worthwhile to again consider issues of organizational culture in
addition to national culture. Organizational cultures represented in this study were
characterized by standard bureaucratic values and structures such as hierarchy, rigid
organizational boundaries, and a general mechanistic view of people embedded in the
organization. Give these types of beliefs, it makes sense that the overall preferences for
transactional leadership (M ¼ 3:79, SD ¼ 0:62) were higher than the transformational
preferences (M ¼ 3:52, SD ¼ 0:65), because the processes involved in transactional
leadership behaviors tend to be more closely aligned with rigid systems of reward,
recognition, and performance management. In fact, the presence of a bureaucratic
organizational culture might also explain how the noted gender and age cohort effects
could have become salient.
For example, in male and female managers of age 35 and over there was a preference
for transformational leadership. In the case of the bureaucratic organizational cultures in
the present sample, a desire for transformational behaviors might have become more
salient for managers 35 and over based on a significant discrepancy between desired Romanian
transformational behaviors and the current status quo represented in the organizations. leadership
This makes sense when looking at the development history of managers 35 and older,
who lived under the former communist system, and who may have formed a preference preferences
for transformational leadership behaviors based on a latent, cumulative reaction to living
in an inflexible organizational culture. The fact that current organizational cultures in
Romania still show evidence of the organizational structures from the communist era 373
could have made the felt need for transformational leadership even more salient for these
managers.
Certain limitations of this study should be noted. The first stems from the fact that it
is based on self-reports. Although existing evidence suggests that self-reports of
leadership preference are valid measures (Yukl and Van Fleet, 1991), future studies
might attempt to replicate the findings using other methods such as life history analysis,
content analysis, or in-depth interviews to examine the origins of age cohort effects.
Second, the generalizability of findings derived from a sample of Romanian
managers may be questioned. It is possible that the social and political changes that
have occurred in Eastern Europe in recent decades impact gender and leadership
preferences in these countries in unique ways (Littrell and Valentin, 2005). For
example, the results might reflect the fact that the stressful transition from the
communist to the post-communist era has caused the respondents to simultaneously
sustain two sets of preferences, the transformational and the transactional, due to
uncertainty in how the economic climate may evolve. Although this may limit the
generalizability of our results, it is in itself an important finding for businesses
interested in operating in Romania.
Furthermore, our sample consisted mainly of managers in full-time positions in
commercial and service organizations (94 percent). Future studies would do well to
examine more diverse populations, not only in terms of geography and culture, but also
in respect to organizational context. It might also be worthwhile to examine the
possibility of culturally-based moderating effects of variables not included in the current
study. The role of these predictors might be elucidated by means of qualitative studies.
In addition, we examined preferences for leadership styles in terms of the type of
behaviors the respondents believed should be employed by the ideal manager. It would
be interesting to see if the same findings emerged from a study of managers’ gender
and age profiles and their actual leadership behaviors, particularly when they endorse
their own behaviors as reflecting specific gender roles within their value systems.
Although much remains to be learned about the relationship between gender, age
cohort effects, and leadership preferences in the workplace, we believe the current
study makes an important contribution to the body of existing knowledge. As the first
investigation of its kind to be conducted in Romania, it offers insights into the factors
influencing preferences in Romanian organizations, as well as suggesting avenues for
future research in other cultures and contexts. Finally, the findings within this study
should prove useful to organizations attempting to manage leadership and change
processes in Romania.

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Corresponding author
Erich C. Fein can be contacted at: erich.fein@unisa.edu.au

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