Transformational Leadership Among Thai, Japanese, and American Manager According to Thai Subordinates View Points

Abstract

Because of the global business management. The foreign direct investment from Japan, and America have been increased in Thailand among the past decade. Those heavily investments have supported Thai economic and make Thai government increase the supporting of the foreign direct investment into Thailand. This is an indicator of the multicultural workforce in Thailand. Then, the purpose of this research is to study the leadership style that will be appropriate to Thai subordinates according to transformational leadership framework. This research investigated Thai subordinates' value of their managers' leadership style. Those managers were divided into three groups; Thai managers, Japanese managers, and American managers. The "Transformational Leadership by Subordinates Rating" was specifically designed for investigating the Thai subjects. The results from multiple comparison statistical analysis generate the similarity of transformational leadership style of those managers in general. In particular dimensions of the transformational framework, the result found difference for inspirational, charismatic, individual, but no difference for intellectual dimension. The general linear model analysis generates result for the comparison between each country. The results are the significant difference occur when compare the opinion of the Thai subject on Thai managers with American Managers. On the contrary, when compare the opinion of the Thai subjects on Japanese managers with American managers, and Japanese managers with Thai managers, the result found no significant difference concerning inspirational and charismatic. For the intellectual dimension, the result found no difference for all comparison. The last dimension, the result found significant difference. In considering the demographic variables that may have an impact on value of transformational style, the result found educational level, work experience, marital status, and age do not have any significant difference, but marital status have significant difference on intellectual and individual.