Abstract:

This research is a comparative analysis of the leadership styles of Romania, Spanish (Catalan), and Dutch SME's owner-managers and how these styles are influenced by different variables such as the respondent's sex and the company's maturity. Moreover, we analyzed the potential of the Hofstede cultural dimension model to explain the differences and similarities between the three countries. The study uses data regarding the leadership styles of SME owner-managers from the countries above, which was gathered in their previous research between 2015 and 2020. 50 Romanian, 100 Dutch and 164 Spanish (Catalan) SME owner-managers, who were given a survey in order to establish their dominant leadership style, forms the sample.

The results demonstrated that in all three countries, the dominant leadership style is democratic/ transformational. However, we have identified several differences regarding the distribution of the leadership styles across the sample population, which Hofstede's cultural model cannot always explain. Moreover, we have found that Romanian male owner-managers tend to be more autocratic than their Spanish (Catalan) and Dutch counterparts. Another key aspect which resulted from this study, is that Spanish and Dutch SME owner-managers tend to relinquish control of their companies as they mature (as seen from the prevalence of liberal leaders in companies with more than 10 years on the market), while their Romanian counterparts are less likely to do so.