Abstract:

The present paper aims to identify the dominant leadership style (autocratic/transactional, democratic/transformational and laissez-faire/liberal) of SME owner-managers from Catalonia, Spain and to analyse how their distribution are influenced by several factors, such as Hofstede’s cultural dimension, the company’s maturity level and the respondent’s gender. Moreover, the article studies the impact of the COVID-19 crisis upon the Catalan business environment. Our study is based on a quantitative, empirical research conducted on a sample of 164 small business owner-managers from Catalonia, Spain. Our findings show that most of the respondents practice a democratic/transformational leadership style. At the same time, we arrived at the conclusion that the company’s maturity level influences the leadership style of the owner manager in a direct and positive way, while there are no significant differences between the dominant leadership style of male and female SME owner-managers. Furthermore, our research is showing that the Catalan business environment has been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, most of our respondents reducing their operational capacity in some degree or the other.