Introduction to the Special Issue on Leadership and Culture in the Middle East

Abstract

This Special Issue on ‘‘Leadership and Culture in the Middle East’’ focuses on values and practices as well as effective leadership attributes that are widely shared in Middle Eastern societies. National boundaries are utilised to approximate societal culture and leadership preconceptions. Data collected from four Middle Eastern nations (Iran, Kuwait, Turkey, and Qatar) form the basis of the articles in this Special Issue. Furthermore, at least part of the data collected in these four societies is composed as part of the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness) project. A review of the literature shows that there is scarce knowledge on societal and organisational culture and leadership practices in Iran, Kuwait, Turkey, and Qatar. In this respect, this forum would be an important document for providing information on societal and organisational norms and practices, and leadership attributes that are perceived to be effective in this region of the world. The first paper in this collection, entitled ‘‘Project GLOBE: An Introduction’’, is written by Robert House, Mansour Javidan, and Peter Dorfman. It provides an overview of the GLOBE project, a unique and large scale study of leadership and culture in 61 nations. GLOBE examines the interrelationships among societal culture, organisational culture, and organisational leadership using multiple methodologies. The constructs, objectives and the model utilised in the GLOBE project are described in this manuscript. Ikhlas A. Abdalla and Moudi A. Al-Hamoud wrote the second paper entitled ‘‘Exploring the Implicit Leadership Theory in the Arabian Gulf States’’. This article on the Arab culture focuses on quantitative and