Organizational Culture and Resulting Leadership Behaviors: Empirical Evidence from Social Workers in Kuwait

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the influence of Bureaucratic, Supportive, and Innovative organizational structures on Consideration and Initiating Structure leadership behaviors. The study comprised survey of 261 purposively sampled social workers employed in Kuwaiti governmental social organizations. The Organizational Culture Index (OCI) and the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) were used for data collection, and Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine these relationships. The results of this study demonstrate that Bureaucratic cultures significantly affect both the Consideration and Initiating Structure behaviors. Moreover, Supportive organizational culture predicts Consideration, whereas little evidence is found to support if Innovative Culture has any impact on Consideration or Initiating Structure.

PRACTICE POINTS

• The predominant organizational culture of governmental social work organizations in Kuwait is Bureaucratic. Unfortunately, a smaller number of organizations exhibit a Supportive culture. Above all, the empirical evidence concerning these issues in the context of Kuwait is thin.

• Most organizations with bureaucratic cultures have leaders whose behavior have either Consideration or Initiating Structure. Those within Supportive cultures demonstrate behaviors associated with Consideration.

• Administrators in social work settings should promote Innovative and Supportive cultures instead of the predominant Bureaucratic cultures, thus enhancing the workplace environment with team-focused, people-oriented, encouraging, and trustworthy leadership behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• Kuwait
• leadership behavior
• organizational culture
• social work

Acknowledgments

This work was supported and funded by Kuwait University Research Grant No. [ZO01/19].

Disclosure statement

This work was supported and funded by Kuwait University Research Grant No. [ZO01/19]. The author knows of no other competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to have influenced this work.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Kuwait University [RIG #ZO01/19].