Determinants of management styles in business and nonbusiness organizations

B. M. Bass and E. R. Valenzi (1974) postulated that power and information are major factors in determining the extent to which 5 leadership styles are used and presented a set of hypotheses concerning the way power and information affect these styles. Management Styles Survey data from 224 Israeli executives were used to test the Bass-Valenzi hypothesis and to analyze the effects of aggregating data from business and nonbusiness organizations (BOs and NBOs). In BOs, direction and power were positively correlated, and in NBOs they were negatively correlated. When data from both types of organizations were aggregated, no correlation was found between power and direction. The methodological aspects of using aggregate data in tests of the Bass-Balenzi hypotheses, including regression and smallest space analysis, are discussed. It is shown that such procedures may cause aggregation bias, and it is suggested that the Bass-Valenzi hypotheses are more applicable to BOs than to NBOs. Ss from NBOs tended to employ more of the direction style and less of the participation style of leadership than executives in BOs. The results, however, also indicate that interorganizational differences in styles are mainly attributable to differences in organizational norms, climate, and structure, and not to differences in power and information. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).