National Culture, Leadership Styles and Job Satisfaction

Studies have shown repeatedly that national cultural systems, as well as individual cultures, greatly affect the corporate cultural system in many ways. For example, national culture influences managerial decision-making, leadership styles, and human resource management practices. This study examines the mediating role of the national culture (power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) on the relationship between leadership styles (transformational, transactional, and laissez-fair leadership style) and job satisfaction among academic staff in public universities in the UAE. A quantitative approach was used in this study, and a structured questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale was distributed to 326 respondents from the academic staff in the UAE public universities. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The results revealed that national culture mediates the relationship between, transformational leadership style, transactional leadership style, laissez-fair leadership style, and job satisfaction. National culture appears to mediate the relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction among academic staff in UAE public universities, according to the findings. The findings also revealed how transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership affect job satisfaction among academic staff in UAE public universities.