Title: Leadership and spirituality in business and public administration: a cross-cultural empirical study comparing the USA and France

Authors: Yvette Essounga-Njan; Helisse Levine; Ning Ding; Samuel Mercier

Addresses: School of Business and Economics, Department of Management, Fayetteville State University, 1200 Murchison Road, SBE 388, Fayetteville, NC 28301, USA ' School of Business, Public Administration and Information Sciences, Long Island University, One University Plaza, 7th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA ' Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China ' Institute of Business Administration, University of Burgundy, 2, Bd Gabriel, 21000, Dijon, France

Abstract: In this discussion we build on previous work on the role of ethics in shaping the behaviour of leaders in business and public administration to investigate the relationship between leadership spirituality, the environment springing from such leadership, and the resulting followers' attributions of leader effectiveness in the USA and France. Survey data collected from the USA and France were used to test a composite construct of spiritual leadership including (a) accountability, (b) rationality, and (c) honesty. The results of hypothesis tested suggest followers' attributions of leaders' positive outcomes increase in proportion with increases in leader's spirituality. These results are indicative of a state of affairs that will force new standards to be written in political books, government manuals, and history books. This study contributes to the standards research by bridging ethical standards, spirituality, and organisational performance.

Keywords: leadership success; spirituality; ethical standards; economic performance; USA; United States; France; business administration; public administration; cross-cultural study; ethics; leader effectiveness; spiritual leadership; accountability; rationality; honesty; organisational performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSS.2013.058220

International Journal of Services and Standards, 2013 Vol.8 No.4, pp.295 - 314

Received: 24 Aug 2013
Accepted: 24 Aug 2013
Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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