1. “The Role of International Experience To
Transformational Leadership: Do Transformational
Leaders Require International Experience?”
Transformational leadership is one of the most recent conceptualization of leadership
concepts. It has been specified as an important mechanism of introducing organizational
changes. Generally, transformational leadership is viewed as superior to the more
conventional transactional leadership and produces desirable leadership outcomes. The
identified aspects of transformational leadership theory have resulted in a lack of empirical
support for the hypothesized factor structure of the model, and very strong relationships
among the leadership components.
However, Transformational leadership is an inimitable topic in Bangladesh. Studies on
transformational leadership have not done yet.
This report is prepared on the basis of justifying that the international experience influences
transformational leadership style or not. The report focuses on five Asian business leaders to
justify the above statement.
Hypothesis :
H1: The degree of international experience positively correlates with higher level of
transformational leadership style.
H2: The above mentioned relationship is affected by amount of time spent, number of
country visited, purpose of visit, number of different cultures covered and dispersion between
home and foreign cultures.
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2. Therefore a model is also been prepared to analyze this hypothesis properly which is also
presented be below.
Model
-Amount to time spent
-Number of country visited
-Purpose
-Number of different culture covered
International
Experience
Transformation
Leadership Style
Formation
The Five Asian Business Leaders:
 Soichiro Honda (Founder of Honda)
 JRD Tata (Head of Tata Group)
 Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries)
 Akio Toyoda (TOYOTA Motors)
 Samson H. Chowdhury (Founded the Square Group)
The Hypothesis Test:
We have analyzed the biographies and experiences of these five Asian business leaders. So
we have constructed some factors and analyzed it. These factors are presented below:
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3. Data Analysis :
1. Amount of Time Spent:
This factor is analyzed through the selected Asian business leader’s biography. Their amount
of time spent in abroad is the crucial factor to become a transformed leader.
Soichiro Honda was a Japanese engineer and industrialist, and founder of Honda. A quarter
century later, he engages as senior management outside of Japan.
JRD Tata As Ratan Tata steps down from his position as head of India's 144-year-old Tata
Group. JRD Tata was born on July 29, 1904 in Paris.
Mukesh Ambani the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited spent 1 year for study at
Stanford University in USA.
Akio Toyoda spent lots of time in abroad for different purpose. He has also studied abroad
for 2 years.
Samson H. Chowdhury founded the Square Group. He was recognized as a Global Business
Leader. He was vice-president of International Chamber of Commerce.
2. Number of Country Visited:
The above business leaders are great in their own field. For many reason they have visited
many countries. Some of them visited almost all the countries and some of them only few
countries. There is no one person who has not visited any country.
3. Purpose :
These business leaders visited many countries for their own purpose. Most of them visited for
business purpose, but one things that match with all of them “To gain knowledge and
experience“.
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4. 4. Number of Different Culture Covered:
From the leaders biographies they covered many different cultures by their visits to different
countries. Some of them go for study and some are go for the purpose of business. The reason
was to know their business practice, their cultures. By spending time abroad, the objective of
such training can partially be achieved.
5. Dispersion Between Home And Foreign Culture:
The dispersion between home and foreign culture is obvious for these business leaders we
have mentioned. These business leaders have kept their works, cultures and their countries
together. Though they had to learn many cultures for many reasons but they have always used
those knowledge and experience for their business interests and for their countries. They
applied those cultures in to their own culture just to prosper in their business.
Decision:
By this analysis we have find a decision that, the international experience positively
correlates with higher level of transformational leadership style. So H1 is accepted.
The above mentioned relationship is affected by amount of time spent, number of country
visited, purpose of visit, number of different cultures covered and dispersion between home
and foreign cultures, this is also important but not much as H1. So H2 is eliminated.
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