Discussion and conclusion
This study has investigated the effect of organisational culture and
leadership style on job satisfaction and organisational commitment in
Australian and Hong Kong samples. Also, differences between the two
samples on mean values of these variables were also investigated. The
results of this study revealed that the Australian managers scored more
highly the innovative and supportive culture measures, and on job
satisfaction and organisational commitment. This is consistent with studies
that have shown that there is strong positive link between empowerment, job
satisfaction and commitment. No significant difference between these two
samples was found in bureaucratic organisational culture or on consideration
and initiating structure leadership styles. Thus H2 is supported, but H1 is
not supported.
The rejection of H1 is an interesting finding because earlier studies have
suggested that Confucian values, high power distance, autocratic decision
making style, and family ownership in Chinese firms would provide a stronger
bureaucratic culture and initiating structure leadership style in the
organisation. The findings could possibly be explained if there were a high
proportion of managers in the sample who were working for multinational
corporations and not family-owned businesses. However, we did not obtain this
information, so this explanation is not able to be tested.