Effective leadership in the Mexican maquiladora: challenging common expectations

This article reports a cross-cultural study of Mexican and U.S. leaders in Mexican maquiladoras. The research builds on relational demography to determine if leader ethnicity, regional Mexican culture, and organizational affiliation moderate the impact of leadership behavior on important organizational outcomes. We examined the impacts of specific leader behaviors on follower attitudes and performance. Contrary to expectations from the current cross-cultural leadership literature, managerial leaders from the United States had approximately the same effects on the Mexican workforce as managerial leaders from Mexico. However, regional differences within Mexico and organizational affiliation were significant moderators. We postulate that there are at least two leader prototypes in Mexico: the “transitional” leader and the more “traditional” leader. Additional implications of these findings for leadership in Mexico are discussed.