16

Leadership and Culture in Portugal

Jorge Correia Jesuino
Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa,
Lisboa, Portugal

Portugal, a conflict I have with myself. —Alexandre O'Neil

The exergue comes from a poem about Portugal by Alexandre O'Neil (published in 1965). It reflects the malaise most of the Portuguese intelligentsia feel toward their national culture and identity. José Saramago, Nobel Prize for literature in 2000, has also claimed that he is unlikely to reach a clear understanding of the Portuguese identity in his lifetime. Most of the reflections of Eduardo Lourenço, another famous essayist, have been dedicated to trying to decipher what has already been dubbed as the Portuguese riddle. It is in itself intriguing that so many of the most gifted Portuguese thinkers should espouse such an attitude. There are no apparent reasons for questioning the Portuguese national identity. As Monteiro and & Pinto (1998) remarked:

Portugal is a political entity that has maintained stable frontiers since the thirteenth century. Its existence as an autonomous kingdom from the twelfth century on was only interrupted for little more than half a century (1580–1640). Portugal, moreover, has never confronted problems of linguistic diversity. All historians, not just those of a nationalist-corporatist bent, have generally taken the nation's existence for granted. (1988, pp. 206–207)

The roots of the intellectual's uneasiness about their own culture has to be sought not in geographical, ethnic, or religious factors but in the “decadence” of the nation that took place after the maritime discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries, and henceforth never ceased to haunt the Portuguese imaginary. This could also explain the deeply ingrained trend that, at a more popular level, can be observed among the Portuguese for self-derogatory remarks, alongside an acute sensitivity for the ridicule—a culture centered more on shame than on guilt. The example of “Fado, Football, and Fátima” could be given, often invoked as a sarcastic synopsis of the Portuguese cultural profile.

Anyway, the Portuguese now feel very proud of figures like Amália Rodrigues, the famous singer that internationalized Fado, or even football stars like Figo, considered to be the best world player, and Fátima, a holy place where Our Lady was said to have appeared to three shepherds in1917, recently canonized by the Pope, attracts an ever-growing number of pilgrims.

The “Estado Novo” (New State) that ruled in Portugal under the dictatorship of Salazar (1933–1968) and Caetano (1968–1974) actively promoted the ideal of “national regeneration,” which attempted to restore a sense of national pride, mostly grounded on the remains of the Portuguese empire. Another triptych pervading the nationalistic propaganda at the time was: “God, Fatherland, and Family.” It is far from sure that the Portuguese societal culture succeeded in internalizing this new ideology, which was in many ways similar to those of European fascist countries such as Italy and Germany. But it certainly succeeded in isolating and alienating the Portuguese from the rest of the world, hence preventing them from developing close links of collective association. In 1974, a revolution led by the military put an end to a regime of 48 years of dictatorship and paved the way for Portugal's integration in the democratic world.

The “Revolution of the Carnations” launched another famous triptych maxim: decolonization, democratization, and development. Essentially this program has now been accomplished, although the enormous handicap at the outset still places Portugal at the tail of the most developed world. Leaders and leadership, both on the political scene and in the multiple organisms of civil society, are central to this process of change and development. Their role and salience depends on the specific features of the situations they face, and their style is to a great extent shaped by the societal and organizational context within which they operate.

In the following chapter, the aim is to examine the interplay of culture and leadership in Portugal within the conceptual framework proposed by the GLOBE project. An attempt is thus made to integrate qualitative, as well as quantitative empirical data gathered from Portuguese middle managers and opinion makers. The chapter is divided into six main sections. The first seeks to present the overall description of the societal culture in terms of the political, social, and economic system. The second section introduces the GLOBE research in Portugal, and the third presents a report of the empirical findings at the level of the societal culture. The fourth section centers on leadership perceptions and in the fifth, two specific sectors are analyzed—food processing and telecommunications. Conclusions are then presented in the final section.

1.  PORTUGAL: POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL TRENDS

Historical Milestones

The political scene of modern Portugal can be divided in three main periods: the First Republic (1910–1926), the Estado Novo (1933–1974), and the democracy that followed the military coup of April 1974. Portugal was admitted to the European Union (EU; then named European Economic Community EEC) in 1986.

The First Republic. The First Republic is a period characterized politically by the cabinet instability that reflected the efforts to match the political structure to the demands of the emerging capitalism. In 1911, Portugal had a population of about 5.5 million inhabitants. The active population amounted to 2.5 million, 58% of which worked in agriculture, 25% in industry, and 17% in the tertiary sector. The population in 1930 was composed of 80% still living mostly in small towns and villages. The ever-increasing dependence on the African colonies was probably one reason for Portugal's intervention in the First World War, 1914–1918, as England's ally. In spite of the instability, some of the ideals of the republican regime were apparent in a number of political measures, for example, separation of the church from the state, the right to strike, and the approval of civil marriage. The Communist Party was founded in 1921. The economic crisis and the participation in World War I gave rise to social turmoil, paving the way for the implementation of an authoritarian regime.

Estado Novo (New State). A military coup in 1926 gave rise to the Estado Novo, whose main features were similar to the fascist movements that pervaded a number of European countries. Salazar became the minister of finance in 1928 and president of the Council of Ministers in 1932, a post that he maintained until 1968 when, ill health, following a fall, led to his replacement by his “dauphin” Marcelo Caetano. During the first period between 1932 and the end of World War II in 1945, the project of economic development centered on agriculture and the African colonies were maintained. The structure of the Portuguese economy changed only in the 1940s. Industry came to the forefront. In spite of such structural changes, Portugal was still at the tail end of European countries and was unable to stop emigration. Various attempts to fight the regime were unsuccessful. The Estado Novo was corporatist, and played a central role in institutional structures, ideology, relations with “organized interests,” and the state's economic policy. As Costa Pinto (1998) remarked, “The Estado Novo was obsessive about education” (p. 35). This did not mean it wanted to modernize; modernization only became an issue in the 1950s. In 1933, Salazar expressed the opinion that “the constitution of elites is more important than teaching the people to read” (Costa Pinto, 1998, p. 35). The Salazarist ideology was based on the doctrine of God, Fatherland, and Family.

In 1961, the Portuguese settlements in India—Goa, Damão, and Diu—were annexed by the Indian Union. In 1962, the African wars started with terrorist attacks in Luanda. Salazar's order was to embark “rapidly and forcefully” to Angola, an expression that became famous and is still present in the collective memory. The war contributed to disintegrating the regime, and resulted in the “Revolution of Carnations” in April 1974 led by the MFA (Movement of Armed Forces).

Democracy. The Revolution of 1974 was known as the Revolution of Carnations because no blood was shed. An icon of that period is a famous photo depicting a child putting a carnation in a soldier's rifle. A consequence of the Revolution, if not its very cause, was the independence granted to the African colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Cape-Verde, Angola, and Mozambique in 1975. The transition period was however very complex and conflictive. In April 1976, the Constitution was approved and Mário Soares, secretary-general of the Socialist Party, which won the first free elections, became the prime minister of the First Constitutional Government. After a period of great instability with coalition governments until 1985, there was a period of stability assured by the absolute majority, firstly involving the Social Democratic Party (1985–1995) and then the Socialist Party (1995–2002). On January 1, 1986, Portugal became a member of the EEC (today, EU). Mário Soares was elected president of the republic in February of the same year.

Political Framework

The political structure of Portugal is outlined in Table 16.1.

Political Form and Figures. In Portugal, representation of political life is still dominated by the continental European concept of left and right wings. The Parliament is a large semicircle where the members sit in accordance to their location in the political spectrum. The two main forces are the Socialists and the Social Democrats, who have been alternating in the government. They differ more in style than in political programs, which, at present, are greatly conditioned by EU directives. Political life in Portugal, like everywhere, is a natural locus for the exercising of leadership. When people are asked to evoke typical examples of Portuguese leaders, political figures come spontaneously to the forefront. Some of them even display charismatic features, making them potential historical figures. This is the case of Francisco Sá Carneiro, one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in 1974, who was killed in an air crash in 1980. The causes of the crash are still controversial, but after more than 20 years of investigation there is no evidence to support sabotage. Sá Carneiro was then prime minister and his tragic death certainly contributed to making him larger than life. His ideas and energetic style are still evoked by the Social Democratic militants. Cavaco Silva, who was prime minister for 10 years (1985–1995), and president since 2006 is another respected and authoritative voice. He also displays some charismatic traits of rigor, determination, and austerity.

TABLE 16.1
Political Structure of Portugal

	Political Structure
Official Name	Political Structure Portuguese Republic
Form of State	Parliamentary Republic
Legal System	Based on the Constitution of 1976, amended most recently in 1997.
National Legislature	Unicameral Assembleia da Republica (Parliament) of 230 members elected for a maximum term of 4 years.
Electoral System	Universal direct suffrage from the age of 18.
National Elections	March 2002; next election due by March 2006.
Head of State	President directly elected for a maximum of two consecutive 5-year terms; currently Amibal Cavaco Silva is becoming the First centre-right president since 1974.
National Government	Council of Ministers, led by a prime minister appointed by the president, whose legislative program must be approved by the Assembleia da Republica. Victory in February 2005 election section went to the Socialist party led by Jose Socrates

Another historical and prestigious figure is Mário Soares, who founded the Socialist Party in Germany in 1973. It became a party of mass support after the 1974 coup, when it challenged the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) for the working-class vote. Mário Soares was elected president of the republic for two mandates (1986–1991). Internationally, he is probably the best known Portuguese political actor. Internally, he still exerts an important influence over the public opinion.

Jorge Sampaio, former mayor of Lisbon, is another Socialist leader, who succeeded Mário Soares as president of the republic in 1996, defeating Cavaco Silva, and was then reelected in 2001. António Guterres, also from the Socialist area, became prime minister after the Socialist Party's victory in the legislative elections in 1995, repeated again in 2000. Guterres resigned as both party leader and prime minster following a heavy defeat in local elections in December 2001. As a political leader, Guterres fell into discredit due to the profligacy of his economic policy. Guterres introduced a new style of leadership, promoting dialogue with the Parliament, the people, and the media. Apparently, however, communication is not enough.

Another charismatic figure is Álvaro Cunhal, the historic leader of the Communist Party. He stood down in 1992, retaining however considerable influence. He is now almost 90 years of age. The PCP was important during the first years of the Revolution. Its support base comes from the industrial suburbs and rural south. But it has steadily eroded since the collapse of the Soviet regime and it is now in a state of crisis. Nevertheless, its influence on the unions, and specifically on those affiliated with CGTP (Confederaçäo Geral dos Trabalhadores Portuguses), is far from being negligible.

Another very active political actor is Freitas do Amaral, former founder of the Centre Democratic Party (CDS), now the Popular Party (PP), which lost the presidential elections to Mário Soares in 1986 by a small margin (42.8% vs. 51.2% of the votes). Freitas do Amaral chaired the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2000. The PP, formerly led by Paulo Portas, a rather mercurial and controversial figure, formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party, thus assuring an absolute majority in Parliament until the victory of the Socialist Party in 2005, that became the majority in the Parliament.

Other political actors could be named for the role they played during the period of the Revolution of April 1974—Military figures like Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, Vasco Gonçalves, Ramalho Eanes, who became president of the republic for two mandates (1976–1986), Vasco Lourenço, and many others. They became popular heroes for a while, and now are recalled only by the older generation of historians.

Consequently, they contributed to shaping the social representation of the role of leaders and leadership by initiating social change, but they are also a reminder of how elusive and relative an influence is in the final course of history. A final reference concerns Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo, the only Portuguese woman to become head of an independent cabinet that ruled for the short period of just 150 days (July–November 1979).

Many of those figures mentioned were, and most still are, a regular presence in the media, which also contributed to building the leadership culture within the Portuguese “public sphere.” Another source is the ever-growing (auto)biographic genre, sometimes in the form of comprehensive interviews, through which the leaders “present themselves” and give a public account of their (sometimes) controversial decisions.

Economic Highlights

Table 16.2 gives an overview of Portugal's economic data, which is discussed in detail in the following.

In the excellent and comprehensive survey of Portugal published in the Economist dated November 30, 2000, it is remarked that:

When Portugal joined the then European Community on New Year's Day 1986, its GDP per head, in terms of purchasing-power-parity (PPP), was a mere 53% of the EU average. Closing the gap has been the stated aim of the Portuguese government ever since, and progress has been swift: GDP is now 75% of the European mean. No other hopeful entrant to the European club—not the big next-door neighbor, Spain; not even Ireland, the Celtic tiger of the 1990s—has made up so much ground in its first few years of membership. Yet the gap has merely narrowed, not disappeared. Between 1987 and 1991, Portugal narrowed the gap with the EU in GDP per head by 10.7%. In the following four years it shaved off only another six percent, and in the four years after that, up to 1999, only a further 3.4. With that sort of recent record, and given the European Commission's growth forecasts for 1999–2003 (an average of 3% for the whole EU, a little less for Portugal) “convergence could take 70 years.”

TABLE 16.2
Economical Data for Portugal

Economic Indicators 2001
GDP per head ($ at PPP)	18.580
GDP (% real change)	1.66
Government expenditure (% of GDP)	42.0
Consumer price inflation (%)	4.35
Public debt (% of GDP)	54.90
Labor costs per hour (USD)	5.22
Unemployment (%)	4.05
Current-account balance/GDP	-9.17
Exchange rate (av; US$: Euro)	0.90
Population (m; year-end)	10.36
Main cities & population
Lisbon (greater urban area)	1.4
Oporto (greater urban area)	1.2
Area (sq km)	92.08
Main trading partners
Germany (% export)	19.2
(% import)	13.9
Spain       (% export)	18.6
(% import)	26.5
France     (% export)	12.6
(% import)	10.3
UK           (% export)	10.3
(% import)	5.0

Note. From Instituto Nacional de Estatística, OECD Statistics, and Eurostat.

Two years later and in part due to the international turbulence, the prospects are even worse with the public finances in crisis, the government has been forced to implement a restrictive and procyclical fiscal policy, which is exacerbating the economic downturn.

Joining the European Community in 1986 did in fact bring major benefits for the Portuguese. It permitted Portugal to rise from about half the European average to three-fourths. The structural funds from Brussels had a significant effect, namely on the country's physical infrastructure. By 1998, Portugal had 840 km of motorway, compared with only 240 km in 1987. Still, according to the Economist’s survey, “a second effect of tying itself to Europe was to make Portugal more open to trade and investment. … Foreign direct investment (FDI) more than doubled between 1985 and 1990, and more than doubled again by 1999.” A third outcome of joining Europe “has been to give Portugal macroeconomic credibility.”

But structural funds will end in 2006. On the other hand, new candidates, the Eastern European countries, have joined the club. Portugal will have to face a difficult challenge without obvious solutions in sight. Besides, in terms of structural factors such as levels of education, research and development (R&D), investment, productivity, and size of public sector, Portugal has serious handicaps requiring urgent reforms. As reported in an economic survey by the OECD (Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation):

Portugal's comparative advantage in the production and export of low technology goods made by low-skilled and low-paid labor is not a lasting strength, as competition from developing countries becomes stronger all the time. Policies to encourage the diffusion and implementation of new technologies and production processes are required … Implementation of competition policy needs to be strengthened, as more competitive markets, especially in network industries, are essential to increase productivity and put downward pressure on prices. (OECD, 2003, p. 108)

A further problem is the relative lack of experience of Portuguese entrepreneurial leaders linked to the tiny size of their companies. Big firms in Portugal have scarcely any weight in the present globalized market. “The Banco Comercial Português (BCP), the biggest private-sector bank in Portugal, ranks only fourth in Iberia and 63rd in Europe. There are only three Portuguese in the Eurotop-300 share index of leading European companies: BCP, Portugal Telecom and Electricidade de Portugal (EDP)” (The Economist, November, 2000).

Other important firms belong, as a rule, to well-known families, such as Belmiro de Azevedo (SONAE), José Melo (CUF), Espírito Santo (BES), and Francisco Balsemão, a former prime minister turned media tycoon (Impresa), all of them now facing a succession problem. Like the political leaders, the entrepreneurs and CEOs are regularly in the media and they also have fed the biographic genre that contributes to drawing the picture of the Portuguese style of leadership.

Society and Values

Changes in Portuguese society over the last two decades were no less important, giving rise to the emergence of new values and new challenges for management. The first important change concerns the aging of the population with an increase in the number of people aged over 65 years. Simultaneous there has been a fall in birth and fertility rates. A second change is related to the increase of the economically active population due to the entry of women into the labor market. In 1960, 13% of women were economically active. In 1970, that figure had risen to 19% and by 1981 it stood at 29%. In 1991, the figure finally reached 41% (Almeida, 1998). A third factor is the reversal in migration. More than 1 million Portuguese left the country between 1960 and 1980. After 1975 the emigration decreased significantly. From a country of emigrants, Portugal became an importer of labor. In 1974, only 32,000 foreigners resided in Portugal, most of them from other European countries. By 1997, the estimates point to 175,000, half of them from Africa, and the second half from Brazil and from Central and Eastern Europe, these latter often highly skilled (engineers, doctors, nurses, musicians).

Another important change is related to the evolution of the active population characterized by a massive transfer to the tertiary sector. In the period 1960–1990, the tertiary sector rose from 28% to 55%. At the same time, the primary sector fell from 44% to 12%, and the industrial sector also fell but to a lesser extent (from 39% to 33%).

Such a transfer is due largely to the increase in educational standards, leading to the increase of the middle classes. As once again remarked by Ferreira de Almeida:

The development of the “technically” skilled petite bourgeoisie, namely salaried workers engaged in scientific and intellectual work exerted the greatest social impact. In 1960 this group represented 2.6 percent of the total, in 1970 the figure stood at 4.9 percent, in 1981 at 7.9 percent and in 1992 at 16.8 percent. This technically skilled group lives mostly in urban settings and possesses a relatively high cultural capital. (Almeida, 1998, p. 151)

The “feminization” of the economically active population, the growth of the middle classes, along with the entrepreneurial class, high-level managers, and liberal professions, contributed to the appearance of new social values and leadership roles within Portuguese society. Still in accordance with the same author, such new values could be grouped into four clusters: (a) refusal to postpone the fulfilment of personal desires or objectives—“the impatience for happiness”; (b) greater tolerance toward distinct existential models, such as those of a moral, religious, or political nature; (c) a general skepticism toward global, grandiose, and heroic objectives; and (d) a parallel skepticism toward ideologies, such as left and right in the political field.

Portuguese society has become more open, more sophisticated, and more differentiated, but also more skeptical, more demanding, more aloof, and more individualist (see also Ester, Halman, & de Moor, 1993, p. 160).

3.  THE GLOBE RESEARCH IN PORTUGAL

Portugal in Cross-Cultural Empirical Research

In this first subsection, we examine some of the most relevant cross-cultural studies on leadership, including Portuguese data.

David McClelland Motivation Profiles. David McClelland is well known as having produced the first map of national cultural indicators using his method of content analysis of stories narrated to children. Four scores were computed from samples collected around 1950 from 42 countries, in which Portugal was included: need for achievement (nAch), need for affiliation (nAff), need for power (nPw), and inhibition (In). This last index indicates the extent to which the need for power is personal (low inhibition) or social (high inhibition). Formerly McClelland (1961) was mostly interested in examining the role of achievement in the economic development of countries, but later he concluded that leadership was more comprehensively related to power than it was to achievement. More precisely, he established a leader motivational profile (LMP) supposed to be related to leader effectiveness. Such a profile is a mix of high concern for (social) power motivation, and power motivation greater than affiliative motivation.

The motivational profile found by McClelland for Portugal is, in standardized figures: nAch =.13; nAff =.72; nPw =−1.17; Inh=−1.38. The findings refer to data collected around the 1950s and were supposed to produce effects one generation later, the time span of youngsters becoming adults and then ready to enact the values internalized along the socialization process. In terms of the LMP, the Portuguese scores could be interpreted as a culture particularly resistant to leadership roles. The high scores on the need for affiliation combined with low need for power and low inhibition suggest that political rulers as well as managers may face problems in structuring the activities of their subordinates who, in turn, are likely to react to strong leadership. At the time of the McClelland study, Portugal was under a dictatorial regime, that was not overthrown until 1974.

Nevertheless, and compared with similar totalitarian regimes, the Portuguese LMP is rather intriguing. Whereas totalitarian regimes either in 1925—Austria, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Spain, as well as in 1950—Argentina, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, and South Africa exhibit a pattern of “need for power” higher than the “need for affiliation,” in Portugal it was just the reverse that was found.

As remarked by McClelland (1961): “The one exception is Portugal, which at least in some limited sense has been ruled by a dictatorship for a generation [McClelland was writing in the late 1950s] although it may be doubted that it ever has been as ruthless as most of the other totalitarian regimes on the list” (p. 169). The statement—“the traditional softness of the Portuguese morals” (“a tradicional brandura dos costumes portugueses”)—has been attributed to Salazar, the dictator who ruled in Portugal from 1932 through to 1968; it is a lasting representation collectively shared, epitomizing the Portuguese national character. These peculiar features seem to fit with the bloodless revolution of 1974 when the dissident soldiers put carnations in the rifles as a symbol of nonviolence (see the introduction).

According to the LMP theory, scoring in the need for affiliation is higher than in the need for power, as found in the Portuguese sample, is negatively related with effective organizational leadership. Affiliative styles give priority to consensus seeking, as well as establishing and reinforcing friendship links, which, more often than not, is incompatible with effective decision making. Leadership is supposedly more related with exerting power rather than governing by consensus.

LMP theory was initially thought to apply mostly to large nontechnological settings as, for example, the government. Some of the validation studies focused on presidential styles as expressed in official speeches (House, Spangler, & Woydee, 1991; Winter, 1973, 1982, 1987). In Portugal, a similar study was conducted by Cruz (1989), who examined the addresses to Parliament of the Portuguese prime ministers from 1976 through to 1987. This study revealed firstly that, as a rule, Prime Ministers expressed the typical LMP profile in their speeches: high nPw, high nAch, low nAff, and high In. Until 1985 the nPw observed was higher than the nAch, but after 1985 the achievement rhetoric became dominant. The highest score on nAff, although lower than the nPw, was observed during the leadership of the only female prime minister—Maria de Lourdes Pintassilgo—to perform such a role, even though for a short period of 150 days (July–November 1979, see Section 1).

The study also revealed that scores in nPw were positively related to industrial production as well as a number of approved bills, but also with more conflicts with workers. In terms of unemployment rates, a positive relation was found with nPw and a negative relation with nAff, which led to the assumption that nAff might exert a buffer effect on unpopular measures implemented by political leaders. More recently House, Shame, and Herold (1996) found that LMP was also valid in small entrepreneurial organizations, where leaders with such a profile were perceived by their followers as being charismatic, displaying integrity, and being supportive (House & Aditya, 1997, p. 416).

Considering the persistence and difficulty in changing cultural patterns, it is reasonable to think that weak leadership is expected to be the rule rather than the exception in Portuguese institutions and organizations for years to come. The ambiguity predictable from the LMP theory in the relationship between leaders and followers is coherent, at least in qualitative terms, with other cross-cultural approaches that are examined herein.

Trompenaars's Waves of Culture. Trompenaars (1993) conducted a cross-cultural study around 1990, collecting data from a sample of about 11,500 managers all over the world in which Portuguese respondents were included. Trompenaars introduces seven fundamental dimensions of culture. Five of those dimensions, pertaining to relationships with people, are: operationalizations of Parsonian dichotomies (Parsons, 1951); universalism versus particularism; individualism versus collectivism; neutral or emotional; specific versus diffuse; achievement versus ascription. The two other dimensions are related to attitudes toward time and attitudes toward environment.

The findings suggest that Portuguese managers are closer to the right pole of the Parsonian dichotomies: They are more particularists, more collective, more emotional, more diffuse, and more ascriptive. In terms of attitudes to time, they tend to be more polychronic than mono-chronic, and they also tend to be careless toward the environment. In terms of national and corporate culture, Trompenaars introduced two dimensions—equality versus hierarchy and orientation to the person versus orientation to the task—which generate four quadrants: the “family,” the “Eiffel Tower,” the “guided missile,” and the “incubator.” These metaphors are useful for summarizing the various patterns of the findings. Within this approach, the Portuguese corporate culture could be described as a “family,” clustering with France, Belgium, and Spain—the Latin European cluster (Ronen & Shenkar, 1985)—but also with India and Japan. In “family” cultures, leaders are seen as fathers combining attachment to subordination. It must however be noted that the Portuguese scores are moderate rather than extreme, with 68% of the managers thinking that a good leader “leaves them alone to get the job done” and they also report their organizations as being more horizontal than vertical in terms of hierarchy. These findings are not in contradiction with the McClelland's LMP approach, described earlier. Rather, they seem to confirm each other. Low need for power and high need for affiliation are likely to justify the status ascribed to parent figures who are close and powerful and who “manage by subjectives.” On the other hand, the low score in inhibition is likely to considerably reduce the acceptance of leaders, not by direct challenge or confrontation but through devious tactics.

Hofstede's Software of the Mind. In the Hofstede study (Hofstede, 1984) the Portuguese scores were:

• Power Distance: 63—moderately high.
• Uncertainty Avoidance: 104—very high.
• Individualism: 17—low (more collectivist).
• Masculinity: 31—low (more feministic).

Hofstede did his famous study using data collected around the early 1970s from a sample of more than 116,000 respondents across 53 countries. Although cultural patterns do not change overnight, it could be argued that 30 years later, with so many transformations observed everywhere, the Hofstede indicators would be irremediably dated. More recently an extensive replication was carried out using the responses supplied by 1,544 alumni from 17 Western and Southern European countries plus Turkey and the United States attending a seminar for managers in Salzburg between 1964 and 1983 (Hoppe, 1998). According to the findings, despite some shifts in the relative position of some countries (Austria in Power Distance, France and Italy on Individualism, and France on Masculinity), the rank correlations between the Hofstede and the Salzburg studies are highly significant (above .75). In view of this, and at least for European countries, the overall profile seems to remain basically the same.

As claimed by Hofstede, the most relevant cultural dimensions related to leadership are Individualism and Power Distance. If we combine these two orthogonal dimensions, it is possible to define four cells. Portugal is located in the “large Power Distance” and “Collectivistic” cell. Other countries included in the same cluster are Southeast European countries and also some Asian countries (Hofstede, 1984, p. 159). Scores moderately high on Power Distance and high in Collectivism suggest a preference for benevolent autocratism, as also observed in the Trompenaars study. People in these cultures are expected to bring loyalty to their organizations provided they feel the employer returns the loyalty in the form of protection. In terms of participation, the leader is expected to keep the initiative but, in a collectivistic culture, there will be ways by which the subordinates in a group can still influence the leader.

On the other hand, the most relevant dimensions for organizational configurations are, according to Hofstede (1991), Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance. Combining the two dimensions generates four quadrants, metaphorically dubbed as “markets” (low Uncertainty Avoidance, low Power Distance), “families” (high Power Distance, low Uncertainty Avoidance), “well-oiled machines” (high Uncertainty Avoidance, low Power Distance), and “pyramids” (high Power Distance, high Uncertainty Avoidance). The prototypes would be respectively the UK, China, Germany, and France. In accordance with this typology, which is to some extent similar to the one suggested by Trompenaars (1993), Portugal would now be closer to the “pyramid” format than to the “family.” It is argued later that this discrepancy might be due to some possible ambiguity in the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension.

The Smith and Peterson Event Management Model. In accordance with the event management model proposed by Smith and Peterson (1988), leadership behavior depends not only on the structural features of situations but also on the specific events requiring decision making. It can be hypothesized that in national cultures low in Power Distance, there would be greater reliance on participative decision making as well as in national cultures high in Uncertainty Avoidance on rules and procedures. The cross-cultural study conducted by Smith and Peterson initially involved 21 samples of around 100 middle managers from both European and nonEuropean countries. Later it was extended to 35 countries (Smith & Peterson, 1995). The method consisted of presenting eight organizational events, considered as typical to occur often in all countries, and for each of them respondents were asked to indicate the most frequent method on which they relied for making a decision. In total, in 11 out of the 17 European nations examined, respondents reported reliance on their own experience and training. In Portugal as well as in France, the distinctive feature is the higher reliance on unwritten rules (Smith, 1997). Such a finding does not seem to confirm the higher score on Uncertainty Avoidance found by Hofstede for Portugal. The aforementioned study also included questionnaires on role conflict, ambiguity, and overload (Peterson et al., 1995), in which Portugal scored relatively high on role ambiguity. More important, however, was the finding that role ambiguity was not correlated with Uncertainty Avoidance but only with Individualism (.51) and with Power Distance (–.55), which seems to confirm that the Hofstede's scores on Uncertainty Avoidance are to be considered with caution.

Role overload was also found to be negatively related to Individualism (–.60) and positively related with Power Distance (.69). As these are the two dimensions most closely linked to leadership roles, it could be concluded that the combination of high Power Distance with low Individualism (Collectivism) work in conjunction and in a sort of trade-off: Reducing ambiguity through hierarchy and rules can come at the cost of overload.

In short, the various cross-cultural studies reported seem to reasonably cohere, with the exception of Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance dimension. Cultural traits suggest that leadership roles in Portuguese organizations are likely to emphasize a paternalistic style more tolerated than actually accepted by subordinates.

The GLOBE Study

The GLOBE study has developed a scale for the evaluation of societal cultural norms. The scale builds on Hofstede's (1984) four cultural dimensions and includes Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Gender Egalitarianism, which replaces Masculinity/Femininity, and Institutional Collectivism in place of Individualism/Collectivism. It introduces Assertiveness, which was previously part of Hofstede's Masculinity/Femininity dimensions; Future Orientation (Kluckholm & Strodtbeck, 1961); Performance Orientation (McClelland, 1961); Human Orientation (Kluckholm & Strodtbeck, 1961), and Family Collectivism.

The GLOBE study in Portugal is based on the analysis of 79 questionnaires collected from middle managers in two industries in 1996: the food industries which are more traditional and conservative, and telecommunications industries, which are in rapid transformation. Data were gathered from one single organization in each industry.

Qualitative data were also gathered from media and other qualitative studies on culture and leadership with Portuguese managers. The GLOBE questionnaire was split into the Alpha version aimed at measuring leadership and organizational culture. The Beta version measures leadership and societal culture. An equal number of respondents to Alpha and Beta questionnaires were sought in each organization taking part in the study. Using a 7-point Likert scale, respondents were asked to state their preferences of items relating to the eight cultural dimensions, concerning how things “Are” in their society or organization and how things “Should Be.” In this way, the questionnaire distinguishes between practices (“As Is”) and espoused values (“Should Be”).

On the leadership scales, the respondent were asked to rate 112 leadership items on a scale between 1 (greatly inhibits a person from being an outstanding leader) and 7 (greatly contributes to a person being an outstanding leader). Based on an exploratory factor analysis (House et al., 1999) the items were aggregated into 21 leadership scales, which constitute culturally endorsed perceptions of leadership. (For a full display and discussion of GLOBE methods and comparative results, see House et al., 2004.)

Societal Culture

The societal results for Portugal from the GLOBE study are presented in Table 16.3. The results represent the assessments of practices (“As Is”) as well as values (“Should Be”) and the differences between them. In what follows, comparisons are made both in the overall GLOBE sample and in the European subsample level. The results are assessed in light of the previous cross-cultural studies already examined.

Performance Orientation. The Performance Orientation describes the degree to which people are encouraged and rewarded for performance improvement and achievement of excellence. Performance Orientation is related both to the issues of external adaptation and internal integration (Javidan, 2002; Schein, 1992). It is an internally consistent set of practices and values that have an impact on the way a society defines success in adapting to external changes, and the way the society manages the interrelationship among its people.

TABLE 16.3
Country Means for GLOBE Societal Culture Dimensions

^aCountry mean score on a 7-point Likert-type scale. ^bBand letter A–D indicating meaningful country bands for the scales A > B > C > D; the band width is equal to 2 SD. ^cThe rank orders for Portugal relative to the 61 countries. ^dAbsolute difference between the “Should Be” and the “As Is” score. ^ePortugal's mean scores. ^fGLOBE's mean scores. ^gHigh score = more collectivistic; low score = more individualistic.

According to the findings, societies higher in Performance Orientation at the level of practices (As Is) tend to be economically more successful and globally more competitive, additionally with a tendency to enjoy a more positive attitude toward life and live in a more civic society. In contrast, the societies scoring higher on Performance Orientation values (“Should Be”) tend to be less competitive, less economically productive, more satisfied with their work lives, and more strongly religion oriented (Javidan, 2002; Schein, 1992).

Portugal's very low score on practices (“As Is”) and the higher score on values (“Should Be”) seem to reflect the awareness of the respondents about Portugal lagging behind the EU countries. Yet, such a pessimistic view was expressed in a period (1996) when the economy was growing at a relatively fast rate, above the EU average. The value scores also confirm the striving for achievement that were found in the studies of McClelland described earlier. Respondents do not seem to feel happy about the performance of their country and greatly endorse the need for developing more challenging goals. The diagnosis seems realistic in the light of the OECD report (see Section 1).

Future Orientation. This measures the extent to which future-oriented behavior (e.g., planning, investing, delay of gratification) is encouraged and rewarded. The higher the scores, the higher the Future Orientation.

Portuguese scores are lower than the GLOBE average both in practices (“As Is”) and in values (“Should Be”). Such findings suggest a relatively moderate striving for the improvement of practices related to organization and planning. Furthermore, observers and analysts tend to denounce the short-term orientation of Portuguese politicians and business people as well. A symptom of this short-term orientation is the rather low investment in R&D. As remarked in the OECD (2003) report:

Despite the increases recorded in recent years, Portuguese spending on R&D as a percentage of GDP is less than half the OECD average, as in the proportion of researchers in the active population. As in other less advanced OECD countries R&D activities are carried out not so much by the business sector, but rather by the higher education and government sectors, these sectors accounting for almost two-thirds of total R&D expenditure in Portugal, against less than 30% on average in the OECD. (p. 97)

Future Orientation can be related to expenditure practices by either the government, or the public, as well as with savings. Gross domestic savings/gross domestic product (GDP) for 1998 in Portugal was 17%, whereas genuine domestic savings/GDP was 15%. This latter indicator is an overall measure of the degree of sustainable economic growth for society. Although these figures do not significantly differ from other European developed countries, they are far below robust and fast-growing economics such as Singapore (51, 40.7), Taiwan (42, 33.7), or Ireland (37, 32.3).

Gender Egalitarianism. Within the GLOBE project, the concept is defined as the way in which societies divide rules between women and men. More Gender Egalitarian societies believe that men and women are suited for similar roles, whereas less Gender Egalitarian societies believe that men and women should assume different roles (Emrich, Denmark, & den Hartog, 2004).

Portuguese scores are relatively high—Rank 13 on practices and Rank 4 on values, both higher than the GLOBE average. Among European countries no differences were found between the North-West and the South-East clusters (Koopman et al., 1999). The role of women in Portuguese society has greatly changed over the last four decades. First, there has been a massive entrance of women into the labor market, mainly because the male workforce was depleted due to the colonial war as well as heavy emigration to other European countries. Another reason was the expansion of employment in the process of industrialization. In the 1960s, the rate of feminization of the active labor force increased from 18% to 26% and by 1991 reached 40%.

As remarked by Ferreira (1998):

Most women are employed in service activities that require no qualification, such as cleaning services (19% of female workers are maids or porters), in subsistence-level agricultural activities (11%), and unskilled industrial workers (25%). On the other hand, technical-scientific professions absorb approximately 11% of economically active women and administrative professions 15.2%. These figures, the lowest in the European Union (the average in Portugal is 19% and in the EU 30%), testify the deficit in intermediary social positions typical of less-developed societies. (p. 169)

This relative subalternation of women within the Portuguese society is also expressed by the indicators relative to the female economic activity—70% in 1998, or 52.3% of the 1998 GDP.

Another relevant indicator is the number of women in Parliament/government. According to the figures in the Human Development Report (United Nations Development Programme, 2000), the percentage in 1998 was 11.1 and in 2000 it increased to 18.7. This last figure is slightly above the OECD (15.1%) average but much lower than in countries like Sweden (42.7%), Finland (36.5%), Denmark (37.4%), Belgium (30.2%), or UK (33.0%).

The role and importance of women in Portugal will certainly evolve, sufficing to note their higher rate of school attendance in 1997 that (94% female, 88% male) is even higher in Portugal than in OECD countries (86% for both sexes) or the highly developed world (91% female, 88% male)(United Nationas Developmental Programme, 2000). At the university level, female attendance has risen in 2000 to 63%.

A second qualification concerns the political-juridical framework governing women in Portugal. It is also a fact that the Portuguese legal order on women after the 1974 Revolution can be considered as one of the most advanced in Europe: “Article 13 of the 1976 Constitution universalized the principle of juridical equality. It eliminated the myriad discriminations inherited from the outgoing regime, paving the way for a reform of the legal order, putting paid to discrimination against women” (Ferreira, 1998, p. 174).

But even if such legal changes were introduced without opposition and in spite of the pervading rhetoric of the “equality between the sexes,” which, to a certain extent, could explain the results of the GLOBE study, it is worth noting that “in Portugal there is an enormous discrepancy between law on paper and law in action” (Ferreira, 1988, p. 177). In this specific case of the legal equality for women, “the change was imposed from above” (Ferreira, 1988, p. 177). The gap between the law and actual practices is still important. “Many examples can be found of the lack of concrete application of the principle of equality. The sentences passed in crimes against individuals reveal that judges have a different attitude toward women” (Ferreira, 1988, p. 179).

In terms of Gender Egalitarianism in Portugal, much more is still to be achieved. Portugal's integration into the EU might help to close the gap between the practices and the values.

Humane Orientation. Humane Orientation is derived from Kluckholm and Strodtbeck's (1961) work on “human nature is good versus human nature is bad” as well as Putnam's (1993) work on the “civic society.” It assesses to what extent practices such as being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others are promoted in society and organization (House et al., 1999).

The Portuguese results are relatively low for the practices—Rank 40. The difference between “Should Be” and “As Is” is relatively high although not significantly. Both practices and values fall within the GLOBE average. Among European countries no differences were found between the North-West and the South-East clusters (Koopman et al., 1999). Apparently all over the world there is a generalized awareness of the desirability of promoting more human attitudes toward others.

The relatively low score registered at the level of practices may reflect significant changes in conviviality as a consequence of urbanization and modernization. However, it is not clear how to reconcile these findings with the high need for affiliation observed in McClelland's study for Portugal. One possible explanation is that such a high need might reflect a certain affective insecurity instead of expressing the more positive facets of intimacy (McAdams, 1982; McAdams & Powers, 1981a, 1981b).

Power Distance. The Power Distance is derived from Hofstede's Power Distance indicator. It measures the degree to which members of an organization or society expect and agree that power Should Be shared unequally. The Portuguese score on practices (“As Is”) is very high (5.44) and significantly higher than the GLOBE average (5.16). Equally for values (“Should Be”), the Portuguese scores are very low (2.38) and lower than the GLOBE average (2.74). The difference between practices and values (–3.06) is the highest registered for Portuguese scores. Apparently the Portuguese respondents consider that at societal level the power stratification is too high and that a significant, if not dramatic, decrease would be highly desirable. In European terms, Portugal is closer to the South cluster together with France, Italy, Spain, and Greece (Koopman et al., 1999).

The aforementioned scores are in accordance with the findings produced by the Hofstede (2000) and Trompenaars (1993) studies. With regards to the low need for power found in McClelland's (1975) study, it can be argued that the correspondence must be applied to the difference observed between practices and values. Power, or at least its representation, is strongly rejected.

Portuguese society is characterized by a large gap between the elites and the masses, by a great distance between the governing and the governed, by pronounced socio-professional segmentation, and by acute inequalities in income and capital, as well as inequalities in formal education (Cabral, 1992, p. 950). A striking indicator is given by the differences of expected incomes between attained education levels. Whereas in Europe the average differential between ISCED 5.7 (higher education) and ISCED-3 (higher secondary) is about 9%, in Portugal the difference jumps to 65% (Lindley, 2000; see also Eurostat).

In terms of the corruption perception index (CPI), found to be highly related to Power Distance (Hofstede, 2000, p. 132–133), in 1998 Portugal scored 6.5 (on a scale of 1 = totally corrupt, 10 = totally clean). Similar scores were found in Spain (6.1) and France (6.7). The relation between Power Distance and corruption perception was found only in wealthy countries but not in the group of the 17 poor countries. Within wealthy countries the higher the CPI values, the cleaner the countries.

In terms of the GINI index—a measure of the inequality in the distribution of consumption (0 = perfect equality, 100 = perfect inequality)—Portugal scores 35.6 slightly above more equalitarian countries such as Austria (23.1), Denmark (24.7), Sweden (25.0), or Japan (24.9) but below the United States (40.8), UK (36.1), or Russia (48.7).

Religion is also related with Power Distance. As suggested by Carl, Gupta, Javidan (2004), Catholic societies, especially the ones that have experienced low growth in private consumption during recent years such as Spain and Portugal, tend to strongly reject the values of power stratification, and favor Power Distance reduction. The authors also suggest that societies with a large, established middle class would have a lower power level of Power Distance than societies with a newly emerging middle class, such as the Iberian countries. It is worth noting, however, that class composition is changing very fast. From 1986 to 1997, according to Eurostat, the numbers of entrepreneurs and professionals increased between 7 and 10 points in the various countries of the EU. In 1997, the percentage of the “middle class” jumped in Portugal by 25%. Such changes will certainly contribute to significant differences in the ways of using power. Participative decision making will likely become more frequent in institutions and organizations.

Collectivism. In the GLOBE study, Collectivism was split into two indicators: Institutional Collectivism refers to the degree to which institutional practices at the societal level encourage and reward collective action; In-Group Collectivism, on the other hand, is defined as the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and interdependence in their families and close associates. The distinction was found relevant. In Portugal, at the level of practices, In-Group Collectivism was scored much higher than the Institutional Collectivism. At the level of values, respondents would like to reinforce both dimensions of Collectivism.

The Hofstede study also classifies Portugal as a collectivist culture, ranking 39 among 53 countries. The relatively high score on need for affiliation found in the McClelland (1961) study also points in the same direction. But both of these latter studies, according to our interpretation, are more related to Family Collectivism than to Institutional Collectivism.

As remarked in Section 1, Portuguese values seem to be evolving to a more individualistic pattern. Postmodern youngsters are more hedonistic, more disenchanted with traditional ideologies, and more open to diversity. In a word, they are more individualistic, which might raise some intergenerational tensions.

Modernization and economic growth were found to be linked with individualism (Hosftede, 2000, p. 252). Although the Portuguese scores point to classifying this culture as clearly collectivistic, some indicators, as, for example, the high score in lack of inhibition found by McClelland (1975), suggest that socialization practices are not very effective in integrating individuals and society. A frequent impressionistic diagnosis produced by observers and common sense is that Portuguese subjects are better performers as individuals than as a collective body. Such a view is illustrated by the examples of individual subjects excelling when integrated in more developed foreign societies.

Assertiveness. Assertiveness in GLOBE is defined as the degree to which individuals in organizations or societies are assertive, tough, dominant, and aggressive in social relationships (House et al., 1999). The “As Is” score for Portugal is one of the lowest within the GLOBE sample. It ranks 55 among 61 countries in practices. The GLOBE Assertiveness dimension overlaps with Hofstede's Masculinity Index (House et al., 2004). Hofstede's (2000) study also classifies Portugal as low on masculinity. Among 53 countries, Portugal is placed in 44th position, with a score of 31 (mean [M] 49, Standard Deviation [SD] 18). Nevertheless, the GLOBE respondents would like to even lower the score albeit by a negligible margin. In the “Should Be” dimension, Portugal is close to countries such as Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (Koopman et al., 1999). Such findings seem to converge with the high “need for affiliation” and “low inhibition” scores found in the McClelland (1975) study.

The lack of perceived Assertiveness in Portugal could be linked to the relative lagging behind, at least within the EU context, in terms of competitiveness, productivity, and economic prosperity. Along the same vein, the permissiveness and impunity of Portuguese morals, as illustrated by the difficulty in enforcing the law, could also be connected with the weak Assertiveness reflected in the GLOBE scores.

Uncertainty Avoidance. In the GLOBE project, Uncertainty Avoidance was defined in terms of a tendency toward orderliness and consistency, structured lifestyles, clear specification and social expectations, and rules and laws to cover situations. There is no clear correspondence with the similar concept used in the Hofstede study, which is due to different criteria of operationalization. The Portuguese score on Uncertainty Avoidance in the Hofstede study is very high, only second to Greece. In the GLOBE study, the score for Portugal is rather low for practices (3.91), ranking 39, significantly below the GLOBE mean. In terms of values, although remaining low in ranking (41), the Portuguese score is closer to the GLOBE mean. In accordance with the meaning of this concept, the Portuguese respondents believe their society is not sufficiently structured in contrast with Northern countries where more flexibility is desired (Koopman et al., 1999).

The modest difference between “As Is” and “Should Be” suggests that the respondents are not entirely unhappy with the perception they have about the relative lack of structure within the societal environment. This seems to be in line with a widespread commonsense representation shared by the Portuguese of being able to “improvise,” a feature very much boasted about. Living comfortably with chaos and ambiguity is considered a competitive advantage. This also suggests that Portugal is a “high context” rather than a “low context” culture (Hall, 1959, 1976; Hall & Hall, 1990), which can be illustrated by anecdotic evidence about the casual and imprecise information within the public space, and the no less casual polychronic way of managing time and opportunity (see also Section 2).

Countries like Portugal that perceive themselves as less structured are, however, less prosperous in terms of consumption and growth. They are also less competitive and less productive. Another relevant indicator is the euromoney credit rating (0 = high risk; 100 = no risk) where Portugal scores 82.8, below the most developed economies.

Summary

The cultural profile that emerges from the GLOBE findings indicates high relative scores for Gender Egalitarianism, In-Group Collectivism, and Power Distance, and low scores in Future Orientation, Humane Orientation, Performance Orientation, Assertiveness, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Institutional Collectivism.

In terms of values, measured by the distance between “As Is” and “Should Be,” the Portuguese respondents would like to live in a more Equalitarian as well as more Performing, more Humane, and more Future Oriented society. They do not seem to feel the same need for change in dimensions such as Assertiveness, In-Group Collectivism, and Uncertainty Avoidance.

Such a profile, in rather broad terms, converges with previous cross-cultural findings, and is somewhat intriguing in terms of the requisites for leadership. In fact it aspires for more collective efficiency and effectiveness but within the traditional framework of informality, leniency, and protectionism. The challenge for the exercise of leadership in Portugal seems to give greater priority to the reinforcement of Institutional Collectivism as, to a certain extent, is also salient in the findings.

3.  LEADERSHIP IN PORTUGUESE SOCIETY

Research on organizational behavior in which the leadership topic is included is very scarce, indeed almost nonexistent, in Portugal. The only academic study so far published in Portugal is authored by Jesuino (1987). The book presents the results of several empirical studies conducted both in the field and in the laboratory, in an attempt to validate some traditional contingency models on leadership effectiveness. Its added value consists of testing the influence of leadership styles in moderating the polarization effect in group decision making (Jesuino, 1986). A theoretical approach to leadership was also developed by the same author (Jesuino, 1996).

The contribution of these studies to the GLOBE project—relating leadership with societal and organizational cultures—is relatively minor. More relevant is the abundant literature on profiles of political, and to a lesser extent, entrepreneurial leaders, some of them in the genre of comprehensive (auto)biographies. Despite its unconcern with strict scientific criteria, such sources, along with the media, are still the best way of observing the leadership processes that take place in the public sphere. They are addressed in the next subsection.

An intermediate research strategy, inspired by the seminal study of Mintzberg (1973), consists of conducting case studies centered on managerial work through ethnographic individual and group interviews. In the wake of qualitative studies such as the ones carried out by Sayles (1979), Stewart (1979), Kotter (1988), Bennis and Nanus (1985), we also conducted interviews in the late 1980s with 50 Portuguese managers randomly selected from a list of 2,000 national managers—the “Who's Who” in Portuguese business (Jesuino, Pereira, & Reto, 1993).

Ethnographic Evidence

As the only empirical study so far published in Portugal, its main findings are summarized here.

In terms of the characteristics of the sample, 35 of the interviewees were chief executive officers (CEOs) and 15 were general managers. Ages were from 32 to 62 years but the greater majority were aged from 45 to 55 years. The organizations where the interviewees worked were diverse and included banking, insurance, transportation, telecommunications, manufacturing, naval ship building, fisheries, and media. Some of the interviewees worked in branches of multinational corporations.

Private organizations accounted for 28 of the interviewees, 19 were from public enterprises (owned by the state), and 3 belonged to the civil service. Government positions had formerly been held by 10 of the interviewees. Their former and present activities embraced the various domains of managerial activity such as marketing, human resources, production, budgeting, and finance. Only one of the interviewees was female, which reflects the low percentage of Portuguese women in higher managerial positions.

The interviews were tape-recorded and covered a number of topics, such as their views about the concept of leadership, the required leadership attributes for each of the three organizational levels—top, intermediate, and lower (Katz & Kahn, 1978)—strong and weak factors for exerting leadership within the Portuguese organizational context. They ended with a lengthy conversation about their professional careers, agendas, self-assessment, management style, team-building practices, relevant decisions, health/stress, attitudes toward the future, paradigmatic figures (mentors), and self-image.

In terms of the required attributes for the three main organizational levels, the results of the content analysis of the interviews are summarized in Table 16.4

The features identified do not greatly differ from those found in similar studies (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Katz & Kahn, 1978; Kotter, 1988). Some minor differences are, however, worthy of mention as they might be related to some cultural specificity. Cognitive attributes like intelligence and technical skills across the levels, affective attributes like courage and hardworking at the top level, and honesty at the middle level, are among the most salient differences found.

A likely interpretation could be given in terms of the social and political turmoil that arose in Portugal after the Revolution of 1974. Most of the interviewed managers, in top positions at the time of the interview, had to face difficult situations 15 years earlier, usually in the field of industrial and labor relations. Courage and interpersonal and negotiation skills were a condition for survival, and contributed decisively to the natural selection of managers. Technical skills, whose importance is supposed to decrease from the top downward in the hierarchy, was considered equally important in the present study at all levels. When asked about that, the interviewees appeared to agree with Kotter (1988) in rejecting the principle of the transferability of managers. Most effective managers, they claimed, make their careers in one specific industry or even in one sole company, a necessary condition for dealing with the “competitive edge” and “organizational complexity” that characterizes the present world of business. One last point that the findings suggest is the relative lack of distinction between the middle and bottom levels of the hierarchy. This could also be interpreted as signs of the coming era of flatter organizations.

TABLE 16.4
Characteristics of Organizational Leaders According to Portuguese Manager's Views

Responsibilities	Level	Cognitive Attributes	Affective Attributes
Goal setting, strategy, motivating	Top	Vision, intelligence, creativity, diagnostic skills, imagination, technical skills	Charisma, courage, interpersonal skills, self-confidence, hard-working persistence
Coordination, linking	Middle	Intelligence, technical skills, diagnostic skills	Honesty, fairness, equity, loyalty, persuasion skills
Execution	Lower	Technical skills, experience, learning skills	Example, fairness, consideration

The next section of the interview asked for a diagnosis of the leadership practices in Portuguese organizations. The aim was to identify the representation developed by managers about the context of their own activity. Table 16.5 summarizes the main characteristics found.

These traits greatly correspond to the stereotypes of the national characteristics and do not necessarily reflect specific constraints at the organizational level. The image herein offered by the Portuguese managers about their subordinates and/or collaborators stands somewhere between Theory X and Theory Y (McGregor, 1960). This image could in itself be a consequence rather than a cause, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, legitimizing a paternalistic style of leadership. Subordinates are seen as potentially capable of promptly responding to extreme situations, which is indeed a very positive factor, but on the other hand, and for this same reason, control and supervision are slackened. This sort of vicious circle is perhaps one of the most enduring characteristics of the Portuguese management culture.

Managers were also asked to talk about their careers, their agendas, important decisions they have been involved in, and their espoused philosophies of management.

With regard to the professional career, it was confirmed that most of the managers were “one company men” or, at least, they have always worked in a certain business or industry. As regards routine activities, the findings are quite similar to those reported in the literature by authors like Mintzberg (1973), Sayles (1979), Stewart (1979), and Kotter (1988).

Like their colleagues in other countries, Portuguese managers work very hard, stay at the office 50 to 60 hours weekly, and their work is characterized by “brevity, variety and fragmentation.” They also seem to give preference to personal contacts; they travel a lot and have built social networks through which they are able to exert their influence and foster their goals.

With respect to the most important decisions recalled by the interviewees, it was found that the majority of them fall in the area of reorganizing and restructuring—64% of the critical incidents, involving redefinition of functions, downsizing, and collective lay-off. Only 16% of the critical incidents evoked involved strategic decisions such as new investments, diversification of the activity, market expansion, and internationalization. There was occasional mention of technical interventions in the fields of marketing, budgeting, and finances, aimed at improving the effectiveness of the organizations.

TABLE 16.5
Strengthening and Weakening Factors for Leadership Practice in Portuguese Organizations

Strengthening Factors	Weakening Factors
• Adaptability	• Disorganization
• Responsiveness	• Indiscipline
• Improvisation	• Lack of combativeness/discouragement
• ”Muddling-through”	• Lack of technical skills/unpreparedness
• Creativity	• Resistance to change/conservatism
• Tolerance	• Dispersion
• Generosity	• Selfishness
• Gentleness

Although the interviewees considered their actions were important for the outcome of their organizations, it could be argued, in light of their narratives, that the nature of organizational leadership, as claimed by Pfeffer (1977, 1981), is more symbolic than instrumental. Even at the level of the personal perceptions evoked, such as organizational restructuring, executive succession, and organizational development, the examples given were typical of symbolic action. Moreover, the interviewees evaluated themselves in accordance with this criterion, underlying their relationship abilities, their acceptance by the subordinates, and their negotiation skills, all of which are in fact essential for stabilizing a climate dominated by uncertainty. The fundamental task of the manager, and it is here that the leadership factor most clearly emerges, consists of giving meaning to the ambiguous if not threatening environment, as well as acting in a confident manner so as to both inspire and appease those dependent on them. The results of the interviews give substantive qualitative evidence to the major importance of symbolic leadership.

In terms of self-attributions of success in their leadership functions, the results are summarized in Table 16.6.

These reasons for successful leadership were categorized as follows: personal attributes (46%), interpersonal skills (40%), and management of leadership skills (12%).

The list of self-attribution for success fits with the leadership requirements formerly expressed by the interviewees in more abstract terms. Personal and interpersonal attributes by far exceed the management and leadership skills. In accordance with this view, it appears that Portuguese managers consider that their success is due to more personal attributes and interpersonal skills than to strategic vision or management competence.

The answer about decision styles points in the same direction. The great majority (70%) gave preference to the consultative style, which implies obtaining ideas and suggestions from subordinates but making the final decision individually. The most difficult decisions were the ones related to personal matters (60%) followed by economic and financing decisions (18%), jurisdictional ambiguities (16%), and organizational conflicts (6%). Many interviewees explicitly stated that technical decisions are not difficult. Difficult decisions are those associated with the future of people, namely when lay-offs take place or when disciplinary action is required.

With regard to management style, 48% of the interviewees stressed their ability to build effective teams, which they attributed to their motivating skills, their concern for people, and their habit of “managing by wandering around.”

Essentially, the management philosophy of the sample interviewed could be described as follows: To manage is to get results through people. This requires the ability to build up effective teams, which implies, in turn, the ability to select people who are loyal, competent, and hardworking. One of the main tasks of leaders is to develop good interpersonal relations and gain the trust of subordinates. In short the “espoused theory” (Argyris & Schön, 1974) of the managers interviewed corresponds, at best, to the human relations philosophy of management.

TABLE 16.6
Self-Attributed Reasons for Leadership Success Given by Portuguese Managers

Personal Attributes	Interpersonal Skills	Leadership Management Skills
Courage	Tolerance	Vision
Persistence	Easy Contact	Imagination
Strong Will	Democratic	Innovativeness
Rigor	Friendliness	Technical Expertise
Fairness	Communication	Planning Expertise
Patience	Intuition	Decisiveness
Honesty		Hard Working
Ethical Standards		Risk
Tenacity
Calm

In terms of biographical data, 50% declared that they had excelled in their youth either in sports, in students associations, or in unions. Also mentioned by 10 interviewees was their experience in the colonial wars in Africa (from 1962 through to 1974) as contributing to the development of their leadership skills.

On health, all the interviewees referred to being in good shape and experiencing moderate levels of stress. As a rule they were optimistic about the future, relying mostly on science and technology for the resolution of the great problems of humankind such as the war, the Third World, or ecological preservation. Asked finally to describe their own personality characteristics, the respondents indicated positive traits like hardworking, persistent, courageous, and honest. Attributes named less often were tolerant, sociable, and open. Such characteristics overlap to some extent with the required features of leadership.

Further Ethnographic Evidence

A more recent empirical study also attempting to examine how entrepreneurs distinguish between management and leadership was conducted by Pereira (2001) using a representative sample of 398 Portuguese entrepreneurs. Covering a vast span of industries, the study adopted the theory of social representations introduced by Serge Moscovici (1961, 1984) as its conceptual framework. A widespread technique used within this framework for gathering data consists of asking people to freely evoke associations elicited by a stimulus word/concept. In his study, Pereira (1999) used the words leader and manager as stimuli. The gathered data were then analyzed using the “similitude analysis,” a technique introduced by Flament (1962, 1981) and developed by Degenne and Vergès (1973). The method consists of applying the graph theory, then computing the percentage of joint associations. The technique permits the analysis of the data at various levels (filters) of association. The most comprehensive picture is given by the “maximum tree” showing how the concepts are interlinked without cycling.

According to the representation of managers is centered around the concept of organization. The similitude analysis shows that “organization” is at the center of a “star” to which the quasi-totality of the associations evoked is linked. Through “strategy” the concept of organization is linked to “enterprise,” which is at the center of a second and less central “star.” But the picture is clear enough. Managerial roles consist mainly of implementing the strategy of the enterprise through organization skills, such as setting objectives, planning, controlling, and coordinating, as well as personal attributes required for the effective management of human resources.

In contrast, leaders are represented through a more complex web of personality traits and interpersonal skills such as influencing, persuading, motivating, and communicating. “Charisma” is strongly associated with “personality,” “intelligence,” “power,” and “influence.” Another central concept is “communication,” which is linked with “capacity,” “understanding,” “dynamic,” “followers,” and “innovator.” A third cluster is formed around “group” to which “people,” “top,” “influence,” and “manager” are linked. A fourth central concept comprises “despotic,” which is linked to “persuasive,” “command,” “authority,” “confidence,” and “intelligent.” “Charisma” is linked with “despotic” through “intelligence,” and is linked to “group” through “influence.” The representations found seem to confirm thepopular dictum that “leaders do the right thing and managers do things right.”

These findings, which do not contradict but rather complement the GLOBE cross-cultural universals, could be interpreted in terms of the traditional paradigm of vertical relations between leaders and followers. As the respondents are not reporting about an actual leader common to all of them but to prototypical images, the common ground found could refer to some sort of objective reality reflected by the observers. An alternative view would be that respondents, when asked to express their thoughts about how leaders or managers are expected to behave, do not necessarily evoke some sort of inductive knowledge formed through their own contact with managers, but rather a representation socially constructed through direct horizontal influence processes and exposure to media. The popularity that the concept of charisma has recently been acquired all over the world, as documented by the GLOBE findings, is better understood in terms of social construction than as a significant change in behavior of managers and leaders. In this light, the wide consensus disclosed by the GLOBE results and its convergence with other methodological approaches, as the one presented earlier, could to a large extent be interpreted as the global reach of the American theories of leadership and management.

Media/Discourse Analysis

The media are another important source where the endorsed image of leaders and leadership is reflected. Political leaders use the media to communicate with the general public, mainly through television, but also through radio or even through the press. The press is still the branch of media where the actions of leaders are critically observed with not only perspective but also through conceptual framings. In the GLOBE study, the media analysis is limited to the print press.

In Portugal, during the Salazar regime, the press was not free but submitted to a severe regime of censorship. It was only after the Revolution of 1974 that censorship was suppressed. Many changes have occurred since then in the panorama of the media in Portugal. Liberalization was an important change with the concession of two private TV channels. In Portugal, there are now two public and two private TV channels, two public radio stations, and a number of daily and weekly newspapers, all of them private.

With a literacy rate of 91.4% (HDI), it is not surprising that reading habits are reduced to a small minority. The circulation of the total daily newspapers across the country does not exceed 350,000. The most important papers are the Diário de Noticias (DN), Publico (P), Jornal de Noticias (JN), Correio da Manhã (CM), A Capital (Cp), O Comércio do Porto (CP), and Diário Económico (DE). The circulation of weekly newspapers amounts to 450,000, the most important of which is the Expresso (EXP). Other weekly newspapers are the Independente (IND), the Visão (VIS), the Semanário (SEM), the Tal e Qual (T&Q), and the Semanário Económico (SME). These figures do not include the circulation of sports newspapers, which are by far the most sought after by the Portuguese readers.

It was with this corpus of news that a search was conducted in order to trace the image therein projected of leaders’ attributes and/or salient leadership initiatives. A comprehensive analysis of the DN, JN, P, DE, and EXP was conducted by a team of four doctoral students for a period of 2 alternate weeks at the end of January and in mid-February 2003. An identical exercise had already been conducted 5 years earlier in June 1998.

In both periods, the search led to very disappointing results. The general impression gathered was that the Portuguese journalists as well as analysts or even opinion makers, although sensitized as they are to observing political action in the making, do not specifically focus on the leadership styles and/or leadership processes.

According to the present widespread structure of the written media, a distinction can be made between the news that, as a rule, is usually transmitted as objective information and the opinion articles, usually undersigned, which address broader issues of political strategy or argue about current controversial issues. Sometimes, and mostly in weekly newspapers, political or business figures are interviewed about several issues, which also contribute to characterizing their styles of leading. Opinion makers as well as public figures very often collect a selection of their interventions or comments together with their speeches, the comprehensive interviews they give, or even retrospective narratives into a book format, where they evoke and very often rationalize their actions. This literature in Portugal has become a genre with apparently certain success.

This sort of media extension offers an alternative for analyzing leadership styles and strategies. A sample of 20 years of editorials from the Expresso, spanning from 1982 to 2002, was thus selected as our corpus of analysis. The entries are all related with political figures and events that took place in Portugal over the last two decades. Another selection of interviews, conducted by Luís Osório (1999) with Portuguese political personalities in another elite newspaper, Diário de Noticias, and compiled in a book, was also the subject of detailed analysis.

The framing used to analyze leadership is basically dichotomic. Leaders are either charismatic or consensual. Charisma is however understood in rather specific terms, and within the context of the broader distinction between authority and authoritarianism:

Authority and authoritarianism are to be distinguished. Authority yields respect; authoritarianism yields fear. Why is political authority important? Is it not sufficient for a statesman to be competent, honest, courageous, and to have charisma? It is not enough. And it is not enough, in first place, because that fuzzy quality—and essential—that is called “charisma” is to a great extent constructed by and through authority. In fact, for a politician to have charisma, two things are indispensable: first, that the citizens feel that he is resolute and has decision capacity; … that he has the necessary personal strength to enforce his decision. (Saraiva, Expresso, October 29, 1988)

Examples of charismatic or preferably authoritative leaders in the Portuguese scene would be Prime Minister Sá Carneiro, who died prematurely in an air crash in December 1980, and

Cavaco Silva, who ruled for two mandates (1985–1995). According to the polls, 62% of the respondents still rate them as being the best Portuguese political leaders since 1974:

Sá Carneiro was a condottieri, in a certain way “he invented a nation,” “an artificial nation”… he aroused dormant energies under the crust of a resigned, accommodating and tamed way of being … Portuguese are, as a rule, not very courageous. They only act when they feel protected by a strong organization such as the Communist Party or by decisive men … that is what distinguished Sá Carneiro and other political men, to that breed of men that don't leave a legacy, because their value was due to their personal fascination. (Saraiva, Expresso, December 5, 1981)

Those lines were written when the memory of the condottieri was still alive in the public opinion. But to a great extent it still remains today. Whenever students are asked to name examples of Portuguese (charismatic) leaders, the name of Sá Carneiro is usually invoked. There is an airport in the north of Portugal with his name. Statues, public buildings, and streets also consecrate his memory. The controversy about the cause of his death—accident or bomb attack—also contributes to the maintenance of keeping the myth alive. Apart from his tragic death, Sá Carneiro's distinctive contribution to the making of modern Portugal is that he introduced a new style that became known as bipolarization, a sort of watershed between right and left, opposing the two main political forces that emerged after the 1974 Revolution, instead of attempting to rule through consensus and coalition. This may now appear a little naive but one cannot forget that Portugal was then, and possibly still is, in a process of learning the ropes of democracy.

The strategy together with Sá Carneiro's style was inherited and pursued by Cavaco Silva, a prime minister who ruled in Portugal for a period of 10 years (1985–1995) with the benefit of a parliamentary majority. As a leader and likely future candidate to the presidency of the republic, Cavaco Silva also displays charismatic features, according to the opinion leaders. Not only is he considered without serious contest “the best Prime Minister after the Revolution, but he is continuously described as ‘rigorous, highly demanding, competent, and invested by the sense of the national interest and by the dignity of the state’” (Saraiva, Expresso, July 6, 1985).

In terms of style, Cavaco Silva, who has a PhD in economics from the University of York (UK), conveyed the image of the “technocrat,” more concerned with the economic and financial figures in which he is an expert than with lengthy consultations or explaining his decisions to the general public. Although not very mediatic, he succeeded in turning his aloofness and secrecy into a strength. His inspirational motto was “Portugal cannot stop,” paralleling the Sá Carneiro “We have to liberate the civil society.” Portuguese leaders, even charismatic, do not appear particularly creative in terms of mobilizing the people through inspirational catchphrases.

This concept of charisma as confounded with authority, if not authoritarianism, is sometimes attributed to the heavy legacy of Salazar's dictatorship. The comparison has sometimes been suggested and also applicable to other figures such as General Eanes, who was elected president of the republic for two mandates (1976–1986). Eanes also projected an image of austerity and rigor although more linked to the military ethic of discipline and loyalty than to concerns of pragmatic efficiency.

Mário Soares, who succeeded Eanes in the presidency and another outstanding political figure of modern Portugal, does not accept the association with Salazar:

Salazar like Sidónio Paes, were dictators. Ramalho Eanes and Cavaco Silva were and still are democrats. I am not sure that the Portuguese prefer strong rulers. I don't think so. Maybe severe, aloof, with a sense of mission.… The democratic authority is not incompatible with an affective relationship and closeness with the citizens, as well as with permanent search for dialogue in order to seek possible consensus. (Osório, 1999)

Soares represents an alternative style of political leadership in Portugal. He is considered the “father” of the democratic regime in Portugal. He fought against Salazar and was arrested several times. After the Revolution he fought against the advance of communists. At the international level, he fought for a third way by claiming democratic socialism, which is a combination of socialism and freedom. He has been criticized for being too much of a “politician” in the sense of often giving priority to tactics over strategy while projecting an image lacking in principles, as the famous derogatory expression often used about Soares, “socialism was hidden in a drawer,” expresses. In spite of all his qualities and even strategic vision— attested namely by his decisive move on joining the EEC—and notwithstanding his popularity he does not seem to qualify as a charismatic leader, at least in the Portuguese eyes.

The current president, elected after Soares (1996), now in his second mandate, and also from the same socialist family, appears to share similar ideas about charisma. Asked about himself he said, “Some say that I am indecisive. They also say that I don't have charisma.

They don't understand that such would not be compatible, in democracy, to being alive and healthy after 40 years of political life” (Osório, 1999). Implicit in this statement is the idea that charisma is at best brief, instantaneous, and metamorphic, and that sustained charisma in a democratic regime would be a contradiction in terms.

The alternative (socialist) way of leading appears then to enhance communication, dialogue, and participative decision making.

António Guterres, a socialist who in 1995 succeeded Cavaco Silva as prime minister, when asked about the Portuguese preference for “strong fathers” such as Salazar, Eanes, and Cavaco Silva, stated:

There is a collective memory of the Salazarism but I believe that that memory is withering away. But after a period of turmoil (Revolution) that memory emerges again—that was understood by Professor Cavaco Silva.… But I came to Prime Minister when the society was reacting in the opposite sense. They wanted desecrated political power and no more a “muscled democracy”… But there is always a pendulum movement, towards more authority or towards more liberty … Habermas a German philosopher that I much appreciate, proposed a definition of modern democracy not compatible with the authoritarian appeal, for him the modern democracy is the exercise of power within a logic of permanent intercommunication between the policy makers and the organized civil society. (Osório, 1999)

The words of Guterres became prophetic, in the sense of the unanimous reaction triggered by what was considered et urbi et orbi as an excess of dialogue along with erratic, if not lack of decision making. After a few years of governance the media considered Guterres the prototype of the lack of leadership:

The problem of Guterres is not lack of the ability for coordinating. The problem for Guterres is, on the contrary, the tendency to confound coordination with leadership. To coordinate in excess and to not lead at all. The leader by definition goes ahead of the flock, commands respect, chooses the way. But Guterres prefers to walk in the middle of the flock—dialoguing, making contradictory positions compatible, avoiding break ups … who walks ahead walks alone and can choose the best path. Who walks in the middle is contrived to step the field chosen by others. (Saraiva, May 12, 1997).

The same opinion maker, 2 years earlier, when Guterres won the elections, already anticipated the risks of turning the dialogue into a sort of governance principle per se:

The profession of faith of António Guterres in dialogue is equivocal on three grounds: In the first place it might lead to confuse dialogue with problem solving. But, however comprehensive the dialogue might be, it can never be replaced by decision … to govern is to decide—and the decisions require courage and imply costs. In the second place, the dialogue can raise false expectations.… In the third place, the idea that the more consensual the idea the better the outcomes will be, is totally false. The consensus leads not to the best solution but, precisely because neutral in order not to make waves, is only likely to be accepted by a large number of people. A governance based on those principles does not attain long term objectives. A government that does not raise discontent will hardly get a place in History. (Saraiva, October 21, 1995)

This idea that leading always implies deciding against some group of interests, that negotiation is only realistic in win—lose terms, is now deeply ingrained in the culture, or at least in the mediated culture, of the Portuguese political landscape. It certainly contributes to the image of leadership endorsed by public opinion as well as the frames used for categorizing acts of leadership on a daily basis, be it originated by statesmen or by bosses.

In terms of conclusion after this perusal of the elite press, it appears that the Portuguese attitude toward power is, at best, rather ambiguous. Always oscillating between extremes, they have problems in getting a satisfactory democratic balance between the exertion of power and its sustained legitimacy.

Particularly enlightening for the GLOBE framework is the clarification given for the emic nuances of the concept of charisma. It appears that, at least through the mediated discourse, charisma is a rather fuzzy concept, tending to be reduced, even by responsible policymakers and opinion makers as well, to its literal meaning of “sacred aura” whose effects are limited to commanding a sort of irrational respect. Facets such as “vision” or “inspiration” do not seem to saturate the Portuguese social construct of charismatic leadership. Reexamining the network of concepts in Figure 16.1b, distilling the collective image of entrepreneurs, we also can see that charisma is linked to intelligence, power, personality (the stronger connection), and influence. Vision or inspiration does not seem to spontaneously emerge to the fore of the Portuguese respondents—at least when they are focusing on leaders and leadership.

The Quantitative Study of Societal Leadership

The middle managers who formed part of the Portuguese sample were asked to rate 112 leadership items on a scale of 1 (greatly inhibits a person from being an outstanding leader) to 7 (greatly contributes to a person being an outstanding leader). The items were aggregated into 21 leadership scales (cf. House et al., 2004). The results are summarized in Table 16.7.

The Portuguese scores neither clearly cluster within the Northern European nor the Southern European countries. This can also be observed in a recent study reported by Brodbeck et al. (2000), in which not only Portugal but also the former East Germany appear located on the boundary between Nordic and Latin (Southern) Europe within a semantic space defined by the MDS dimensions of Interpersonal Directness and Proximity, and Autonomy. Portugal is closer to Northern European countries in endorsing attributes such as “inspirational,” “integrity,” and “performance orientation,” and in rejecting less desirable attributes—those that substantially impede outstanding leadership, such as “procedural,” “autocratic,” “self-centered,” and “malevolent.” On the other hand, the Portuguese scores are closer to the ones from Southern European countries in endorsing the prototype “diplomatic”—an attribute where Portugal ranks very high—and in rejecting attributes such as “self-inducer,” “status-consciousness,” and “non-participative.” For the remaining attributes no differences were found between the two clusters (Koopman et al., 1999).

The correlation of the 21 scales listed in Table 16.7 demonstrated that they were not empirically distinct, which led to a second-order factor analysis. Six second-order factors were obtained. These higher factors are shown in Table 16.8 (den Hartog et al., 1999, p. 236).

In comparative terms, the findings for Portugal confirm the GLOBE hypothesis of universal implicit theories of leadership. Like everywhere, leaders are idealized in terms of the various facets disclosed by the neo-charismatic theories.

In culture-specific terms, the Portuguese scores indicate a particular emphasis on attributes such as “diplomatic,” “collective team orientation,” “team integration,” and “self-sacrificial,” as well as on rejecting attributes such as “autonomous,” “face-avers,” and “procedural,” and for the comparatively lower ranking attributed to being “decisive.”

In the more synthetic view given by the second-order factors, what appears most distinctive in the Portuguese scores is the relatively higher emphasis on “team oriented” and the relatively lower score on “autonomous” as compared with the scores of the Latin Europe cluster (see also Jesuino, 2002).

TABLE 16.7
GLOBE Results for Leadership Prototypes

^aMean rank scores for Portugal are calculated in relation to European countries clustered as North/West (Nordic, Anglo, Germanic) and South/East European (Latin, Central, East) by Brodbeck et al. (2000). ^*significant at 0.05; low rankings indicate higher importance.

Summary

Qualitative and quantitative studies suggest a minimum coherence to the endorsed constructs of leadership. Just looking at the quantitative scores could convey a superficial suggestion that the Portuguese respondents do not dramatically diverge from the more proximal cluster to which they belong. Furthermore, they also respond in accordance with the universal trends revealed by the GLOBE study. The qualitative approach adds however non-negligible intelligence to the slight minimal differences observable in the scores, for example, that “team orientation” and “participation” acquire more relative salience in comparison to “charisma/value based” or “autonomy.” In 1996, the political environment in Portugal was striving for a change toward more dialogue, more communication, and more teamwork. The pendulum was swinging then toward a less autocratic orientation. Anyway, a value-based theory of leadership does not seem to have been actually internalized by the societal political culture. If asked, they obviously concur with its central relevance. But it is more lip service than an actual habitus.

TABLE 16.8
Descriptive Statistics for the Second-Order Leadership Factors and the Scales/Items They Are Based On

The Portuguese are known as being better followers than leaders. The common sense has it that the Portuguese excel when working as expatriates and when working in multinationals located in Portugal. Portuguese workers apparently have more difficulty in accepting the national than the international managers. In a previous study (Jesuino, 1989), Portuguese as well as foreign managers were asked to brainstorm about what could be considered as “strong factors” and “weak factors” for exerting leadership in Portuguese organizations. Strong factors included adaptability, improvisation, creativity, tolerance and generosity. Among weak factors mentioned were disorganization, indiscipline, easily discouraged, lack of technical skills, resistance to change, and dispersion. Similar to what was found in Eastern countries (Misumi & Peterson, 1985), the old high-high model (high structure/high relationship) could be the most appropriate strategy for foreign managers exerting leadership roles in Portugal.

4.  ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES AND LEADERSHIP

The two Portuguese industries involved in the GLOBE project were food—more traditional and conservative—and telecommunications, which in Portugal, as everywhere, is at present in a boom.

Food Industry

In the 1990s, the production of the Portuguese food industry did not cover the population's food needs. The import of products (both intra- and extra-EU) exceeded the exports by about 90.9%, thus contributing to the deficit of the balance of trade, one of the most important of the country. Industrial food production in Portugal, as in other EU countries, is predominantly oriented to the national market. According to the 1997 data, the total volume of business was 2099 × 10⁹ PTE (1 PTE Portuguese Escudo ≈ 5 U.S.$) of which only 12.9% were exports. The market of the Portuguese food industry is thus made up essentially of the 10 million of consumers that live in national territory. In terms of foreign trade in 1997, the exports amounted to 275.4 × 10⁹ PTE (6.6% of the total value produced by the manufacturing industry), and the imports 518.1 × 10⁹ PTE (9.7% of the total value produced by the manufacturing industry). The main countries for export were the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and the countries where Portuguese emigrants live. The imported food products come mainly from the EU countries (71.5%), particularly from Spain and France. The food industry is one of the main employers of the national manufacturing industry, absorbing about 121,000 workers in 1997 (2.5% of the total active population and 11.9% of the total employed in the Portuguese manufacturing industry).

Similarly to the EU, in Portugal the enterprises operating in the food industry are small and medium (SMEs). Out of the total 10,200 enterprises, 9,200 have fewer than 20 workers, whereas only 182 have more than 100 workers. Only 40 enterprises attained a business volume higher than 7.5 × 10⁹ PTEs in 1997. The average in 1997 was 216 × 10⁶ PTEs. The largest employer among those where the GLOBE questionnaires were distributed had 2,075 workers, representing only 1.7% of the total workforce in this industry (see http://193.137.98.84/estudos_agroalimentar/indice.html).

Like the trend observed in the EU, the entrepreneurial fabric of the food industry in Portugal is changing toward a greater concentration of productive forces. An ever-growing number of mergers and acquisitions is observable at both the national and international levels. More than 200 mergers took place in the EU in the period 1993–1995 of which only 8 also included Portuguese firms.

The firm where the GLOBE study was conducted, one of the biggest within the industry, operates in dairy farming. Its workforce amounted to 570 workers and its business budget in 1996 was around 18 × 109 PTE.

Telecommunications Industry

The telecommunications sector in Portugal was until recently owned and operated by the state. It was characterized by a high dependence on technology, lack of qualified workers at all levels, and weak support of R&D. The new technological paradigm and the rapid and growing domestic demand has led to developing strategies of joint ventures in order to accelerate diversification and modernization (Rodrigues, 1991).

The last decades of the 20th century were a period of dramatic changes in the world. In Europe, the fifteen EU member countries formally entered the European Single Market. Independent domestic monetary policies became something of the past, and macroeconomic convergence led to monetary union with the formal introduction of the euro in January 1999 in 11 countries, of which Portugal is one. The European telecommunications sector became deregulated and liberalized also according to the same strategy.

The resulting growth and variety in telecom services being offered has been so strong that at least up to 2000, and against most forecasts and predictions, no overall job losses in the telecom sector took place; rather, the contrary (Soete, 2002, p. 28).

In Portugal, the telecommunications sector has gone through the same process of change derived from the European strategy. The major Portuguese enterprise operating in the sector is Portugal Telecom (PT), one of three leading Portuguese companies. The other two are Banco Comercial Português (BCP) and Electricidade de Portugal (EDP). Although they've become public, the state keeps “golden shares” of PT, which allows it to veto mergers.

As correctly remarked in the Economist’s Survey of 2000, in Portugal, “There is an obvious appetite for new technology. More than half the population has a mobile phone—a penetration rate lower than in Scandinavia, but higher than in Germany. This is partly because pre-paid mobiles were first developed and introduced in Portugal by TMN, the mobile-phone subsidiary of Portugal Telecom (PT).”

Portugal has developed an automatic teller machine (ATM) network, the Multibanco system, acknowledged as one of the most sophisticated in the world. Portugal was also a pioneer in prepayment systems for mobile phones, interactive digital television, and call-center software. An electronic motorway toll system has also been developed that directly debits payments from motorists’ bank accounts, without requiring them to stop. The system was developed by the Portuguese motorway operator BRISA in a joint venture with the Norwegian company Micro Design, and is considered one of the most advanced in the world (“Portugal, Economy,” 2002).

The mobile phone market in Portugal is now shared by three operators: TMN (owned by PT), Telecel (owned by Britain's Vodafone), and Optimus (belonging to the conglomerate SONAE, one of the most important Portuguese economic groups), a newcomer that got 20% of the market. Before launching Optimus, the company asked as many Portuguese households as it could if they wanted to be “pioneers,” promising them cheap calls in return for joining Optimus. That gave the company a start-up customer base of 285,000 people.

After the liberalization of the Portuguese telecommunications market on January 1, 2000, the market conditions did not substantially change. Notwithstanding the entry of new operators offering aggressive and competitive conditions and even with innovative products, PT is still the dominant force, similar to what can be observed in other European countries whose telecommunications were liberalized.

For the time being, although the market is liberalized the new operators have only two choices: Either create their own network to directly access their clients, or use indirect access, limited to national and international calls. This latter alternative has been the one preferred so far, but the new operators have plans to develop their own telecommunication infrastructures.

The recommendations of the European Commission for accelerating the liberalization of telecommunications is related with the directives issued from the Lisbon European Summit 2000, setting the priority of a rapid transition to an e-Europe, with an economy based on the information society. But as acknowledged by the European Commission, even in countries where the liberalization started in January 1998, the incumbents have lost some market share in international calls, but maintain 90% to 100% in local calls. According to Andersen Consulting, on average, operators in Europe control 98% of the fixed telecommunications and even in England, the most advanced European country in terms of liberalization, British Telecom still controls 85% of local calls.

According to the Survey of the Telecommunications made by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística in 2001, the income of the services of telecommunication in Portugal amounted to 7,067 × 106_(Euros) with a homologous variation of 32.2%. The total investment amounted to 1,064 × 106 _, 80% of which accounted for equipment and infrastructure (52% for the mobile network and 46% for the fixed network).

The GLOBE study was conducted in two different companies belonging now to the PT universe. One of them, Marconi, operates in the international-call area. The other, PT Innovation, works on R&D and training. The workforce is composed of about 300 people in both of the enterprises. PT Innovation is particularly dynamic. It was here that the prepaid system for mobile phones was developed.

Quantitative Results

Culture. In this last section of the GLOBE study, the organizational cultures were assessed through the second tier of questions also split into practices (“As Is”) and values (“Should Be”). The questionnaires were applied to middle managers in two Portuguese industries: food and telecommunications. The results obtained are summarized in Table 16.9.

What immediately strikes one when comparing the results at the organizational level with those at the societal level is that at the organizational level the differences become less extreme. The greatest difference observed in the Portuguese data between practices and values is on Performance, which in both industries is above 2 points. The trend observable in the Portuguese data is parallel to the trend also found in the GLOBE average results. In both cases, the telecommunications industry appear more demanding, at least in terms of desirable performance and desirable future orientation. In the Portuguese results, the contrast between the telecommunications and food industries reveal some specific points. Whereas in telecommunications industries it is considered that the organization should strive for more “future,” more “institutional,” and fewer norms and procedures (Uncertainty Avoidance), in food organizations more “future” and “institutional” are also desirable, but to a much lesser extent, and there are more, not fewer, norms and procedures. These trends are coherent with the degree of development and corresponding management styles in the two industries. Whereas in telecommunication organizations middle managers seem to prefer a larger amount of decentralization (being left alone to do their job) and at the same time more team building (Institutional Collectivism), in food industries more job ambiguity is perceived, leading to the need for more rules and procedures.

No less striking, both at the GLOBE and at the national level, is the difference in the Power dimension, when we come down from society to organizations. At the organizational level, Power is perceived as much less extreme, and the difference between practices and values, between the actual and the ideal situation, becomes considerably reduced. Instead of a difference of 3 points, observed at the society level, we now have a difference of only half a point as the average for both industries. This finding is somewhat intriguing but also one of the most heuristic contributions of the GLOBE study. It suggests that when asked to describe the amount of power exerted at the societal level, managers do not represent the same entities as the ones they refer to when asked to describe the power at the organizational level.

TABLE 16.9
Country Mean Scores for Organizational Culture Dimensions

^aCountry mean score on a 7-point Likert-type scale. ^bAbsolute difference between the “Should Be” and “As Is” score.

Power at the societal level is possibly represented as political power. It is more distant and also more abstract. One could speculate that at the societal level respondents activate a social representation that is not directly linked with their direct experience of the organizations where they work. At this latter level, power seems to be much more tolerated or, alternatively, its meaning could change when embedded in a specific working context. Self-protecting rationalizations could also be invoked as an underlying tactic to cope with authority.

Leadership. Table 16.10 summarizes the results of endorsed attributes of leadership, divided between the two industries of food and telecommunications. The findings do not present significant differences between the two industries. The ranking is similar and the differences in the magnitude of the attributes is negligible.

5.  LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT STUDY

The findings of the present study are obviously subject to qualification. Only two industries were sampled and in both cases the number of respondents was below the amount expected. Media analysis would also benefit from a more extensive and systematic survey in order to detect more detailed descriptions of leadership profiles observable in the public space, as well as in the civil society. Anyway, the substantial convergence found with previous cross-cultural studies suggests that the GLOBE approach could be viewed as a benchmark for the future research of culture and leadership in Portugal.

TABLE 16.10
Leadership Attributes in Portuguese Industries

		Portugal
Dimensions	Food”	Telecommunications”	GLOBE Range
Autocratic	2.48 (15)	2.23 (10)	2.89–3.90
Procedural	3.26 (14)	3.17(13)	2.87^1.89
Self-Sacrificial	4.37(11)	4.32(11)	3.98–5.99
Team Orientation	5.69 (7)	5.72 (6)	4.12–6.09
Decisive	5.49 (8)	5.27 (8)	3.62–6.97
Diplomatic	5.79 (5)	5.76 (5)	4.49–6.05
Modesty	4.64 (9)	4.84 (9)	4.23–5.85
Face Saver	2.44(16)	2.25 (15)	2.05^1.53
Humane Orientation	4.36 (12)	4.48 (10)	3.29–5.68
Autonomous	3.58(13)	3.04 (14)	2.27^1.73
Inspirational	6.36 (2)	6.24 (1)	5.04–6.63
Integrity	6.44(1)	6.23 (2)	4.83–6.79
Performance Orientation	6.24 (4)	6.16(3)	4.51–6.64
Administrative Competence	5.79 (5)	5.47 (7)	4.53–6.42
Self-Centered	2.15 (17)	1.91 (17)	1.55–3.41
Status Consciousness	4.45 (10)	4.28 (12)	2.37–5.93
Visionary	6.32 (3)	6.03 (4)	4.62–6.50

^aRank is given in parentheses.

6.  CONCLUSION

Comparing the results for both society and industries it can be concluded that there is greater convergence in values than in perceived practices. But even at the level of values, people are more realistic and therefore less demanding when they refer to the job context than when they talk about society in abstract. This distance between the representation of the society and the representation of their own organizations is also an indication of the degree of dissatisfaction or lack of identification with national culture. In Portugal, there is a long tradition of self-derogatory representations about the collective capacity in generating synergy. This could to some extent explain the differences between both practices and values and between the societal and the organizational levels.

Another finding worthy of comment is the ambiguous position of the Portuguese scores within the country clusters. It was seen that in some dimensions Portugal is closer to the North European cluster, whereas in other dimensions the scores tend to be close to the grand mean, which makes the interpretation more difficult. This proximity to the grand mean, also observable in cross-cultural studies on values (Schwartz, 1999), could signify either an eclectic or compromising orientation or, alternatively, some sort of pervasive defensive style.

The Portuguese sociologist Sousa Santos (1994) has suggested a portrait of the Portuguese society as one that is semiperipheral where premodernity, modernity, and postmodernity dynamically coexist. An example could be given by the Portuguese Revolution of 1974. It started with a premodern military putsch, followed by a transitory postmodern period of anarchic social creativity, returning to modernity with the military yielding power to civil society who rapidly enforced the democratic pattern of European societies.

The coexistence of the three orders could also be the determining factor of the Portuguese specificity and even contribute to opening the way to some competitive advantages within the international scene. The GLOBE findings are compatible with, or at least do not contradict, such a hypothesis.

7.  FINAL REMARKS

A study about culture and leadership in Portugal would necessarily reflect the huge transformations that took place in this country in the last decades. Portugal is no longer the same. There was a revolution, the transition to democracy, the decolonization of former African territories, and the joining of the EU. In 30 years, the Portuguese people have known periods of political instability but also periods of stability. There has been great economic development but the spectrum of crisis is also always looming.

Portugal is now a member of the club of developed countries but it still has the complex of being last in line. Culturally, it is a modern, open society, but with asymmetrical pockets of backwardness.

Such dramatic experiences, however, do not seem to have deeply changed some of the most “basic assumptions” underlying the collective way of life, the Portuguese Weltanshauung (i.e. view of the world). Culture never changes overnight. This is also confirmed in the present study through the continuity and convergence of the main findings across the various former cross-cultural studies with their diverse methodologies and conceptual frameworks.

Looking from the perspective of leadership practices and values, it is our understanding that a central feature of the Portuguese collective was captured by the former studies about the LMP where Affiliation scored higher than Power, and Inhibition was found to be low. It could be argued and speculated that this is the central core of the Portuguese habitus. Observers of the Portuguese society always confront the excellence of its individual members with the enigmatic negative synergy resulting from their pooled efforts. One possible cause could be the reluctance to both exert and accept leadership.

Leadership density in Portugal, that is, the amount of leadership being exerted within and between social groups, is rather low. It could be argued that suspicion toward power still lingers in the collective memory of the Portuguese people. Almost half a century of dictatorship leaves marks on the collective body. It could also be argued that the process of societal change is slow and that the Portuguese society has not yet had enough time to achieve the reform of its democratic institutions. Such historical handicaps might favor a bent toward a sort of laissez-faire style of leadership whose inertial effects on development are only too well known.

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