A cross-cultural study of leadership styles among executives in Bulgaria and Finland

This study assesses and compares the leadership styles of executives from two socioeconomically and culturally different European settings, Bulgaria as a postsocialist transition society and Finland as a knowledge-based society. The Achieving Styles/Connective Leadership Model was used as a theoretical framework for this quantitative study, while the L-BL Achieving Styles Inventory (ASI) was utilised to assess the goal-directed behaviour of Bulgarian and Finnish managers. The results revealed that there are significant differences in the ways Bulgarian and Finnish managers accomplished their objectives in five out of nine achieving styles. Finally, we discuss the findings and implications.