The results of the article “Leadership and Cooperation in Marketing Channels: A Comparative Empirical Analysis of the U.S., Finland and Poland” by Mehta et al. have shown a positive correlation between cooperation and productivity in Finland and the USA, which was predicted by Hofstede’s framework. At the same time, Poland displayed a distinctively negative correlation, showing that cooperation lowered individual performance.
This was an unexpected development, which went against Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions. However, such an occurrence could be explained through historical evaluation, as Poland had a long and uneasy history of forced cooperation under the command economy of the Soviet Union. Every attempt at instilling cooperation, therefore, was met with negativity. It must also be noted that Finland, despite being a more collectivist society, showed lower productivity results than the USA.
These results imply that while the chosen leadership styles worked well for the US companies, the results for European organizations were modest at best and negative at worst. It is implied that if the experiment involved countries with greater cultural differentiation (USA, Finland, and Poland roughly share the same European-based culture, the results would have shown greater discrepancy.
Therefore, it must be concluded that the three proposed styles cannot be used to standardize leadership in an international organization. That leadership must reflect the cultural differences and attitudes in their respective regions to be effective. History and culture are very difficult to change; therefore, it is pointless to try and adjust the population to styles of leadership that do not suit it.