Effective leadership in salient groups:revisiting leader-member exchange theory from the perspective of the social identity theory of leadership

Two studies compared leader-member exchange (LMX) theory and the social identity theory of leadership. Study 1 surveyed 439 employees of organizations in Wales, measuring work group salience, leader-member relations, and perceived leadership effectiveness. Study 2 surveyed 128 members of organizations in India, measuring identification not salience and also individualism/collectivism. Both studies provided good support for social identity predictions. Depersonalized leader-member relations were associated with greater leadership effectiveness among high-than low-salient groups (Study 1) and among high than low identifiers (Study 2). Personalized leadership effectiveness was less affected by salience (Study 1) and unaffected by identification (Study 2). Low-salience groups preferred personalized leadership more than did high-salience groups (Study 1). Low identifiers showed no preference but high identifiers preferred depersonalized leadership (Study 2). In Study 2, collectivists did not prefer depersonalized as opposed to personalized leadership, whereas individualists did, probably because collectivists focus more on the relational self.

Giants and dwarfs:the multilevel lobbying strategies of national interest organizations

The article addresses the bias in interest representation within the EU by examining the lobbying strategies of national interest organisations within the EU’s multilevel political system. Both our theoretical framework, which includes the determinants of a national interest organisation's decision to act at the EU level, and the data analysis from the INTEREURO Multi-Level Governance Module (MLG) (www.intereuro.eu) reveal three main findings. Firstly, the greatest differentiation among interest organisations (IOs) appears to be between those IOs from the older member states (Germany, the UK and the Netherlands), which exhibit above-average levels of activity, and those from the newer EU member states (Sweden, Slovenia), which exhibit below-average levels of activity. Secondly, the variations in IO activity levels are much greater from country to country than from one policy field to another. Thirdly, although the IOs from all five countries in our study are more likely to employ media and publishing strategies (information politics) than to mobilise their members and supporters (protest politics), we can still observe national patterns in their selection of strategies and in the intensity of their instrumentalisation.