Keywords

1 Introduction

In the global world we live in, there are challenges such as the development of a leadership that promotes the development of companies, as well as provides better working conditions for workers, thus improving their quality of life. A topic widely discussed and analyzed was the most successful leadership style to apply, since the time of Platon (Ivancevich 2003); leadership is the basis of the living being of universal and primordial order.

In this sense, Alvear et al. (2019) propose in their research an analysis of the leadership styles developed by senior executives in the companies that export from Barranquilla. The results indicate that transformational leadership is the most used, transactional leadership is in second place followed by laissez-faire leadership, from which various theories indicate which points should be considered to maximize its applicability. In conclusion, it can be seen that by combining transactional and transformational leadership, a series of competitive advantages are generated for workers.

Serveleon (2017), the existence of the relationship between leadership and organizational culture was analyzed, which opened a knowledge horizon where there is a moderate positive correlation, which can be used as a starting point for future plans of continuous and sustained improvement. Finally, it is concluded that there is a relationship between leadership and organizational culture.

Leadership results from the leader’s direct influence on subordinates leading them to achieve group goals (Bass 1995). Burns looks at transactional leadership as an exchange between the leader and his/her followers, in which they obtain some value from the work they do; it is a cost-benefit relationship (Bass 1999).

Fischman (2017) states the following definition: “culture includes values and beliefs and assumptions that are not always conscious but reflect a behavior in the members of a company” (p. 21).

Hellriegel et al. (2017) indicate regarding organizational culture: it plays a primary role in institutional life, given that, it contributes to learning and has a new effect on new opportunities and challenges that may be generated. By influencing situations where there are challenges and the culture generated allows overcoming these challenges, it will help to achieve the objectives that top management wants to achieve with the help of its staff.

This research aims to help solve a real problem, such as organizational culture, which is one of the most important factors for the development of a company in all its areas: productive, administrative, structural, and evolutionary. It is a key element to explain human behavior at work. For this reason, the research question formulated was: What is the relationship between leadership styles and organizational culture in the company Marka Group, Trujillo 2021? The general objective was to determine the relationship between leadership styles and organizational culture in the company Marka Group, in the city of Trujillo-Peru. It also has two specific objectives: To analyze the leadership styles identified and the organizational culture in the company Marka Group. Organizations with a weak organizational culture can hardly aspire to be better. That is why, instruments were developed and applied, whose purpose was to determine the relationship between the study variables, such as leadership styles and organizational culture. Likewise, the hypothesis shows that there is a significant relationship between leadership styles and organizational culture in the company Marka Group.

Likewise, Picurelli (2019) cited by Romero (2019) states about leadership, that it is a disadvantage not to have an adequate organizational culture that influences people to work properly and achieve the desired success.

According to Bass y Avolio (1996), the existing models were delimited into two large groups, by using as a point of view the type of interaction between the leader and the members of his/her team, calling them transformational leadership and transactional leadership. The first category describes the form of interaction between the leader and the followers. Followers allow the leader’s influence if they receive resources or a transaction for meeting objectives that were initially assigned to them. Therefore, transactional leadership is based on conditional reward. Followers are motivated by promises made by leaders, providing rewards and/or possible punishments (Bass 1996). The other category is that of transformational models, where the leader moves forward without the need for any exchange. Leaders encourage followers to put the interests and benefits of the group before the particular benefit of each follower.

2 Materials and Methods

Due to the nature of the objective, a quantitative, basic, prospective, cross-sectional, correlational, and observational study was chosen, because it was possible to determine the relationship between the variables: leadership style and organizational culture. In addition, a simple, non-experimental, correlational design was used. The study was carried out in the company Marka Group, in the city of Trujillo-Peru during the period 2021.

Two questionnaires were used, one for each variable. The Multifactorial Leadership questionnaire MLQ-5X short version, adapted to Spanish, measured the Leadership Styles variable, comprising 45 Likert-type questions distributed in 3 dimensions: Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, laissez-faire. The instrument was validated and reliable with an internal consistency Alpha coefficient of 0.93 which points to high reliability for the instrument, indicating that it is a reliable instrument (Fong 2018).

For the organizational culture variable, the OCAI scale-type questionnaire by Cameron and Quinn was used, translated into Spanish, with a total of 24 questions divided into 6 dimensions: dominant characteristics, leadership in my organization, management style, organizational unity, strategic emphasis, and criteria for success, referring to 4 dominant types of culture: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy.

The data collection was done through Google forms compiled in a MICROSOFT EXCEL database. The data analysis was done through SPSS statistical software, with a population of 132 workers corresponding to the commercial, administration and finance, marketing, projects, and branches areas, in order to make the analysis and obtain reliable results in this research (Table 1).

3 Results

Table 1. Leadership Styles in the company Marka Group, Trujillo 2021
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Fig. 1.
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Leadership Styles in the company Marka Group

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In the figure it can be seen that 81.8% of respondents believe that they have transformational leadership, 10.6% of workers believe that they have transactional leadership and 7.60% believe that they have Laissez-Faire leadership (Figs. 1, 2 and Table 2).

Table 2. Perception of the Organizational Culture according to the company Marka Group, Trujillo, 2021
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Fig. 2.
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Type of Organizational Culture in the company Marka Group

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In the analysis of Organizational Culture, it is observed that 42% of workers perceive a Clan-type culture, i.e., it is perceived as a big family, where beliefs and values are shared. They perceive that leadership is based on consensus and the participation of all workers in the company. They perceive that the team is loyal, united, and cohesive.

45% perceive the organizational culture as a market-type culture, i.e., they believe that the company promotes competitiveness and profit orientation. The company is focused on the achievement of results and encourages all workers to be competitive, promoting competition, aggressiveness, goals to achieve the objectives.

Fig. 3.
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Type of organizational culture in the company Marka Group, according to the job position.

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Figure 3 shows that the Assistants perceive a clan-type organizational culture, where a family environment is perceived, and the bosses are like tutors. Decisions are consensus-based and participatory. But, on the other hand, they also believe that there is a market-type culture, i.e., where competitiveness and profit-oriented goals are promoted. On the other hand, managers and operators believe that there is a strong market-type culture, based on demands, competitiveness, and valuing independence more than integration.

Fig. 4.
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Type of organizational culture in the company Marka Group, according to whether they have personnel in charge.

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Figure 4 shows that employees with and without personnel in charge perceive that the predominant organizational culture in the company is market-type, i.e., it is oriented to the company’s goals and profits, promoting competitiveness and aggressiveness in the achievement of goals (Table 3).

Table 3. Contingency chart between leadership type and organizational culture
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It can be observed that the p-value of X2 is 0.006 < 0.05, so we reject Ho, and conclude that there is a significant relationship between leadership styles and Organizational Culture. Likewise, the contingency coefficient of 0.509 indicates that there is a moderate relationship between them.

4 Discussion

The skills and experiences of managers have different challenges on the objectives and strategies to improve the development of the organization. Our main objective is to determine the relationship between leadership styles and organizational culture in the company Marka Group, Trujillo 2021. Definitely, the leadership style that prevails in the organization defines the motivation or discouragement of employees. It is important to highlight the Bass Transformational Leadership theory that considers leadership as the contingent leverage of the beneficiaries (transactional), the engine that enables followers to develop (transformational) (Bass 1997). The transformational model cites the type of leadership that transcends the exchange and motivates followers to an evolution of their beliefs and values. A transformer-type leader motivates a company to develop its work because of a higher-order need (Crawford 1995). An inspired transformational leader helps in the growth of a follower of Burns (1978), citing Ames’ thesis (2014).

In the analysis of results, we can conclude that 81.8% of respondents believe that they have transformational leadership. This type of leadership bases its scheme on making the group interests their own, having an attitude of group commitment that leads them to try to promote the growth of the group, according to Nichols (1998). 10.6% of workers think that they have transactional leadership, and 7.60% think that they have Laissez-Faire leadership. The former is an activity of the leader who determines a transaction between the leader and the members of the group; the members accept his/her authority so that the leader contributes resources of different value for all or part of the group. Laissez-Faire leadership is the lack or inexistence of leadership, being the most inefficient and inactive style (Ames 2014).

Regarding the dimensions of the Leadership variable, all of them are at regular level, being C1 the ones with the lowest average: management by passive exception, i.e. the leaders usually leave things as they are and, in any case, they only intervene when the problems become serious, and also C2: Letting extra effort where they are not able to get the extra effort from their collaborators to achieve the optimal levels of performance. This influences the performance that the employees have. In the real estate sector, there is high competition so the organization tries to achieve optimal performance and interaction between employees and employers.

Regarding the organizational culture variable, the objective is to analyze the organizational culture in the company Marka Group, Trujillo 2021. According to our results, we can conclude that in the organizational culture, it is observed that 42% of workers perceive a clan-type culture, i.e. it is perceived as a big family, where beliefs and values are shared. They perceive that leadership is based on consensus and the participation of all workers in the company. They perceive that the team is loyal, united, and cohesive. According to Hellriegel et al. (2017), loyalty, personal commitment, tradition, high socialization, and teamwork are characteristics of this type of culture. In addition, culture is felt and can be perceived in the activities or actions that are developed daily.

Furthermore, Chura (2018), in his research: Leadership and organizational culture in the Instituto de Educación Superior Tecnológico Público El Descanso-Filial Túpac Amaru, Canas, Cusco-2018. Universidad César Vallejo, Peru. The publication sought to determine the relationship between the organizational culture of the institution under study. The specific objectives were: the relationships between the organizational culture with all the dimensions that make up the leadership. The study was carried out with a non-experimental design since none of the variables were manipulated; only the correlation between them was determined. The study was descriptive and correlational since the phenomenon studied is described with the data collected. As for the population, it was made up of 35 students and 5 teachers, from which 26 students and 4 teachers were used as the sample, with a total of 30 people from the institution. Two questionnaires were designed as instruments to learn about leadership and organizational culture. Expert judgment was used to validate the surveys. The conclusion reached is that there is no significant relationship, and there is a very low negative correlation between the variables studied.

According to the analysis of our results, 45% perceive a market-type organizational culture, i.e., they believe that competitiveness and profit orientation stand out in the company. The company is focused on the achievement of results and encourages all workers to be competitive, promoting competition, aggressiveness, goals, in order to achieve the company’s objectives.

According to Hellriegel et al. (2017):

The market culture that focuses on achieving a series of financial goals highlights the competition that may exist among workers in order to achieve the financial objectives that have been projected and that incorporate rewards in exchange for the effort achieved. This implies that there is a kind of exchange between the demand for the achievement of a financial goal in exchange for some reward that the staff may receive.

The employees with and without personnel in charge perceive that the predominant organizational culture in the company is market-type, i.e., it is oriented to the company’s goals and profits, promoting competitiveness and aggressiveness in the achievement of goals. Just as men and women perceive the predominant organizational culture in the company as a market-type, i.e., it is perceived in the focus on business goals, and levels of demand for achieving them timely, this leadership promotes competitiveness and aggressiveness of the winning spirit.

It is important to highlight that Calagua (2019), in his research: “Leadership style and organizational culture in an associative company: A case study on COOPERATIVA DE SERVICIOS MÚLTIPLES SOL&CAFÉ”. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima. This study was carried out to analyze the relationship between organizational culture and leadership styles, based on the collaborators of a Cooperative dedicated to the exploitation of coffee beans in our country. It mentions the progress of the studies that relate organizational culture and leadership over time in an organization. The research conducted by the author is oriented under a mixed approach, which includes both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

5 Conclusions

According to the analysis of results, it is determined that there is a significant relationship between leadership styles and organizational culture. Likewise, the contingency coefficient of 0.509 indicates that there is a moderate relationship between them.

81.8% of respondents believe that they have transformational leadership, being this the predominant style, on which they base their scheme making group interests their own, having an attitude of group commitment; and, 10.6% of workers believe that they have transactional leadership.

42% of workers perceive a Clan-type culture, i.e., it is perceived as a big family, where beliefs and values are shared. Leadership is based on consensus and the participation of all the company’s workers. They perceive that the team is loyal, united, and cohesive.