Leadership, Adaptability and Performance of Bulgarian Organizations – Cultural Reflections on Empirical Data

This article interprets data from several empirical studies in Bulgaria in three areas of research interest – transformational leadership, adaptability, and organizational performance. The first study examines transformational leadership's influence on adaptability and organizational performance. It formulates two hypotheses and tests them by using data from a broader study on organizational capacity for change among employees and managers in organizations in Bulgaria. Two hierarchical regression analyses confirm the direct and positive influence of transformational leadership on adaptability and organizational performance. Results from an additional set of research studies are used to expand the context for understanding and exploring the three areas of interest. The empirical data for these were collected through five observations on the national and organizational cultures according to Hofstede's methodology. Thus, the article’s combined approach of looking at the data from unrelated studies is believed to strengthen the cognitive possibilities in the interpretation of the researched areas and established regularities. The main results point at high values observed for all three variables in Bulgaria. Cultural interpretation of some of the indicators through the years confirm these results and point at unidirectional and stable trends for some (such as growing care for employee development as part of the transformational leadership scale and weakening uncritical following of rules as part of the adaptability scale). There is reason to argue that training is more valuable to employees than job security (both part of the organizational performance scale).