GETTING THINGS DONE: PROACTIVE INFLUENCE TACTICS IN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES

As organizational success depends on the commitment of employees, supervisors inevitably attempt to influence task commitment of their subordinates in many ways. Previous research suggests that supervisor-subordinate influence tactics are culture-sensitive. With the internationalization of human resources in organizations, greater sensitivity is required to understand how "the rules of the game " may differ according to the national culture in question. In this study, a comparison of leadership behaviors of managers in Mexico and the United States is carried out. The results of our study indicate that the influence tactics of "rational persuasion" and "personal appeals" are more strongly correlated with task commitment in the US sample, while "legitimating", "pressure", and "organizational appeal" are more strongly associated with task commitment in the Mexican sample. The results also indicated that the quality of the supervisor and subordinate relationship, as measured by Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), plays a moderating role in the effectiveness of influence tactics used in both cultural settings to elicit task commitment. However, in the Mexican sample, LMX moderates pressure, legitimating, and organizational appeal while for the US sample, LMX moderates rational persuasion and inspirational appeal. Keywords: cultural dimensions, leadership, LMX, influence tactics, task commitment