Abstract

The ultimate objective of this study is to show the effects of leadership styles and organizational culture on firm’s innovativeness. The study has been conducted over six different firms with a total sample size of 113 employees in order to investigate empirically the joint impact of particular leadership styles (employee orientation, production orientation, change centered leadership) and organizational culture typologies (market, hierarchy, adhocracy ,clan) on firm’s innovativeness within Turkish business context. The most significant finding of the study is that adhocracy culture has been found as a common variable for all firms within the sample in explaining innovativeness. On the other side, based on firm level analysis, it has been shown that for construction and chemical firms market culture, for steel and iron firm employee oriented leadership, for pharmaceutical firm hierarchy and change centered leadership and finally for aviation firm adhocracy culture have been found to explain  firm’s innovativeness. Considering the departmental analysis, for production department market, hierarchy and change centered leadership, for marketing department adhocracy culture are determined as common variables in explaining innovativeness within the firm.

Key word: Leadership, organizational culture, firm’s innovativeness, change centered leadership.