transactional leadership theories. Through such research, we could gain
a clearer picture of the unique contribution of the PL model to the
leadership literature.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have reviewed the empirical research on Farh and
Cheng’s ( 2000 ) model of PL and identified several fruitful areas for
future research. Most theories of leadership in organizational behav-
ior originated in the USA and Western Europe and are hypothesized to
be universally applicable to non-Western contexts. Departing from
this tradition, we proposed a Chinese culture-specific leadership
theory, built on China’s patriarchal family tradition. The PL model
provides a new perspective on leadership in the Chinese context by
focusing on three dimensions of leadership (authoritarianism, benevo-
lence, and moral leadership) that have been ignored in the Western
leadership literature. Subsequent empirical research by Cheng and
his associates has shown that the PL model could account for a
substantial amount of variance in subordinate outcomes in Chinese
contexts. Our review further shows that the PL model could be further
expanded to allow for a configurational and a multilevel approach
to investigating leadership. Future research should update the con-
struct domains of PL dimensions to keep it more applicable to the
modern context and test its generalizability beyond the Chinese
cultural context.
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