There is a lack of universally applicable team leadership models for cross-cultural work teams. The research on cross-cultural team leadership has mostly been conducted with an ethnocentric or culturally comparative approach. Therefore, the purpose of this study has been to discover a universal leadership theory, leading to high cross-cultural team performance.

This dissertation describes the prior research bound to the research topic and the development of a universal, cross-cultural team leadership style. The new, created leadership style, the Integration Oriented Leader, was designed to bring forth high cross-cultural team performance. The suggested theory was empirically tested in a laboratory experiment and received strong support. The conclusion of the conducted research is that the Integration Oriented leadership style may very well be the most suitable leadership style to implement in cross-cultural work teams.