Economic Resourcefulness of Leaders Across Cohorts

Abstract

A paper considers how formal leaders - the appointed chiefs or managers of an administrative unit - act and use their leadership skills as leaders of their households. The household heads are responsible for economic security of their family. A leader with her/his traits is expected, as a head/member of her/his household, to make the right economic decisions in private life to ensure a high level of economic security for own family. The paper is aimed to investigate whether leaders prove to be more resourceful then other household heads, it means whether their private, economic decisions - in the fields of labor, saving, investing, borrowing and insuring - make their households more secure economically. The questionnaire survey is a source of data for observed variables. The sample covers 800 respondents in age 25-64. The sample is divided into three cohorts which have different experiences resulted from transition process in Poland (1990-2003), Poland’s membership in the EU (since 2004), the financial crises in 2008-2010. The research uses an exploratory analysis based on structural equation modeling (SEM). The results from the exploratory analysis show that private economic decisions made by leaders build higher economic security of their households.

Keywords: Resourcefulness, Economic Security, Leader

JEL Classification: D19