Elías Ramírez Plazas

This study established the relationship between transformational leadership and social responsibility practices in women’s organizations that produce special coffees in southern Colombia. To measure these variables using Likert scales, two questionnaires were applied: the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X short version (MLQ-5X) to measure transformational leadership, and a tool developed by the researchers to measure social responsibility. Cronbach’s Alpha (α) values for the two variables showed excellent consistency (α = 0.95 and 0.90 for transformational leadership and social responsibility, respectively). For the analysis of the information, the structural equation model was used to validate the hypothesis using the SPSS AMOS software. The results indicate a significant and positive correlation between the transformational leadership practices and the perception of social responsibility, especially in the dimensions of idealized influence (behavior and attributed) and intellectual stimulation of transformational leadership, and in the dimensions of labor issues and social responsibility. These findings are consistent with existing literature, and complement aspects not addressed before (e.g. correlation between transformational leadership and social responsibility practices in women’s organizations) in the framework of gender in non-conventional organizations.

Neighborhood stores are a business that is rooted in the social and economic structure of societies in developing countries, so their importance in these areas is attractive to analyze from an academic and research perspective. This study evaluated the influence of culture on relationship marketing between neighborhood merchants and their consumers from an alternative perspective to traditional approaches. Thus, a consumer is presented as a human being inserted in a social reality and not as a matter of simple exchange. The study was quantitative in nature, approached from the deductive and correlational method, for which a survey-type measurement instrument with a Likert scale was generated and validated that evaluated the relationship between variables. The reliability of the scale was measured using Cronbach’s Alpha, obtaining acceptable results for culture (a: 0.85) and relationship marketing (a: 0.93). The results indicate a positive relationship between culture and relationship marketing: trust (0.789; p < 0.00), commitment (0.658; p < 0.00), satisfaction (0.853; p < 0.00), and loyalty (0.753; p < 0.00), so that business relationships in a neighborhood store are based on cultural considerations established and maintained in constant interaction between participating members: shopkeepers, consumers, friends and relatives who attend it with some frequency, have these ties deep, since they have been appropriated through the performance of ceremonies and rites in which values, beliefs, mental representations, trust, commitment, satisfaction, and loyalty of the actors involved are implicit, giving vitality to the relationship between buyers and sellers, which they themselves call “socializing links”.

Acknowledgment
The authors thank the Universidad Surcolombiana and the Universidad del Norte for their support in the development of the research.