Rethinking leadership-relevant functioning through Bowen’s theory: emotional regulation and cultural adaptation in Italy and South Korea

This study examines whether differentiation of self (DS), derived from Bowen’s family systems theory, is associated with leadership-relevant psychological functioning under relational pressure, and whether these associations vary across cultural contexts. Adopting a cross-cultural psychosocial perspective, the paper questions universalist assumptions in leadership research that treat emotionally autonomous self-regulation as uniformly adaptive across settings. A cross-sectional comparative survey design was used to analyse data collected in Italy and South Korea through the Differentiation of Self Inventory-Revised (DSI-R) and the Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45.2). The analytical strategy combined descriptive comparisons, correlational analyses, and regression models to examine both the overall association between DS and psychological distress and the extent to which cultural context shapes these relationships. The findings indicate that DS is meaningfully associated with psychological distress in both groups, while some dimensions appear to vary across contexts in their relative salience. These results support a culturally embedded view of leadership-relevant functioning and suggest that the psychosocial processes linking self-regulation, relational boundaries, and distress may not operate uniformly across cultures. The study is limited by its cross-sectional design and by using self-report measures, particularly in relation to the Korean adaptation of the DSI-R. Overall, the paper contributes to leadership research by proposing DS as a culturally sensitive mechanism for understanding functioning under relational and emotional demands.