Date of Award

4-1999

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Dr. Jianping Shen

Second Advisor

Dr. Richard Munsterman

Third Advisor

Dr. Zoe Barley

Abstract

The new economic era has been marked by profound global change. In response, researchers and practitioners have called for a rethinking of the conventional concepts of leadership, change, and organizational culture to improve our competitiveness in this turbulent world market. This study investigated the relationships between leader style, leader behavior, leadership paradigm, leader knowledge of change, organizational culture potency, and planned change efficacy in a manufacturing company implementing a high performance work system change initiative. This study intended to contribute to the reconceptualization of the leadership construct and the explication of the leadership-culture-change linkage.

Six hundred and eighty-nine subjects representing 10 manufacturing sites participated in this exploratory study. Survey data regarding leader characteristics and follower perceptions were gathered from 74 supervisors and 615 employees. Data were analyzed using chi-square, Pearson product-moment correlation, ANOVA, and ANCOVA statistical procedures. Results confirmed all but one of the seven hypotheses posited by the researcher.

As proposed, the study found that leader style was not related to reported leader behavior or leadership paradigm, leadership paradigm influenced leader behavior, and a relationship existed between planned change efficacy and leader’s knowledge of contemporary change. Findings also indicated that leader style demonstrated neither main nor interaction effects with leader behavior or leadership paradigm on levels of organizational culture potency and planned change efficacy, while leader behavior and leadership paradigm demonstrated significant main effects on levels of both variables. Finally, no difference was found between organizational culture potency scores for leadership paradigm groups when controlling for effects of planned change efficacy. However, differences were found between adjusted organizational culture potency scores for leader behavior groups, a finding that did not support the posited hypothesis.

Conclusions assert that leader-centric leadership perspectives are increasingly irrelevant in dynamic high performance work systems, contemporary leader behavior and a postindustrial leadership paradigm are critical to effective organizational change, knowledge of contemporary change principles is an essential leader competency, and organizational culture change may be the result of collaborative planned change.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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