Date of Award
12-1986
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Educational Leadership
First Advisor
Dr. James R. Sanders
Second Advisor
Dr. Edgar Kelley
Third Advisor
Dr. Roger Wallace
Abstract
Interest in the study of employee loyalty is present in the literature on leadership and organizations. Most studies have been focused on subordinate loyalty to immediate superiors; in education, most studies have investigated principal-teacher relationships.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of university faculty loyalty and faculty perceptions of the department chairperson's leadership style. Loyalty was defined as faculty willingness to accept, like, trust, and respect their department chairperson as demonstrated by implementing or emulating professional skills or recommendations of the chairperson. Leadership style was operationalized using seven scales: authoritarianism, emotional detachment, hierarchical independence, hierarchical influence, executive professional leadership, clinical leadership, and intrinsic rewards.
The instruments for gathering data had been used primarily in studies of secondary education. They were adapted for this study in higher education by editing referents to be appropriate for higher education. The same concepts were covered, but in another type of organization. The content validity and reliability of the instruments were assumed not to have been affected by the editing that was done.
A sample of 260 faculty members from 28 departments (n = 28) at Western Michigan University participated in the study. In presenting the analysis of the data collected from the survey, Pearson product moment correlations were used to test the seven research hypotheses. Analysis of variance, t-test and Pearson product moment correlations were used to investigate relationships between selected respondent demographic variables and faculty loyalty to the department chairperson.
Authoritarianism was found to be negatively associated with faculty loyalty to the department chairperson. Emotional detachment, hierarchical independence, hierarchical influence, executive professional leadership, clinical leadership, and intrinsic rewards were all positively related to faculty loyalty to the department chairperson. No demographic variables were found to be significantly related with the faculty loyalty to the department chairperson.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Ongwela, Thomas A., "Relationship of University Faculty Loyalty and Faculty Perceptions of Department Chairperson Leadership Style" (1986). Dissertations. 2271.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/2271