Thesis ( M.A. (African Languages)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / Refer to document

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Fundamental to the conceptualization of leader-membership exchange (LMX), particularly within the context of teams, is that leaders do not necessarily treat each follower equally. Studies that have examined LMX within the context of the team often fail to capture these complexities, or rely exclusively upon self-report, or survey-based data to make inferences. Therefore, it is the purpose of this study to examine the effects of experimentally manipulated relative LMX within teams on individual conflict processes, attitudes, and psychological distress, as well as team-level performance. This study examined conflict processes and outcomes within 113 virtual, project teams engaged in a decision-making task that required intensive interdependence. Teams were composed of three subordinates and a confederate leader who engaged in behaviors designed to heighten LMX with all, some, or none of the participants, depending on the condition. Results suggest that objectively manipulated leader behaviors influenced perceived levels of LMX as well as leader and teammate satisfaction, psychological distress, use of collaborative and individualistic conflict processes, and motivation to perform with the team. Results also indicate that relative LMX condition moderates the relationship between LMX condition and outcomes of interest, such that LMX condition has a stronger effect on outcomes when individuals are in a minority configuration (i.e., have a higher RLMX) than when they are in a shared configuration.

[Abstract]: Singapore schools had encountered little involvement with legal issues in the past, and there had been a general feeling of complacency amongst educators that the situation was unlikely to change. Yet many English-speaking countries across the world had been experiencing increasing exposure to legal issues in their schools, and the question was whether Singapore was likely to share the same experience over time. Strong indications were beginning to appear that the situation was indeed changing, including a number of reported incidents in schools and evidence of changing attitudesamongst parents and educators.The study set out, therefore, to examine the types of legal issues that were emerging on the international scene, and particularly in the major jurisdictions withrelevance to Singapore, and to understand what the implications might be for Singapore. Thus, it was intended to identify the legal issues that seemed likely tobecome more prominent in the Singapore education system, to draw comparisons with events in other countries, and to examine the strategies that school leaders might adoptin order to manage legal risk effectively.This exploratory study used a mixed-method design, including document analysis and legal research, exploratory pilot interviews, in-depth interviews with verbatim transcription, and Q Methodology, which combined quantitative and qualitative techniques in order to interrogate and understand opinion. The study was conducted in four phases, moving from a broad survey of developments internationally, through a detailed analysis of issues in Singapore schools, to a deep understanding of the strategy preferences for coping with legal risk amongst senior educators. This then gave rise to aset of recommendations that could be used by policy makers and implementers, and by senior personnel in schools, to avert and manage legal risk and incidence in schools.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate prediction of senior leader transformational leadership behaviour. Transformational leadership was identified as a major theory with substantial practical implications for economic prosperity. It was argued that a better understanding of what predicts transformational behaviour would assist in creating a lift in the effective application of the theory with attendant benefits for all organisational stakeholders. It was proposed that personality components would predict transformational behaviour. Personality was conceptualised in two ways: as components of the Five Factor Model of personality and as personality disorder components. Specifically, eight personality constructs were hypothesised as predictors. They were three Hogan Personality Inventory based Five Factor Model components and the five Hogan Development Survey personality disorder components. It was further proposed that self-subordinate rating agreement would moderate the prediction of transformational behaviour by the selected personality components. A survey research methodology was used to gather data from senior Australian organisational executive leaders. Two samples were accessed while subjects were attending training or strategy seminars. The samples incorporated a total of 462 individual senior leader subjects and 1,881 of their subordinates drawn from the top four levels of a range of large multi-level public and private Australian organisations. It was argued that the sample validly represent a senior executive cohort of organisational leaders. Subject leaders completed a brief demographic questionnaire, the leader version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, and either the Hogan Personality Inventory or the Hogan Development Survey. Subjects' subordinates completed the rater version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Transformational behaviour was operationalised as charisma, which was calculated as the mean of two subordinate rated transformational components of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, viz., idealised behaviour and inspirational motivation. This dependent variable was regressed on the various personality variables to assess predictive ability. Moderation of the prediction of transformational leadership behaviour by personality components was assessed by multiple regression of transformational leadership behaviour on the various personality components within self-subordinate rating agreement categories. There were eight specific original contributions from the findings of this thesis. The HPI component ambition was found to positively predict charisma. The HPI component prudence was found to negatively predict charisma. Self subordinate rating agreement operationalised as an absolute difference score was found to moderate the level of prediction by whole HPI regression model and some of the relationships and predictions of charisma by individual HPI components. It was found that prevalence of personality disorder components among senior executives varied from six percent to 34 percent of the sample cases. The HDS personality disorder components sceptical and cautious were found to negatively predict charisma; whereas the HDS component imaginative was found to positively predict charisma. Self subordinate rating agreement operationalised as a relative difference score was found to moderate the whole HDS regression model and some but not all of the relationships and predictions of charisma by individual HDS components. Theoretical and practical implications of the above findings, limitations of this research and recommendations for future research were discussed.

<h1>Abstract</h1><p>Author: Kristina Tercero.</p><p>Title: “Same condition for both men and women?”- Leaders from a gender perspective.</p><p>Supervisor: Tina Mattsson.</p><p> </p><p>The purpose of this essay was with a gender perspective examine how women and men  in leader positions in a organization who dominated by women experience their position at work and their leadership by clarify how the leaders in the geriatric care look at their function and position. Central questions were:</p><p>How do men and women who work as leaders in the geriatric care experience their opportunity to practice their leadership?</p><p>How does men and women experience to work as leaders in an organization who is dominated by women?</p><p>How does the leader experience their gender in relation to their position at work?</p><p>The essay has a qualitative design and semi structured interviews were maid with six leaders in the geriatric care, three women and three men. To analyse the work material</p><p>Hirdmans gender system theory and Westberg - Wohlgemuth theory about sex marking were used.</p><p>The main results indicate that gender does matter for the leaders in their work and in their leadership. The geriatric care is seen as a work for women which the men notice in their work as leaders. Men experienced that they more than woman were expected to make decisions and to do reprimands. Women's experiences were that it was hard to get acceptance in decision making. Women were on the other hand expected to be comprehended and to be able to listening more to the stuff.  The different expectations men and women felt can be understood in relation to chieftainship being connected to masculinity and therefore the chieftainship will be sex marked which Westberg – Wohlgemuth prove.</p><p> </p>

This record of study is an examination of the personal costs negotiated by three African American women central office educational leaders. The focus is to identify the personal costs that these women experience as they work as leaders in three different urban educational settings. The purpose of this study is to give voice to these women and to promote the utilization of their knowledge and skills by identifying the costs, consequences of the costs and the ways these women cope, as well as to provide research for the small number of African American female central office leaders. This qualitative study included some of my experiences related to personal costs as well, since I share race and gender characteristics with the women participants and was an integral part of this research study. In addition I used feminist and Black feminist epistemology to guide my work. To access the data, I interviewed each woman twice in a location of her choice. The interviews were audio-taped and then transcribed. The transcriptions were read and re-read and the data unitized. The data were coded by the action or type of experience. Data were compiled into categories and then within each category subcategories were noted. The categories were derived from a combination of codes emerging from the data as well as core themes of Black feminist epistemology. The women in my study were well educated; two of them had doctoral degrees. They noted cost associated with their work as professionals as well as costs associated with their families and home life. Some identified costs were reduced time with families, health issues, few mentors, the scrutiny and burden of being the only African American female on their level in their organizations and salary inequities. To manage the costs the women utilized hired assistance, utilized the support of family and friends, were prayerful and maintained a commitment which centered on the vocation of children‟s education. Recommendations for solutions include a collective sponsorship to address the costs. In addition, it is in the best interest of everyone in schools to have more women like these leaders.

This research was to learn the trust of direct leaders from the points of the staff, and to discuss how to influence organizational commitment and job involvement. Since trust of direct leaders was one of the key factors to increase organizational commitment and job involvement, the cohesion will turn up when the staff accept the concern from directors, and the group can collaborate. Therefore, the operation of an organized system and the achievement of assignment were necessary to base on the trust of direct leaders, then it brought the maximum beneficial result. After getting nine hundred and thirty-six available questionnaires, this research used the methods of Analysis of One-Way Factorial Variance, Correlation Analysis, and Analytical Regression Process to get the verification. According to the statistics, I addressed the conclusion and recommendation of this research. In the discovery of the result, individual variables were including the trust of direct leaders, organizational commitment and job involvement. There wasn¡¦t any noticeable difference in sex, but it existed in marriage, age, work experience, education level and position. Moreover, according to the result of the research in Correlation Analysis, the trust of direct leaders, organizational commitment and job involvement caused high positive correlation . It means the degree of the trust of direct leaders is higher, and the staff would have higher organizational commitment, and degree of job identification and involvement. In addition, the work experience with directors was interference variables, and to prove if there was the interference effect in the trust of direct leaders from organizational commitment and job involvement, the verified result revealed that there wasn¡¦t any interference effect in any other factors, except Cognition-based Trust could effect the value and effort commitment . In terms of the collection of this research results, the assumptions approximately existed in Correlation Analysis, and on the contrary, they didn¡¦t exist in interference effect. In conclusion, I had some recommendation for this research to provide the enterprise some different ideas and directions of management. The organization should emphasize how to increase the trust of direct leaders, enhance the interaction between the management and the staff, lift organizational commitment from the personnel, and raise the degree of job involvement for the advantage of the organization development.

Registered Nurses (RNs) have a history of policy leadership that has altered the health care system and the profession. The purpose of the qualitative inquiry was to describe the experiences of six select Saskatchewan formal Registered Nurse leaders (RNLs) in policy. Through open-ended interviews and letters, personal experiences were interpreted using content analysis. The researcher identified key ideas from the interview data and requested a reflective letter expanding or clarifying the chosen text, serving to enhance triangulation and member-checking of personal transcripts. Meaningful patterns and/or similarities describing three themes of values, vision, and career paths emerged from the textual data. The coding framework evolved into ten categories describing individual experiences, such as mentoring, change management, and work-life balance. Three RNLs described how they wished more RNs were involved in policy, as they believed that RNs could harness more power in policy processes. Five RNLs told stories about how graduate education influenced their thinking and they gained appreciation for leading action on policy issues.<p> The qualitative data were presented in categories for discussion. One RNL described how organizational structures may a limiting factor to RNs participation in policy. Implications and recommendations of the findings are outlined for education, practice, administration, research, and policy. Findings are relevant for professional, health care, and government organizations, as well as education programs. Relevance may be found by individual practitioners considering a leadership role, to assist in informing potential career paths.

Registered Nurses (RNs) have a history of policy leadership that has altered the health care system and the profession. The purpose of the qualitative inquiry was to describe the experiences of six select Saskatchewan formal Registered Nurse leaders (RNLs) in policy. Through open-ended interviews and letters, personal experiences were interpreted using content analysis. The researcher identified key ideas from the interview data and requested a reflective letter expanding or clarifying the chosen text, serving to enhance triangulation and member-checking of personal transcripts. Meaningful patterns and/or similarities describing three themes of values, vision, and career paths emerged from the textual data. The coding framework evolved into ten categories describing individual experiences, such as mentoring, change management, and work-life balance. Three RNLs described how they wished more RNs were involved in policy, as they believed that RNs could harness more power in policy processes. Five RNLs told stories about how graduate education influenced their thinking and they gained appreciation for leading action on policy issues.<p> The qualitative data were presented in categories for discussion. One RNL described how organizational structures may a limiting factor to RNs participation in policy. Implications and recommendations of the findings are outlined for education, practice, administration, research, and policy. Findings are relevant for professional, health care, and government organizations, as well as education programs. Relevance may be found by individual practitioners considering a leadership role, to assist in informing potential career paths.