Thesis (Ph.D.)--Antioch University, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Mar. 27, 2006). Advisor: Jon Wergin. Keywords: leadership development, evaluation, leadership, user-focused theory of action . Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-226 ).

Thesis (D. Phil.(Sos.)--University of Pretoria, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Psy.D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Organizational Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-120).

<p> The purpose of this quantitative descriptive correlation research study was to determine if relationship existed between faculty conflict management, emotional intelligence, leadership, and quality in higher education. The conception of service quality in higher education is complex, multifaceted, and disputable. As a result there is no best way to measure service quality in higher education. The research study identified a combination of quality indicators used in analyzing quality in higher education and attempted to explain how these factors affected student satisfaction. Faculty conflict management style, emotional intelligence competencies, and leadership styles were measured against five service quality dimensions, and eight student evaluation of educational quality dimensions. The research instruments included the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory, the Emotional Competence Inventory, and the Leadership Style Survey for the faculty. The Service Quality (SERQUAL), and the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) surveys for the students. The findings included a high correlation between academic and nonacademic service quality dimensions with faculty conflict management styles, emotional intelligence competencies, and leadership styles. The findings supported conclusions that appropriate faculty conflict managing styles, adequate emotional intelligence competencies, and appropriate leadership styles contributed to quality and service quality in higher education. Consensus defining service quality would clearly include student satisfaction constructs. Recommendations for future research included attempting to evaluate the level of service quality and understand how different factors impact overall service quality is crucial so that higher education institutions can plan and design their service in the upmost possible manner. </p>

<p> When risks are too great for any one organization, and the opportunity cost for not trying is far greater, Strategic alliances between public and private sector organizations present collaborative opportunities to achieve success. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to understand how executives perceive the nature of their involvement in strategic alliances between public and private sector organizations in the United States. The central research question was, &ldquo;How do executive leaders perceive their involvement in forming and sustaining cross-sector strategic alliances between public organizations and private entities?&rdquo; This question and its associated sub-questions were explored using a survey and executive interviews as the sources of data for in-depth phenomenological analysis to determine themes perceived critical to successful cross-sector strategic alliances. Executives in this study suggested their role was to ensure the Strategic Alignment, Mutual Benefit, effective Communication, and a clear Vision were present in their organization&rsquo;s collaborative activities. Conversely, lack of establishing the aforementioned themes was perceived to be detrimental to strategic alliances. The application of this research spans from senior leaders in the public and private sectors to leadership scholars that are interested in better understanding cross-sector collaborations. Respondents asserted that executive leaders are responsible for ensuring that these themes are evaluated in the formative and sustaining phase of a strategic alliance. Additionally, executive leaders may use this research to inform their decision-making about how to avoid failure of their Cross-Sector Strategic Alliance; and for those that were successfully formed, how to affect sustainability. </p><p>

<p> Increasing complexity and rapid change associated with globalization and the knowledge economy have diminished the relevance of traditional linear models of leadership. Researchers have begun to view leadership not in terms of individuals and hierarchal exchanges but as a collective influence process among members of a group to achieve shared objectives that focus on enabling learning and adaptation in organizations rather than predicting outcomes and controlling behaviors. Complexity theory and its central phenomenon, emergence, are particularly well-suited to study both new leadership approaches and how to manage social systems at a time when prediction and control are elusive. </p><p> At the same time, institutions of higher education have come to play an increasingly important role in knowledge-based economies and as important actors in economic and human development. Leadership research and practice in higher education have not kept up with this trend, and require a new approach in order to meet the demands of a highly dynamic and disruptive environment. Generative leadership, which focuses on constructing the rules, conditions and constraints for interaction, collaboration and experimentation throughout organizations, fostering innovation and adaptation, and may be particularly well-suited for the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge in higher education. In this context, a qualitative, multiple case study design was used to explore how generative leadership might foster emergence in four initiatives designed to increase the ability to create, disseminate and apply knowledge in an institution of higher education. </p><p> Two major findings resulted from this study. The first relates to the increased incorporation of generative leadership, emergence, and complexity theory into the existing research and practice on teams. The second major finding relates to the role that the study&rsquo;s results, along with the notions of generative leadership and emergence, can inform higher education pedagogy for continued transition into the knowledge age and beyond. The researcher hopes that this study, its results and findings promote a continued shift towards complexity- and emergence-based thinking to solve some of our most pressing knowledge challenges as we continue to move through a time of change and disruption. Ultimately the results and findings of this study could promote additional research on generative leadership, emergence and knowledge capacity in higher education for the benefit of local, regional and global social and economic ecosystems.</p><p>

<p> Mergers and consolidations within the higher education sector are &ldquo;relatively rare occurrences and each merger has a distinct set of circumstances, actors, and characteristics&rdquo; (Etschmaier, 2010, p. 1). Institutional mergers and consolidations require well-planned and strategic organizational change and include an examination of organizational culture and the process of acculturation. While there has been research on various aspects of higher education mergers, there has been little on the process of integrating institutional cultures. Compounding the challenge is that the degree of assimilation among institutions is variable. This integration of cultures takes time to fully accomplish. Researchers have estimated varying time periods for full integration, as much as ten years or more in some cases. As institutions of higher education undergo reorganization, several components of change management must be addressed, looking particularly at culture as a critical element of the change process. Research in this area is limited, and the purpose of this case study is to examine why two institutions of higher education merged, the role of change management during a merger, conceptual models used in understanding reorganization, and the role that culture plays during a merger. Given the economic conditions in higher education, interest in mergers is growing, and this case study on the merger, change management, and the cultural assimilation of the individuals involved in the merger will be of value to state boards of education, policy-makers within the states, and higher administration in colleges and universities across the nation. </p><p>

M.Phil. (Personal & Professional Leadership) / “Why should we pay for leaders to find themselves?” is a question that has been posed to the researcher numerous times in her career as an executive coach. The link between self-awareness and leadership is at best ignored and more often dismissed by organisations as irrelevant. The problem posed by this study was that all too often organisations focus on leaders’ performance and tangible results only. Instead, it is important to take a holistic leadership approach that integrates who the leader is with what the leader does. By looking at leadership learnings from a catalytic experience, the research connects the concepts of catalytic experience with self-awareness, personal leadership and leadership in an organisational context. The objective of this study was to explore the learnings derived from personal catalytic experiences in a leadership context. Identifying themes related to these learnings enabled leaders to gain a deeper understanding of personal leadership and its importance in organisations. Personal leadership is a pillar of leadership that focuses on who the leader is, including concepts such as personal mastery, selfawareness, meaning and purpose. Together with performance, personal leadership creates a holistic view of leadership in an organisational context. The key focus of the study was to draw leadership learnings from leaders’ catalytic experiences. The research paradigm utilised was qualitative. Narrative inquiry was used as a research strategy. The research method was unstructured interviews and a thematic analysis of the data. This method enabled leaders to first tell their stories and then gain learnings. The learnings were analysed by identifying the emerging themes, using thematic analysis, that could be related to various aspects of personal leadership and then linking these to the discoveries from the literature review. Most of the leadership learnings related to aspects of personal leadership, highlighting the reality that personal leadership is at the heart of leadership as a whole, even in an organisational context. Leaders found that taking time to reflect on their catalytic experiences helped the draw learnings and turn often challenging catalytic events into opportunities for learning, growth and meaning-making. Based on the findings and conclusions, it was determined that personal leadership grows through catalytic experiences and through having an opportunity to reflect on these. Specific leadership qualities emerged when a person had adverse experiences and managed to get through them in a way that turned these adverse experiences into opportunities for learning and growth. Leaders sought meaning from catalytic experiences and were often shaped by them. In a sense this helped to create true leaders since they lead from within. Catalytic experiences were first defined and then described based on the themes emerging from the leaders’ stories in terms of their type, number and emotional value. Survival came up as a strong thread in each leader’s telling of their story. In terms of the leadership learnings from the catalytic experiences, these were able to be categorised, as follows: the ‘doing’ of leadership; the ‘being’ of leadership; interpersonal relationships; and meaning and purpose. Factors enabling leaders to get through the experiences meaningfully were also discussed. The study concluded by making recommendations that can be used by organisations in designing leadership development programmes. The contribution of the study is in enabling organisations to use the findings to help leaders derive learning and experience personal growth without necessarily having to go through the experience of a challenging catalytic event. Offering leaders opportunities to reflect on challenging experiences and then sharing those experiences and reflections can contribute to a holistic approach of developing leaders in organisations. The key learning for the researcher, as a result of embarking on this research study, is to recognise the internal treasure chest that resides within each individual. In order to be a good leader, a level of self-awareness and understanding is required together with the recognition of the importance of purpose and meaning. Each individual’s unique qualities and experiences contribute to their leadership journey and it is through life experiences and challenges that people develop and grow. Even a small learning can have a far-reaching impact. The research journey has been a journey of learning for the researcher on a personal level and was illustrated by the use of the butterfly metaphor throughout the writing.

The study takes servant-leadership and attempts to find if there is an equivalent concept in management. Leadership and management have been extensively compared and contrasted in research and theory and while there are divergent views of exactly what each entails, others hold the view that they might be equal and complementary. The research design follows a positivist philosophy. An instrument that measures distinct leader, manager and professional role preferences is used to check the discrete operation of three contexts among a sample of members of the accountancy profession. The instrument is derived from contextualising pre-developed and pre-tested servant-leadership measuring instruments. Items from the role preference map instrument are added together with demographic details to come up with a meta-instrument adapted for the study. After validating it through pilot-testing, the instrument is applied in real-world research. The research was conducted among a sample of professional accountants working in 28 countries across four continents in organisations with over 82,000 employees. Statistical analysis, employing; analysis of variance, correlations, frequencies, significances, means, variances and tests of scale reliability was performed on both the data and the instruments. The research found clear and reliable servant-leadership-type behaviours exhibited across the three discreet roles and contexts of leader, manager and professional. Some professional accountancy courses are delivered across many countries in the world. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is one such professional accountancy body that offers qualifications on a global scale. However, as accountants originate from, and practice in diverse cultures and economies around the world they are trained by institutes like ACCA from a common syllabus that has elements of management as a subject. Servant-leadership is a type of leadership that is theorised to be humanistic and spiritual rather than rational and mechanistic. Management practice on the other hand needs rationality and contains some mechanistic elements in typical management functions like coordinating and controlling. The implication is whether servant-leadership attributes can be exhibited if professional accountants contextualise themselves as leaders, managers or professionals. The study focuses on the profession of accountants and tests the operation of servant-leadership behaviours from the manager, leader and professional contexts using pre-tested servant-leadership scales and applying them in specific leader and manager contexts. This approach is new in its treatment of servant-leadership in this fashion. A further original approach is the use of the accountancy profession. This treatment of instruments from other fields like psychology and sociology is new.

One hundred years ago, Max Weber postulated in his seminal work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that after a tremendous development, capitalism would either reach a dead end, or would enter a new era of development through the guidance of new prophets (Weber, [1904] 2003:182). The tremendous development foreseen has occurred but have Weber’s new prophets appeared? Through a close analysis of the context in which the word prophet is found in the Bible and through the description that Weber gave to the concept of prophet in The Sociology of Religion (Weber, 1963) a prophet’s ideal type was constructed with fourteen specific characteristics. This ideal type was then used as a grid of analysis to put to the test the nineteen most renowned leadership gurus, potential candidate to the title of prophet.