Abstract Type of thesis: Bachelor thesis Number of pages: 98 Title: Understanding leadership in successful Non-profit organizations: a case-study of IKSU Authors: Linnéa Larsson, Peter Storhannus Supervisor: Jessica Eriksson Date: 2008-01-24 Summary: Most leadership research has made within regular corporations or public sector organizations in the business world. However, the research on leadership in the non-profit organizations (NPOs) has been scarce even though these organizations play an important part in society and the economy as well. It is argued that leadership in NPOs is different from that of a for-profit organization due to the different preconditions that exist in a non-profit organization. The research question of this thesis is therefore; “what characterizes leadership in NPOs and what leadership styles can be found?”. Our purpose with this thesis is to provide an understanding of the leadership in a successful non-profit organization. More specifically, understand the leadership at IKSU. We identify IKSU as a combination between a mutual benefit organization and a voluntary association. We have chosen to make a case study by interviewing managers in different positions at the successful non-profit organization IKSU located in Umeå. The interviewees also answered a questionnaire about their leadership as a complement to the interviews. Further, a questionnaire was sent out to the interviewed managers’ employees in order to receive better contextual understanding about their self-perceived leadership. Literature about NPOs and leadership in both NPOs and for-profit organization has been used. Two frameworks are central throughout the thesis; the situational leadership model constructed by Hersey & Blanchard (1981) have been used to analyze and understand the leadership styles and the four cornerstones of leadership by Ekstam (2002) have been used to construct the interview guide and to analyze the leaders’ roles in the organization. The results have shown that he leadership styles that we can find at IKSU are supporting and coaching and that the leaders most developed roles are the roles as developers and teambuilders. We conclude that the use of high supportive behaviour might be due to both the fact that they have such close relationships between leaders and subordinates that the leaders feel uncomfortable adopting a low task/low relationship style, as that could instead damage the close relationship and lead to lower motivation and commitment from the employee. Another reason to use high relationship leadership style is due to that there exist no clear goals within the organization. The leaders work close together with their employees and the employees seem to work independently, thus with the support from the leaders. They let the employees be part of the decision making processes and they take care of the employees skills and knowledge rather than doing everything themselves. Further, they lead the employees through the constantly changing organization and understand that the organization have to develop since the profits have to be reinvested which will lead to further development of the organization.

Using web-based knowledge management systems has become the mainstream when enterprises adopt the strategy of knowledge management. With the accumulated amount of materials, the issue of information reuse is emphasized, and how to properly design a knowledge management system to improve the efficiency of information reuse is becoming extremely important. In the past there were two approaches for improving the efficiency of information reuse. One is knowledge map that focuses on information retrieval to promote the efficiency, and the other is usability of Human-Computer Interaction that focuses on the effect of different information representation styles and the user's liking. According to Task-Technology Fit, the greater the degree of adherence to an ideal fit profile, the better the performance. In this study we discussed the impact of information presentation styles on information reuse with different reuse tasks on knowledge management systems. The study is intended as an experimental design to investigate the impact of information presentation styles on information reuse within a knowledge management system. We use an experiment involving 83 subjects. The results of this study indicate that information presentation styles have a significant impact on information reuse. We found that for retrieval tasks, the impact on information reuse would be enhanced with the hierarchical presentation style. Additionally, the result also shows that when increasing the complexity of the task, information presentation styles have no differences to the impact on information reuse. And according to the results of two kinds of questionnaires, the users all had higher liking and partialities for the hierarchical presentation style. Finally, suggestions for the vision information design based on the results of this study are provided.

The school is responsible to make sure that each students´ individual needs are met as well as that the lessons are suitable for all students´ ability. As this is the case it is very interesting to evaluate how this is done in reality. The purpose with the study has been to shed light upon what different methods teachers in various schools use in order to individualize their teach­ings. Are their obvious differences in the way teachers work with individualization and how does this affect the students? The teachers in the different schools provided me with informa­tion on how they work in order to teach, stimulate and motivate well achievers as well as stu­dents who find school more difficult. I also asked if, and to what degree they apply different learning techniques as well as if, and how often they consider various learning styles. The phenomenological study is qualitative. Methods used are interviews with the different teachers as well as observations in all four classrooms. The classes were each observed for a full day and after time spent in the classroom teachers involved that particular day was inter­viewed. The results showed that the teachers work in many different ways in order to individualize their teaching. It was also clear that there were differences on the classrooms physical shape as well as material and books. There were also differences in class sizes and the amount of teachers in the classrooms – which surely affected the situations. A conclusion of the study is that two main methods of individualization were noted. One method used by one group of teachers was to let all students work on the same problems but to their own ability. The other group of teachers used and offered, to a larger extent, different and various materials to their students in order to meet the child at its level of scholastic development and ability.

The purpose of this essay is to find out what new graduate teachers conceptions are of their own leadership in the classroom. The paper also aims to examine the different leadership styles the teachers perceive themselves to use. My study is based on qualitative data collected through interviews, where the informants are newly graduated teachers in grade 1 to 6. Using a qualitative approach has made it possible for me to get a deeper understanding of this study. I have also used previous research in this area where Arfwedson (1993), Franssons & Morbergs (2001) and Paulin (2007) presents a number of experiences that student teachers and recent graduate teachers has shared. My study shows that newly qualified teachers faces difficulties to conquer their newly acquired roles for different reasons. It is also shown that the newly qualified teachers have a tendency, at first to be too authoritarian in their leadership i.e. too hard or too laissez-faire in their leadership, which means that the leader is passive in the leading role. However, the informants from my study feel they have found themselves in their leading role today through practical experiences, and the balancing act required for the leadership in the classroom.

Research studies indicated that differences in cognitive processing style influence individual behavior on various types of tasks. This study investigated the effect of the cognitive style dimension, field independence-dependence, on the metacognitive functioning of individuals involved in three problem tasks which varied in inherent structure. Twenty-six subjects were randomly selected from a pool of one hundred and two pre-service teachers who completed the Group Embedded Figures Test to determine levels of field independence-dependence. Subjects were asked to verbalize their thinking while solving three types of problems. The think aloud protocols were analyzed using a coded analysis technique. The Checklist of Metacognitive Behavior (CMB) was the classification system developed to perform the coded analysis. The CMB contained four major categories: planning, monitoring, evaluation and affect. Criterion behaviors in each category were identified in the protocols from surface language structure. Behaviors identified in the protocol analysis were assigned points. Analysis of variance was used to compare mean scores from the CMB for total and category scores on each problem. Significant differences were found between field independents and field dependents for total and category scores on problem one, the puzzle-type problem. No differences were found between the groups on the semi-structured and ill-structured problems. Field independents exhibited a greater number and variety of monitoring and evaluation behaviors on the structured problem. Cognitive style preference had no significant impact on the type and number of metacognitive behaviors observed on the semi-structured and ill-structured problems. / Graduation date: 1990

The purpose of this survey research is to unveil the leadership styles of elementary school principals. 350 principals and 700 teachers participated in this study which was conducted in Turkey. Leadership Orientations Questionnaire (Bolman and Deal, 1991) was used to gather data. According to the results of the study, the dominant leadership frame that the principals employ was the human resource frame as to principal and teacher ratings.

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The aim of this study was to see if there existed any differences between male and female superiors. The theoretical framework was based on transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leaderships styles. The sample was employees in three companys (n=24). Three hypothesis were formulated: (1) female superiors are more transformational than male, (2) male superiors are more transactional than female and (3) male superiors are more laissez-faire than felmale. The method of measurement was a modified version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The findings of the study did not confirm any differences between female and male superiors in the components of transformational and transactional leadership styles. The result of the hypothes that male superiors are more laissez-faire than female was confirmed. Male superiors applied behavios of the laissez-faire style more than female superiors. The findings were also related to previously research. It is important to point out that the findings of this study can not be generalized based on a smal sample.

When we talk about the females employment in different organization, it is till treated in different disciplines. There are some gaps linked to it which still need to be filled in order to give equal opportunities to females as well. Although, from the last few decades it is been said and noticed that the number of females are rising to the top which is a symbol of progressive social change. However, it is also been noticed that there is still gender inequality in top management positions which leads to under presentation of females in top management position. The society and the masculine man has developed some theories. Due to which, it is been said that female qualities do not contribute to the required management attributes. For instance, In order to have an executive role, a person must be more aggressive, competitive, more task oriented etc. but females always have the opposite qualities. For instance, interpersonal relations, emotional, collaborative etc. This paper is an effort that shows the obstacles that woman faces in order to reach top management positions. Moreover, I also tried to describe that the traditional leadership model is linked to the masculine stereotypes. Henceforth, I tried to explain that the new organizational culture requires also the feminine stereotypes (emotions, interpersonal relations, cooperation etc). So, one could say that the leadership is not just linked to the masculine stereotypes but it also requires more of feminine qualities as well. The empirical study involves the semi structured interviews from men and women on management positions and also general discussions with the public. Based on these interviews and discussions I tried to analyze if both male and female follow the gender stereotypes and if they have difference in leadership styles according to gender. Hence, companies should have a more diversity in their organization in order to have more flexibility in organizational culture.

The purpose of this study is focused on the relationship among the education marketing; the Principals¡¦ leadership styles and the Teachers¡¦ job involvement in the elementary Schools. The questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews were adopted in the study. The samples were come from 88 public elementary schools in Kaohsiung of the questionnaire survey. First of all, the 88 schools were categorized based on the level of their education marketing. Then, the top10 and the bottom 10 schools were selected for analysis in this study. 589 questionnaire surveys were sent to the above top 10 and the bottom 10 schools, and the 520 questionnaire surveys were received from them. The 489 of 520 surveys were valid data. The retrieve rate was 88.29% and the survey¡¦s valid rate was 83.02%. The investigated tools of this study are ¡§Questionnaire regarding the study of relationships amongst Education marketing, The Principals¡¦ Leadership Styles and The Teachers¡¦ Job Involvement in the Elementary Schools¡¨, which consisted four parts: ¡§basic information¡§, ¡§the attitude on education marketing ¡§, ¡§the teachers¡¦ job involvement¡§, and ¡§the principal¡¦s leadership ¡§, This study attempted to file the data yielded from the questionnaire with SPSS 10.0/PC, with mean, standard deviation, Person¡¦s Production-Moment Correlation ,t-testing, 1-Way ANOVA, analysis of variance, and stepwise multiple regressions are used as well. This study was used Semi-structured interviews for further investigation from the above top and bottom 10 schools. In addition, there were four types based on ¡§ schools¡¦ focusing level on eduaction marketing¡¨ and ¡§ principals¡¦ leadership style ¡§ in the above top and bottom 10 schools. Therefore, 8 teachers were selected from different types were interviewed for this study. The following results were derived: 1. Generally speaking, the attitude on education marketing, the principal¡¦s Leadership Styles and teachers¡¦ job involvement of elementary school teachers are good. 2. Based on the investigation of the attitude on education marketing , the principal¡¦s Leadership Styles and teachers¡¦ job involvement of elementary school teachers, the teachers of the bottom 10 schools were calculated higher score than that of the top 10 schools. 3. The teachers with senior age, personnel with master degrees or above, the teacher of seniority, department heads, or senior administrators showed better performance in the attitude of education marketing. 4. The teachers of seniority, department heads, senior administrators, and the bottom 10 schools showed better performance in the teachers¡¦ job involvement. 5. The teachers¡¦ job involvement could become higher if there were the lower education marketing, the better teachers¡¦ attitude on education marketing and the higher principal¡¦s transformational leadership. 6. The prediction of the principal¡¦s Leadership is the majority part of the prediction of the elementary school teachers¡¦ whole job involvement, Eventually, this study was concluded the valuable analyzed results and also provide the references for the elementary school principals, administrators in education, teachers of elementary school and the future investigation.