The concepts of transformational and charismatic leadership have led to a variety of leadership behaviors and practices that seek to enhance followers' motivation to perform beyond expectations, by changing their values, goals, needs and aspirations at work. One such activity, which has gained momentum and interest in recent years, is the dissemination of a vision. This thesis is an attempt to investigate the nature of the visioning process in organizational leadership through theoretical analysis and empirical investigation. / An analysis of the visioning process yielded two important components: the visioning activity and the visioning product. Based on this analysis and a review of the existing literature, vision was defined as a product with content and the visioning activity a two-stage process involving vision formulation and vision articulation. Building on these definitions, a number of vision content characteristics and visioning behaviors were examined, leading to theoretical propositions and testable hypotheses. / The empirical test of the proposed theoretical framework was carried out in two studies. Study 1 investigated observers' perceptions of leader behaviors, vision content characteristics and related attributions of vision and visionary leadership. This study was conducted using analyses of biographical and autobiographical accounts. Study 2 sought to replicate the investigation with direct observations from followers of "real-life" organizational leaders. / The empirical test substantiated the importance of distinguishing between the various content characteristics of visions as they relate to attributions of vision and visionary leadership on the part of observers/followers. The empirical results also support the importance of distinguishing between the various components of the visioning activity of leaders as they relate to attributions of vision and visionary leadership on the part of observers/followers. Finally, the results suggest distinct relationships between the attributions of vision/visionary leadership and various effects of the visioning process on followers. / In light of these results, suggestions for future research and implications for leadership practice are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.84469 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Beauchamp, Julie |
| Contributors | Kanungo, Rabindra N. (advisor), Jorgensen, Jan (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Faculty of Management.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002148917, proquestno: AAINQ98202, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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