Date of Award
Fall 1997
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Augenstein, John
Second Advisor
Cepelka, Angeline
Third Advisor
Schweitzer, Heidi
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine if the transformational, transactional, or laissez-faire leadership characteristics of a select group of Follett College Store managers had an impact on their respective employees' levels of satisfaction, the employees' commitment and the productivity of the work unit. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (Bass & Avolio, 1995) was used to assess the transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership characteristics of the Follett College Store managers. The MLQ scores managers received from employees for the leadership scales were analyzed to determine if they served as a predictor of employees' perceptions of manager effectiveness, satisfaction with managers' performance, and employees' willingness to exert extra effort. Additionally, these MLQ leadership variables were also analyzed to determine if they served as a predictor for the organizational measures provided by Follett College Stores. These measures included: sales per labor hour, labor as a percent of sales, meeting budget expectations, and turnover ratio. Hypotheses one through three were supported which predicted that transformational leadership characteristics would augment transactional leadership characteristics when assessing employees' perception of manager effectiveness, satisfaction with managers' performance, and employees' willingness to exert extra effort. In addition to supporting hypotheses one through three, a substantial contribution from the study was the discovery of significant differences between the transformational leadership factors and the outcome variables. Hypothesis four and one of the major contributions to the study was to investigate the impact of leadership characteristics on objective measures of group performance. No relationships were significant between the MLQ variables and the organizational measures of sales per labor hour, labor as a percent of sales, meeting budget expectations, and turnover ratio. This research provides important information for any retail operation whose enterprises are similarly structured and bottom line driven. A transformational leadership paradigm that offers opportunities for greater productivity and employee satisfaction is a formula that is welcomed by educational institutions and businesses alike.