The Effects of Appropriately Participative Leadership on the Core Dimensionis of Climate
The Effects of Appropriately Participative Leadership on the Core Dimensionis of Climate
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Date
1990
Authors
Kidder, Pamela J.
Advisor
Schneider, Benjamin
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Abstract
A field experiment was conducted to determine some
effects of the appropriateness of participative
leadership styles on the core dimensions of climate.
Climate is a construct that has received considerable
attention in organizational research. The research on
Climate has revealed a core set of issues or dimensions
that appear to be useful for capturing employees'
perceptions across all or most organizations. Proposed
core dimensions of climate have included role stress or
harmony in the work environment, job challenge and
autonomy, leadership facilitation and support, and
workgroup warmth, empathy and cooperation.
I hypothesized that leadership style would affect
employees' perceptions of these core dimensions of
climate. The literature in psychology and
organizational behavior shows significant agreement
regarding the potential effect of leadership style on climate, but little empirical work has been conducted
in this area. The particular leadership style I studied
concerned the appropriateness of participativeness of
leaders' decision making styles.
I carried out a field experiment, using a two
group pre- and post- experimental design. The
experimental manipulation was a training program in
appropriate participative decision making, with
supervisors randomly assigned to a training or no training
control group. Pre- and post- measures of the
core dimensions of climate and decision making style
were collected prior to and following the training.
Appropriate participativeness in decision making
(Vroom & Jago, 1988) was found to predict the three
core dimensions of role stress, leadership facilitation
and support, and workgroup cooperation, friendliness,
and warmth. The quality of the supervisor-subordinate
relationship, based on vertical dyad linkage theory,
was found to contribute to the prediction of the core
climate dimension of role stress.
It was concluded that leadership style has an
effect on employees' perception of some, but not all of
the core dimensions of climate. Implications of these
results for research and practice regarding climate and
leadership were explored.