Pre-Master
Business Administration
2019-2020
Leadership & Management
Build-up of this document:
Page 2-15: These pages include short summaries of the given articles. The
summaries incorporate limitations and methodology where applicable; as those
were asked during the exam.
Page 15-133: The remainder of this document is divided into the various weeks
and topics. Every week starts with an overview of the slides content and is
concluded by more elaborate summaries of the abovementioned articles, which
provide more background info and clarification. Those might be useful for the
class presentations that need to be given.
,Week 1 - Leadership
1. The Forgotten Ones? The Validity of Consideration and Initiating Structure
in Leadership Research - By Judge, Piccolo & Ilies
Methodology
A database was used to construct a meta-analysis in this article. In addition,
reference lists in relevant articles were assessed. Further, a separate meta-
analysis was conducted for moderator variables.
Limitations
- Moderator analyses were limited by the nature of the primary studies in that
they could not investigate the effects of theoretically relevant moderators.
- Second, a methodological limitation stems from the fact that the number of
correlations for some of the moderator analyses is relatively small.
- Finally, our results, because they are a summary of the extant literature, reflect
more correlations relating the behaviors to some criteria (satisfaction) than to
others (commitment, performance, etc.).
Main message
The Ohio State research of consideration and initiating structure has been
disregarded too early (due to inconsistencies in validity testing). This meta-
analysis found that both consideration and initiating structure are positively
related to follower satisfaction (follower job satisfaction, follower satisfaction
with the leader) and leader performance or effectiveness (leader job
performance, group-organization performance, leader effectiveness).
Consideration had a stronger effect on follower satisfaction and leader
effectiveness (contrary to the Hypotheses), whereas initiating structure had a
stronger effect on leader performance (leader job performance and group-
organization performance). The validities differed across measures and the
interrelation between consideration and initiating structure received mixed
support, also due to differences in validities as a result of different measures.
Overall, followers prefer considerate leaders, but perform more effectively under
structured leaders; not always true though!!
2. The Role of the Situation in Leadership – By Vroom & Jago
Limitations
No limitations are mentioned.
Methodology
A meta-analysis.
Main Message
This article discusses the contingency theory of leadership. The definition of
leadership here; We see leadership as a process of motivating people to work
together collaboratively to accomplish great things. After the heroic conception of
leadership (trait-based), behavioral studies such as from Ohio and Michigan
came into place. This was already a step more to situational/contextual
influence. “Purely situational theories” disregarded the leader completely and
argued that only the situation is important. This was abandoned later, for a view
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,that included the leader, follower and situation; the contingency theory. Fiedler
was a big name within this stream introducing concepts such as leader-member
relationship, task structure & position power. A leader should be placed where
his style is fitting. Afterwards came the Path-Goal theory; managers need to
create paths to goals, clarify expectations and provide rewards. Path-goal theory
is based on training, whereas Fiedler focused on placement.
Prescriptive/normative models followed that proposed how a leaders should
react in various situations, based on contextual variables. Contextual /
Situational variables are key in (1) affecting organizational effectiveness (out
of the leader’s scope), (2) defining leader behaviour and (3) influencing the
consequences of the leader’s behaviour (taxonomy of situation effects).
3. The nature of leadership (overview article) – by Day & Antonakis
Limitations
None are mentioned.
Methodology
Chapter of a book.
Main Message
Due to the recent developments in the field, it is recommended to make hybrid
models and combine certain theories. This book chapter discusses 9 schools (see
below) of leadership research, starting with trait-based leadership, and ending
with most recent evolutionary perspectives. Currently, the most active schools
are trait-based, contextual, relational, new leadership and information-
processing approaches. Emerging issues are those of the contextual school of
leadership, ethics and diversity & leadership.
Week 2 – Motivation
1. Motivation in Words: Promotion- and Prevention-Oriented Leader
Communication in Times of Crisis – By Stam, van Knippenberg & Nederveen
Pieterse
Limitations
- The strength is that the conclusions are not dependent on any one of these
studies in and of itself but, rely on an interaction effect replicated across studies.
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, - Study 1 small sample size
- Studies 2 and 3 may raise concerns regarding external validity.
- None of studies presents findings for affect or emotions.
- A final limitation is, we cannot speak to the causality of the relation between
motivation to implement the plans of the leader and leadership endorsement
due to the specific research design.
Methodology
- Study 1; Study one is an archival study that test H1 and H2. The authors
investigate regulatory orientation of communication (inaugural speeches) of U.S.
presidents, economic crisis while in office (inflation and economic growth), and
scores of the endorsement of presidents (ratings of presidential success).
- Study 2: Study 2 tests H3 and H4 by investigating the effects of promotion- and
prevention-oriented communication on the mediator—motivation to realize the
plans of the leader—in a crisis versus noncrisis (control) context using a
laboratory experiment. Business students were either given a story about the
effects of the current economic crisis on their job opportunities as future
managers or they were not. Afterwards they listened to a business professor
speaking about creativity as an essential competency of future managers.
Subsequently, the participants got a task that would measure their creative
abilities. The regulatory orientation of leader communication was manipulated
by contrasting a promotion-oriented speech with a prevention-oriented speech.
- Study 3 explores H5 and the whole theoretical model. In this scenario,
experiment participants played the role of a company advisory board member
tasked to vote for a new CEO. The authors manipulated if there was a crisis or
not and the communication styles of the CEO candidates and measured the
extent to which participants were motivated to realize the plans of the new CEO
to compare that information to which CEO was endorsed by whom.
Main Message
A crisis would, according to regulatory fit theory, require prevention-focus
communication. The authors disagree with this and propose that people during
crises want a positive vision, as it enhances their motivation to realize the
leaders plan, and their leader endorsement. This is proven, so regulatory fit does
not apply in crises situations. For leadership in times of crisis, promotion-
oriented communication is more effective in getting endorsed by followers than
prevention-oriented communication. There was no significant relationship
between the prevention-focused communication style and the mediator and OV.
These findings can also be extended to, for example, goal-setting theory.
2. The Interplay Between Goal Intentions and Implementation Intentions – by
Sheeran, Webb & Gollwitzer
Limitations
None are mentioned explicitly.
Methodology
- Study 1 asked how many hours a student intended to study and measured how
many hours they actually studied (2 pre- and 1 post-test). Implementation
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