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Leadership and faculty job satisfaction at the University of Guam
Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation was to study the leadership style of academic chairs and faculty job satisfaction at the University of Guam. Using Fiedler's Contingency Model (1972), a prediction was made for interaction between a chair's leadership style and faculty job satisfaction, contingent upon three situational variables: leader-member relationships, task structure and position power of the leader. The criterion variable was job satisfaction of faculty. The situation at the University of Guam was hypothesized to be characterized by an unstructured task and weak position power of the chair. Faculty and unit chairs from 25 academic divisions within the five colleges at the University of Guam completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires. Data analysis included testing the model by correlating faculty job satisfaction with leadership style, contingent upon situational variables of task structure, position power of the chair, and leader-member relations. The supporting qualitative design used semi-structured interviews with one faculty member and chair from each of three units purposefully selected from different colleges. Interviews sought to identify perceptions of what constituted effective and noneffective academic leadership. Perception of situation variables in a multicultural higher education environment at the University of Guam differed from norms obtained from studies in other educational institutions. Faculty respondents perceived the position power of the chair to be low, the task to be structured, and the leader-member relations to be poor. These results contrasted with studies in higher educational institutions indicating high position power, unstructured tasks, and good leader-member relations. The low LPC score of the chairs indicated a tendency for task-oriented leadership, possibly indicative of high stress levels. The hypotheses of Fiedler's Contingency Theory of Leadership Effectiveness (1972) relating the leadership style of the chair, measured as an LPC score, to faculty job satisfaction as an effectiveness measure, were not supported. Intrinsic job satisfaction was high and extrinsic job satisfaction was low. Qualitative summary results identified descriptors of effective academic leaders at the University of Guam as those demonstrating integrity, adaptability, and fairness in dealing with faculty members.
Subject Area
Higher education|Occupational psychology
Recommended Citation
Whippy, Helen Joan Dalmaso, "Leadership and faculty job satisfaction at the University of Guam" (2000). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9992014.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9992014