SOCIAL PROCESS, LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION IN ORGANISATIONS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

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1 SOCIAL PROCESS, LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION IN ORGANISATIONS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION KEN W. PARRY Victoria University of Wellington Introduction and Problem Statement Leadership can be conceptualised as a process of social influence (Parry, 1998; Conger, 1998). First, leadership is about influence - of that there is consensus within the literature. Second, it is social because it is about relationships and interactions between people, usually within the context of a society. For the purposes of the present paper, the society in question is an organisational society. Third, leadership is processual. It is about doing as much as it is about a person, a personality, a rank or position, a set of competencies, or behaviours. Hence, the processual nature of leadership can be thought of in terms of verbs, invariably ending with the gerund ing, and is about activity within the organisational society in question. Finally, that influencing activity is between and among people as much as it emanates from individuals. Therefore, leadership should be researched with methodologies that generate social processes as their outcomes. Although most mainstream leadership research has utilised positivist methodologies, Parry (1998) and Conger (1998) have argued for greater use of non-positivist methodologies that generate social process and social process theory as their research outcomes. One such methodology utilises the grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) method. This method uses qualitative data mainly, and fully qualitative analysis of those data. That analysis follows an iterative format based around theory-emergence rather than theorytesting. The emergent theory is based around the determination of a basic social process that explains the phenomenon under investigation - leadership in this case. Although traditionally used in research into observable phenomena like teaching and nursing, Parry and Conger have put a case that the grounded theory method can and should be used in the research of less observable phenomena like leadership. Such research has been undertaken. Examples are the work of Irurita (1994, 1996) and Parry (1999a). Although not strictly using the grounded theory method, other authors have also theorised about the social processes of leadership that are present in organisational settings (Bass, 1985; Kent et al., 1996; Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Boyd & Taylor, 1998). The conceptual interpretation of these qualitative-derived theories indicates that they have much in common with transformational leadership (Bass, 1985; Parry, 1999a). The transformational leadership body of literature is the most researched, validated and comprehensive explanation of leadership available today (den Hartog et al., 1997). The issue that has arisen in recent years is that the relationships between qualitatively-derived social process theories of leadership and the mainstream psychometrically-derived theories of leadership have not been equated other than conceptually. Therefore, there is a need to empirically test the relationships between both bodies of knowledge. The present research commences this task. In this case, the theoretical framework used is to operationalise the qualitatively-derived theory into questionnaire format. Alternate theoretical frameworks would

2 utilise qualitative data and qualitative analysis to test the psychometrically-derived theories, but that is another story. Because both bodies of knowledge acknowledge that communication is such a key characteristic of leadership, one would expect that communication issues would feature prominently in the resultant findings. Methodology Focus groups and questionnaire creation The qualitatively-derived theories about the social processes of leadership are summarised in Table 1. The social processes contained within these theories were written up by the author as items of a questionnaire. Three focus groups were called as a means of iteratively eliminating items that were ambiguous or unclear. Forty-four items remained after the focus groups. The Social Processes of Leadership (SPL) questionnaire asked respondents to indicate the frequency of display of certain social process characteristics within their work unit. On the questionnaire, work unit is defined as the immediate group of people with whom you work on a regular basis. For example. You may work within a project team, a business unit or some other kind of work group. The stem for each question was Please indicate how FREQUENTLY people in your work unit do the following. People Examples included: Encourage others to share the work unit s vision Try to provide rational explanations for why things happen The frequency ratings are: 0 Not at all 1 Once in a while 2 Sometimes 3 Fairly often 4 Frequently, if not always This is a ratio-level scale, as determined by Bass, Cascio & O Connor (1974). Data The social processes of leadership were represented by 44 items on the questionnaire. For the purpose of convergent validity, other instruments were included. Bass & Avolio s transformational leadership scale was measured with the use of the Team Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQT). Only the 5-item inspirational motivation sub-scale was used, for purposes of parsimony. The intercorrelations between this and the other transformational sub-scales are so high (Carless, 1998; den Hartog et al., 1997) that only one need be used as a representation of transformational leadership in its entirety. Podsakoff et al. s (1990) 11-item transformational leadership scale was included as an alternate measure of transformational leadership. The conceptual similarity of

3 transformational leadership with the social processes of leadership meant that both scales had to be used. Courtesy, a component of organisational citizenship, was measured with the relevant four items of Podsakoff et al. s (1990) Organisational Citizenship Scale. Courtesy involves communication between individuals, and Organ s organisational citizenship construct (as operationalised by Podsakoff et al., 1990) is conceptually similar to the social process of leadership. It is also relevant to organisational social capital, which is an outcome of the leadership process (Parry, 1999b). The work-group characteristic called communication and cooperation was measured using Campion et al. s (1993) three-item scale. Communication and cooperation are explicitly and implicitly characteristic of leadership. Social Cohesion (Campion et al., 1993). Social cohesion has been found to moderate the impact leadership on a range of outcomes (Carless, 1998). It also has a number of characteristics consistent with intrapersonal communication. Humour in the workplace (Dubinsky, Yammarino & Jolson) was also measured with a fiveitem scale. Humour has been found to complement leadership, and involves communication between people. The discriminant validity of the SPL scale was tested against Bass & Avolio s corrective transactional leadership factor called passive management-by-exception, measured with a five-item scale. This has been found to relate negatively to various other measures of leadership. Consequently, it is expected in this instance to relate negatively to the social processes of leadership scale. The instrument was distributed to 3000 managers nationally. Respondents were members of the national Institute of Management. 705 usable responses were received, representing a response rate of 23.5%. While not a high response rate, it is good when considering traditional response rates for this cohort. However, because this research was testing the characteristics of a construct rather than testing the characteristics of a population, response rate was not considered to be a major issue. Analysis and results Responses were coded in accordance with the promptness of response. Week 1 responses were coded 1. Week 2 responses were coded 2, and so on. The rationale for this was Moser & Kalton s (1971) finding that a significant trend between early and late responses indicates the trend would continue across non-responses. Cross-tabulation analysis relating lateness of response with magnitude of frequency resulted in a significant chi-square for only one construct. A significant chi-square indicates a trend between early and late responses, which suggests that there could be a non-response bias. That one construct was Campion et al. s communication & cooperation construct. Late respondents indicated 9% less manifestation of this process in their work unit, than did early respondents. To progress the validation of the social process of leadership construct, a number of analyses were conducted on the instrument. Item-to-total correlations were performed on all 44 social process of leadership (SPL) items. Four items registered correlations less than.4, and were eliminated. All correlations above.4 were significant at the.001 level. 40 SPL items remained. Five other items registered frequency means that were less than the frequencies of the four eliminated items. These five were also eliminated, bringing the SPL down to 35 items. A

4 principal components factor analysis with promax rotation was conducted on these 35 items. This is an oblique rotation, which allows the factors to be correlated. It would be expected that emergent factors would correlate. Four factors had eigenvalues greater than 1.0, and together they explained 55% of variance. Only 28 items loaded greater than.30 on only one factor. Non-loading and multiple-loading items were removed, bringing the resultant SPL instrument down to 28 items. The lowest item-to-total correlation for the 28 items was.419 (p<.001), which is acceptable. The Cronbach Alpha for the 28 item scale is.94, indicating high internal validity. The factor structure is represented in Table 2. Factor 1 had an eigenvalue of 14.1 and explained 41% of variance, while all other factors had eigenvalues of less than 2 and collectively explained only 13% of variance. This disparity between factor magnitude indicates an underlying one-factor construct relating to social processes of leadership. However, four subfactors were identified. These represent lower-order social processes of leadership. Factor 4 consists of the four reverse-coded items. The commonality between these items, coupled with the fact that they all happen to be the reverse-coded items, indicates a systematic bias. The likelihood is that these items were misinterpreted by respondents because of their reverse wording. Consequently, this factor was excluded form further analysis or consideration. The remaining three factors (with their Cronbach Alpha scores in parenthesis) were classified as: 1 Managing and Leading Adaptively (.92) 2 Envisioning (.86) 3 Reciprocating (.75) Cronbach Alpha scores indicate that all three factors have at least adequate internal validity. Table 2 shows that there is a strong communication characteristic associated with the envisioning factor. Communication is only a small part of managing and leading adaptively. Communication appears not to be involved in reciprocating. To ascertain the convergent and discriminant validity of the SPL scale, correlation analysis was undertaken between the three social process factors and the other constructs that were measured. Table 3 represents the results of this analysis. All correlations were found to be in the expected direction. Both transformational leadership constructs correlated positively with the SPL scale. Courtesy, communication & cooperation, cohesion, humour and social cohesion all correlated positively with the SPL scale. Corrective transactional leadership correlated negatively with the SPL scale. Discussion The present research gives initial support to the validity and reliability of a Social Processes of Leadership (SPL) scale. It also supports the existence of three sub-processes of leadership. Further confirmatory work needs to be done, but those three processes relate to managing & leading adaptively, envisioning, and reciprocating.

5 The SPL scale has high internal reliability, and demonstrates convergent validity with Bass & Avolio's transformational leadership construct, Podsakoff's transformational leadership construct, the use of humour in the workplace, the social cohesion construct, courtesy, and two of Campion's organisational processes - cohesion and communication & co-operation. The SPL scale also demonstrates discriminant validity when compared with corrective transactional leadership. Corrective transactional leadership is conceptually at odds with the social processes of leadership, so a negative relationship with the SPL was to be expected. The high correlations between SPL and the two measures of transformational leadership indicate that they might all be measuring the same underlying construct. Indeed, Podsakoff s transformational leadership construct may be a better extant measure of the social processes of leadership that exist in the workplace. Podsakoff s transformational leadership construct nominates three strategies by which people are able to have a leadership effect in organisational settings. The first strategy is by articulating a vision, which clearly has a strong communication or articulation imperative attached. The second of Podsakoff s transformational leadership strategies is to provide an appropriate role model, which is largely a behavioural imperative. The third strategy is fostering acceptance of group goals, which has a communication/articulation and a behavioural imperative attached. Similarly, to the extant that Bass & Avolio s transformational leaders talk enthusiastically, articulate compelling visions, envision exciting new possibilities and talk optimistically, they are reflecting a strongly articulative communication side to their leadership role within the work group. Campion et al. s communication and cooperation construct is also strongly related to social processes of leadership. Characteristics of this construct include a willingness to share information, enhancing communicating among people and cooperating to get things done. As with both transformational leadership constructs, communication and cooperation explicitly has a strong theme of personal articulation by individuals as the key to the communication role. However, those constructs that correlate less than.6 with the SPL have a lesser communication imperative attached to them. Courtesy is an important component of organisational citizenship within organisations. However, it includes characteristics like avoiding creating problems and not abusing the rights of others. These processes do not explicitly contain a communication role, and it is arguable that they contain such a role implicitly. Similarly, Campion et al. s cohesion construct is more about interactions at work than about communication between and among people. Also, Carless & de Paola s social cohesion construct is about interacting outside of work hours rather than about communicating at work. The humour at work construct involves articulated communication more implicitly than explicitly. Conclusions Five conclusions can be drawn from this research. The first conclusion concerns the strong relationships that were found between the existing measures of transformational leadership and the social processes of leadership. These relationships support the reliability of the qualitatively-derived social process of leadership work that has been done using the grounded

6 theory method. A lack of reliability is always a criticism of qualitative research. Consequently, it is rewarding to those researchers to see a degree of reliability reflected herein. Second, communication between and among people in the workplace is a major component of the social processes of influence that reflect leadership in that workplace. This conclusion can be drawn because as correlations with the SPL scale increased, so did the role of communication within the constructs that were being correlated. In particular, communication was reflected by leaders articulating a range of desired outcomes. Third, it is ironic that having made the attempt to develop an SPL scale, we possibly don t need such a scale because transformational leadership, in particular Podsakoff s measure, seems to be an adequate pre-existing measure of the phenomenon in organisational settings. Further replication will be able to confirm or confound this assertion. Fourth, by psychometrically operationalising phenomenological theory, this research spans the disciplines of sociology, social psychology, humanistic psychology and even organisational psychology. It also spans the bodies of knowledge representing leadership, communication, and social processes. In so doing, this research uncovered commonalities between the constructs of leadership, communication, influence, and social process in organisational settings. Moreover, it integrates the methodologies of phenomenology, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism (using the grounded theory method) with the traditional psychometric methodologies used in leadership research. As such, this research is a valuable contribution to the future of leadership research in organisations. Finally, the continued use of purely qualitative methods for the research of leadership has been supported by the present findings..

7 Table 1. Social Processes of Leadership from the Extant Literature. Social Process Author(s) Description Transforming leadership Burns (1978), Bass (1985). Achieving superior results from self and others in organisation through using charisma, inspiring motivation, stimulating others intellectually, and demonstrating individual consideration. Promulgating Vision Bennis & Nanus (1985). Communicating and sharing vision with followers so all are involved in its creation and achievement. Communicating for meaning Kent et al. (1996). Continually engaging all involved in discourse and dialogue about organisations future, and communicating through actions. Creating Possibilities Kent et al. (1996). Encouraging creativity and striving for improvement. Optimising Irurita (1996). Making the best of the situation, making the most effective use of all available and potentia resources and to move beyond mediocrity toward excellence. Building and maintaining relationships Boyd & Taylor (1998) Promoting open and honest exchange, acting with integrity, discouraging negative opportunism. Resolving Uncertainty Parry (1999a). An influence process involving improving knowledge and perceptions of change. Obtaining role clarity is necessary for this process. Enhancing Adaptability Parry (1999a). Enhancing own and others adaptability by slowly implementing changes, creating experiences of success, improving of knowledge of benefits of change, communicating desirable messages.

8 Table 2. Factor Structure of the 28-item SPL. Factors People in my work unit Prioritise their own work tasks.799 Attempt to position each new work task within the.743 context of the 'big picture' Display sound management practice within the work.732 unit Facilitate the flow of information within the work unit.662 Take personal responsibility to educate themselves.605 where needed Communicate with each other the benefits of change.553 Display a clear perception of their own leadership role.545 within the work-unit Effectively plan ahead for variation in workloads.534 Demonstrate adaptability to the changing environment.489 Attempt to move the work unit forward.484 Make the best of situations facing them.433 Make the most effective use of all available resources.432 Discuss where the organisation is heading.935 Have face-to-face or phone discussions about change.780 Encourage others to share the work unit's vision.685 Discuss the reasons for any change that is put into place.545 Help each other adapt to the changing environment.545 Take advantage of opportunities when they arise.511 Display personal values that complement those of the.343 organisation Share information needed to help make decisions.337 Try to provide rational explanations for why things.320 happen Rely on each other for information about work.801 Rely on each other for support.771 Motivate each other to work hard.345 Engage in harmful gossip about others in the.884 organisation (reverse-coded) Behave in ways that work against the work unit's goals.856 (reverse-coded) Use organisational politics for personal benefit (reversecoded).850 Make poor use of scarce resources (reverse-coded).514 n = 705

9 Table 3. Correlations between the SPL and other constructs. Transformational leadersh (Podsako Transformational leadersh (Bass & Avol Corrective transaction leadership (Bass & Avol Communication and cooperati (Campion et a Social processes of leadership (SP Managing and leading adaptively Envisioning Reciprocating Courtesy (Podsako Cohesion (Campion et a Social cohesion (Carless & Pao Humour (Dubinsky et a All correlations are significant at p<.001 n = 705

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