| Transformational Leadership: A Summary of Behavioral Dimensions of the Construct and an Assessment of the Validity of New Scales Measuring Each Dimension |
| | Castro, Stephanie L. | Louisiana State U. | slcastro@lsu.edu | 504-388-6110 |
| | Schriesheim, Chester A. | U. of Miami | chet@miami.edu | 305-284-3758 |
| | Numerous theories of transformational leadership have been proposed, all hypothesizing similar positive organizational results but advancing different sets of behaviors as leading to these results. Consequently, the major theoretical works on transformational leadership are reviewed and 16 behavioral dimensions which have been hypothesized to characterize transformational leadership are identified. An examination of the existing measures of transformational leadership reveals that none tap this entire construct domain. Thus, a new measure of transformational leadership is called for which assesses all 16 dimensions of the construct. The dimensions are first defined, followed by the development of a new scale for each. Five separate studies are then conducted to obtain evidence regarding the psychometric quality of the new scales. Study 1 examines the interrelationships among the 16 new scales and their internal consistency. Studies 2 and 3 assess the content validity of the items using an empirical procedure suggested by Schriesheim, Powers, Scandura, Gardiner, and Lankau (1993). Study 4 examines several psychometric properties of the new scales, the relationships among the transformational leadership items and scales, and the relationships between the behavioral dimensions and variables within the transformational leadership construct's nomological network. Finally, three independent samples are utilized in Study 5 to further examine the psychometric properties of the scales, relationships among the scales, and relationships between the scales and variables in the nomological network of transformational leadership. Avenues for future research are briefly discussed. |
| | Keywords: Scale development/validation; transformational leadership; survey research |
| The Conceptual Underpinnings of Continuous Turnover Type Measurement: Applying Fuzzy Logic |
| | Gaertner, Stefan | Georgia State U. | [gs02ssg@panther.gsu.edu] | [(404)-651-2005] |
| | Griffeth, Rodger W. | Georgia State U. | mgtrwg@langate.gsu.edu | (404)-651-2864 |
| | Hagtvedt, Reidar | Georgia State U. | [hagtvedt@gsu.edu] | [(404)-651-4086] |
| | Fuzzy logic is introduced to turnover research and the fuzziness of turnover avoidability is probed using data from 9 published turnover researchers from the United States and Australia. The results suggest that turnover researchers implicitly regard turnover avoidability as a continuum ranging from completely avoidable to completely unavoidable. The results also suggest that there is only moderate agreement among the classification decisions of those turnover researchers. Implications of these results for turnover research and practice are discussed. |
| | Keywords: Employee turnover,; Fuzzy logic, ; Measurement |
| Development and initial validation of the political skill inventory |
| | Ferris, Gerald R. | U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | g-ferris@uiuc.edu | (217)-333-2586 |
| | Berkson, Howard M. | U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | hberkso@uiuc.edu | (217)333-2586 |
| | Kaplan, David M. | U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | dmkaplan@uiuc.edu | (217)333-2586 |
| | Gilmore, David C. | U. of North Carolina, Charlotte | dgilmore@uncc.edu | (704) 547-4740 |
| | Buckley, M. Ronald | U. of Oklahoma | mbuckley@ou.edu | (405)-325-5729 |
| | Hochwarter, Wayne A. | U. of Alabama | whochwar@alston.cba.ua.edu | (205)348-8925 |
| | Witt, Lawrence Alan | U. of New Orleans | lwitt@uno.edu | (504-280-6960 |
| | This paper provides a preliminary report on the conceptualization and validation of a measure of political skill.
Five studies were conducted to provide the initial development of a concise, yet reliable measure of political skill, as well
as provide evidence of its convergent and discriminant validity. Whereas we see this as an early point in the evolution of
the Political Skill Inventory, we were sufficiently encouraged with the results at this stage to move on to subsequent phases
of expansion and validation which will focus more on the scale's dimensionality and criterion-related validity. |
| | Keywords: construct validation; political skill, |