Author: Simarjit (Page 3 of 11)

Unit 4 Learning Activities

The most important things for me in the introduction section of a good quality research ….

The introduction to a research article is a window into the whole article. For me the things that are important in an introduction are:

Relevance of the topic to me- personally or professionally. This  is obviously the primary driver behind a reader deciding to pick up a research article to read. I usually am able to make this decision quickly, based on the topic/title and the source. I always believed this was a more or less intuitive decision- that one decides to read an article that is of personal or professional interest.  Plano-Clark and Creswell (2015) make a very poignant argument as to why should one read research reports- as per them  that reading research reports adds to one’s personal knowledge, helps one understand their position in policy debates and helps improve one’s practice. I learnt that there is a set of questions that one can ask themselves, that can help making that determination more scientific.

Why is this research needed ? A research needs to be meaningful, not frivolous . It is important for me to determine how the study will contribute/ add to the available literature . “Research should only be conducted when researchers can make a convincing argument that the study is worth the effort” (Plano-Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 80).

Comparison to previous similar studies and what was missing in them– which includes a thorough literature review with mention of the things that were missing in those studies and the present  study attempts to discuss . As per Plano-Clark and Creswell (2015) ” a good use of literature occurs when researchers provide a comprehensive summary of the literature on a topic and identify two to three explicit deficiencies in that literature (p. 120)

What are the applications of the study, its implications ? Plano-Clark and Creswell address this on p. 90, by identifying the audience for a study one can learn who may benefit from the study results.  I dont think this is a determination that is the researchers’ to make. In my opinion this a individual decision, and one can usually make that determination from the title. What really matters to me while reading the introduction is the applicability of the study, especially the practical implications of the study.

Another important component of a well written introduction is how the authors plan to use the existing knowledge about a topic to formulate a framework for their study, how did they create the tools/methods that they plan to use in their research? What is the rationale behind their use of those methods, and whether there research supporting/validating those methods?

These components have helped me so far in making a determination as to why a study is important to me. Reading the pertinent sections of the above textbook has given me additional tools to help make that determination in a more informed manner.

Question: Do you think the audience of a research study should be determined by the authors?

Reference

Plano-Clark, V., Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Unit 4 Learning Activities

Purpose statements and research questions

Is the study’s purpose clearly specified?

The study’s purpose was clearly spelled out “Our purpose was to test the relationship between personality, servant leadership, and critical follower and organizational outcomes.” (Hunter et al., 2015). This is a quantitative study. It also specifies the intent, framework and participants later in the introduction . I will rate this 3.

Is the focus of the study appropriate?

They identified the independent and dependent variables they intended to study. I could not find mention of control or confounding variables. I will give this element a score of 2.

Is the overall intent of the study appropriate?

They delineated the main variables- they proposed and tested a model that integrated multiple levels of theory and analysis, applied theories oof social learning and social exchange, and examined leader personality as a predictor of outcomes. This scores a 3.

Are the participants and the sites appropriate?

The participants were selected from a retail chain: store managers and employees. Out of the 385 store managers, 110 responded. The authors tried to eliminate response bias by studying the servant leadership and service climate ratings from the non responding stores. They found that the servant leadership ratings were not significantly different, but service climate ratings were significantly higher for stores with a responding store manager. This difference wasn’t statistically significant though. I will give them a score of 3 on this element.

Is the purpose of the study narrowed through appropriate research questions and/or hypotheses?

The formulated 2 hypotheses: (1) Leader agreeableness is positively related to follower perceptions of servant leadership. (2) Leader extraversion is negatively related to follower perceptions of servant leadership. (3) Individual-level servant leadership is negatively related to follower turnover intentions. (4) Individual-level servant leadership is negatively related to follower turnover intentions. (5) Store-level servant leadership is positively related to follower helping behavior (task and person-focused OCB-I) (6) Service climate mediates the relationship between store-level servant leadership and follower turnover intentions. (7) Service climate mediates the relationship between store-level servant leadership and follower disengagement.. (8) Service climate mediates the relationship between store-level servant leadership and follower helping behavior (task and person-focused OCB-I). (9) Service climate mediates the relationship between store-level servant leadership and follower sales behavior. (10) Service climate mediates the relationship between store-level servant leadership and store sales performance. I will rate this a 2.

Does the purpose of the study follow logically from the statement of the problem and the literature review?

Like I mentioned in my previous study, some purpose of this study seems to duplicate some of the results from previous studies mentioned in literature review. I will rate this a 2.

Is the purpose consistent with the study’s overall approach?

This study is vast with the authors attempting to study 10 hypotheses. It is not “narrow or specific” as per the evaluation criteria laid out in Plano-Clark and Creswell (2015, p. 184). It does have a lot of information, but at times becomes a tedious read. I will rate this 2, because it has the other elements of the above mentioned criteria point 7 (Plano-Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 184)

Overall score- 17 (High quality)

References

Hunter, E. M., Neubert, M. J., Perry, S. J., Witt, L. A., Penny, L. M., & Weinberger, E. (2013). Servant leaders inspire servant followers: Antecedents and outcomes for employees and the organization. Leadership Quarterly, 24(2), 316-331.

Plano-Clark, V., Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

LDRS 591 Activity 4.3

Unit 4 Learning Activities

Does the review include relevant literature?

The purpose of this study was to study the relationship between personality, leadership and individual and organizational outcomes. In this respect I think their literature review was relevant and adequate. They reviewed literature on theories of social research and studies about various models of leadership. I would rate this study a 3 on this element.

Does the review examine sources that are recent and of high quality?

The literature review they conducted mostly consisted of studies that were old, some as old as 1964. Keeping in mind that the theory of servant leadership is not that old either, we can grant that the paucity of relevant literature might have been a limiting factor here. They did mention some more recent studies (e.g leader personality affecting outcomes), that were more relevant to their study. I will give them a 2 on this element.

Is the literature review documented properly?

They did document appropriately, citations seem to be consistent, e.g citing page numbers when quoting directly, using et al when citing multiple authors subsequently. This will score 3 in my opinion.

Is the literature thoughtfully synthesized?

The literature review is ‘thorough’ in that they seem to have reviewed some old and new studies about relevant topics. But I don’t think it is well organized, even though they do seem to have covered the important themes and subtopics. It is neither a “study-by-study” review, nor a “thematic review” as recommended by Plano-Clark and Creswell (2015, p. 140) . I will rate them a 2 on this.

Is the literature critically examined?

They examined the previous literature critically and identified deficiencies. This would be a 3.

Does the study have a strong foundation in the literature?

This study seems to originate from literature, they authors reviewed previous studies on social research, cognitive theory, correlation between personality and outcomes. The authors intend to study the correlation between personality and individual and organizational outcomes. I will rate this a 3.

Does the literature fit the study’s overall approach?

the literature does seem to fit with the study’s overall approach. without having the read all of the other studies, it does seem that there seems to be duplication in this study. Hence, I will give it  2.

Overall score: 18 (High Quality)

References

Hunter, E. M., Neubert, M. J., Perry, S. J., Witt, L. A., Penny, L. M., & Weinberger, E. (2013). Servant leaders inspire servant followers: Antecedents and outcomes for employees and the organization. Leadership Quarterly, 24(2), 316-331.

Plano-Clark, V., Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Activity 4.1: Servant leadership. https://create.twu.ca/ldrs591-sp18/unit-4-learning-activities/

Servant leadership: Its origin, development, and application in organizations.

http://ezproxy.student.twu.ca:3102/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=acaea81d-e5e4-4056-a333-36eaa10867c2%40sessionmgr4007

Why is servant leadership an interesting or worthwhile topic/phenomenon to research?

The above article by Sendjaya and Sarros was published in 2002, and it seems like till then servant leadership was considered more of a philosophical idea, rather than an actual model for leadership. As per Northouse (2016, p. 225, para 3), there has been significant research on the principles of servant leadership in the last 10 years. Because of the association of the concept of a servant leader with Jesus and other religious figures, it does carry an intuitive appeal as a model of leadership. But what needs to be determined is whether it is applicable in all situations and to all kinds of personalities. It is also worthwhile it to research further whether it results in better efficiency, productivity and employee satisfaction, in direct comparison with other models of leadership.

Why would this article interest researches in the leadership field?

The authors summarise their arguments in favor of more research on the concept of servant leadership in the conclusion section of their article by proposing the following questions: “What are the differences between servant leaders and those who choose not to be? What does it take for a would-be servant leader to embrace the nature and play the role of servant leader? Are certain types of people likely to feel more comfortable with the role and nature of servant leader? Does the practice of servant leadership produce results that differ from other models/paradigms of leadership? Can servant leadership be measured? What are some organizational factors that are likely to foster and inhibit servant leadership practices?” (Sendjaya & Sarros, 2002, p. 63). The above questions, till now unanswered, call for further research.

What is already known about servant leadership?

The term servant leadership was coined by Greenleaf in 1977, “servant leaders are leaders who put other people’s needs, aspirations and interests above their own”. This article points that it was in fact Jesus who introduced the idea of servant leadership. Spears (2002) identified 10 characteristics of a servant leader, based on Greenleaf’s writings: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, building community.

Servant leadership appeals to me on a philosophical level, but I am not sure if it is applicable to all situations. I would like to see more head to head comparative studies between servant leadership and other popular models of leadership such as transformational and authentic leadership

References:

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice. Thousand Oak, CA: SAGE.

Pollard, C.W. (1997, September/October). The leader who serves. Strategy and Leadership, 49-51.

Sendjaya, S., Sarros, J. C. (2002). Servant leadership: Its origin, development, and application in      organizations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9 (2).

What makes you happy?: A comparison of self-reported criteria of happiness between two cultures.

Dong Yul Lee, Sung Hee Park, Max R. Uhlemann, Philip Patsula

The authors found that most prior studies about happiness had been done by studying pre-determined domains of happiness or satisfaction. They questioned whether the criteria for happiness varied in different cultures, and sought to find out whether criteria for determining happiness were different in a ‘collectivist’ society that in an ‘individualistic’ society.  They hypothesized that the criteria for happiness would likely vary depending on culture, personal values and goals.

Methods

Participants: They enrolled 403 university students from teacher-training programs from a Canadian and a Korean university each (203 Canadian and 200 Korean). Responses from 15 students were eliminated, data from 388 students was used for the results. The median age of Canadian students was 23.4, and that of Korean students was 22.7. The two cities from which the subjects were chosen had similar populations and hence authors assumed they had similar socio-political characteristics. Population of the Canadian city, London, was 350,000; and that of the Korean city, Chung-joo, was 400,000).

Measures: The Happiness Questionnaire (HQ), and Life Goal Survey (LGS) were administered. Their responses were read by a pair of graduate judges in each country, who had received 10 hours of training.

Results

Canadian students showed a higher score on the happiness scale and the percent time participants felt happy. However, the 2 groups applied the same standard in ranking categories for the HQ and LGS. For both groups, the two most important categories were health and goal/mission in life, while the two least important categories were stress-free life and financial/materialistic wealth.

Conclusions

The researchers found that even though the respondents from the two countries differ in their overall perception of happiness, they applied the same criteria as determinants of their happiness. This result was contrary to what they had hypothesized. There was also another unexpected finding; ‘family’ was the most frequently mentioned criteria in the Canadian sample, as opposed to the Korean sample. The authors acknowledged some of the weaknesses of their study-they admitted that choosing the sample from teacher-trainees could have led to selection bias; they did not control for the definition of ‘family’ in the Korean sample given the understanding that the definition is undergoing in a change; the LGS was constructed only based on responses from the Canadian students (not the current sample).

Personal comments

I chose this study because I thought it could provide me insight into whether there is a cultural difference to the importance given to components of the ‘formula’ to happiness? This study compared the criteria in 2 very different cultures and the researchers hypothesized that their criteria would be different. Their assumption was that Korea being a so-called ‘collectivist’ society would probably measure happiness by a different set of criteria than an ‘individualistic’ society like Canada. Contrary to the authors’ beliefs the criteria used by the subjects in the 2 studies were similar. The results of this study make one wonder whether the results of this study are because of the recent change in definition of family the authors acknowledge that Korea is going through? Are traditionally ‘collectivistic’ societies now undergoing a change in their values because of modernization ( or westernization) ? I think a follow up study where the subjects are an older demographic might help answer some of these questions.

Reference

Dong Yul, L., & Sung Hee, P, Uhlemann, M.R., Patsula, P. (2000). What makes you happy?: A comparison of self-reported criteria of happiness between two cultures. Social Indicators Research, 50(3), 351.