Learning Activity 7.2

The article I chose to focus on for this activity was Melchar and Bosco’s article Achieving high organization performance through servant leadership.

1. What was the purpose of the study?
   Rating: 3/3
   Melchar and Bosco (2010) clearly state at the beginning of their article that the purpose of their study was to determine “whether a servant leader can develop a corporate culture that attracts or develops other servant leaders” (p. 74).
2. Is there a rationale provided for needing a mixed methods design?
   Rating: 2/3
   The authors do not specifically state that this study was a mixed methods design (Melchar & Bosco, 2010). Instead, they only refer to their research as an empirical study throughout the article (Melchar & Bosco, 2010). However, the procedure is described in detail and thoroughly and the reader is able to identify the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study (Melchar & Bosco, 2010, p. 80).
3. Is the choice of the mixed methods design appropriate and justified?
   Rating: 3/3
   Yes, the Melchar and Bosco (2010) use a mixed methods design so that they can assess both the interactions between staff and leadership and also the empirical responses from questionnaires completed by employees (p. 80-81). Melchar and Bosco (2010) use a qualitative research design to interview leaders to assess their leadership style and to ensure that it meets the servant leadership criteria (p. 80) and a quantitative research design to collect questionnaire responses about employee perspective on leadership (p. 81).
4. What were the results of the study?
   Rating: 3/3
   The results of this study supported the original hypothesis that the “modelling of servant leadership by strategic level managers can create an organizational culture in which servant leaders develop among lower level managers” (Melchar & Bosco, 2010, p. 84).
5. Does the use of mixed methods produce a good understanding of the study’s purpose?
   Rating: 3/3
   Yes, the qualitative research portion of the study was important to understand the qualities that were needed to fulfill the requirement of the qualitative research portion (Melchar & Bosco, 2010). The authors needed to address this criteria before moving forward with their empirical data collection and analysis (Melchar & Bosco, 2010).

References

Melchar, D. E., & Bosco, S. M. (2010). Achieving high organization performance through servant leadership. Journal of Business Inquiry, 9(1), 774-88.

Original post found here.