Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Leadership PhD

First Advisor

Robson M. Marinho

Second Advisor

Shirley A. Freed

Third Advisor

Tevni Grajales

Abstract

Purpose. This study verified the perceptions of the workers of Brazil Adventist University (UNASP) regarding the beliefs and practices of servant leadership by using data collected online through the instrument called the Organizational Leadership Assessment (OLA), focusing on six key areas of organizational health, according to three independent variables, which are leadership categories, campus, and gender.

Method. As a quantitative comparative study, the relationship between dependent and independent variables was determined by means of a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and a 2 by 3 factorial design in order to observe significant differences and interactions between variables. A total of 192 employees working in the three campuses participated in this research involving the three leadership categories (top leadership, management, and workforce).

Results. Considering the six levels of organizational health, the institution is perceived as being at a level of limited health, with significant differences of perception among the leadership categories revealing contrasts between the top leadership and the workforce. Besides, when contrasting Campus I and Campus II with Campus III, there are significant differences of perceptions between the first two campuses and the third one. On the other hand, there is no significant difference of perceptions between the genders.

Conclusion. The findings show evidence that the institution, having a limited level of organizational health, has a tendency to use traditionalistic attitudes in its practice of leadership. There is also a lack of unanimity regarding the perception of beliefs and practices of servant leadership among the leadership categories. From the six areas of organizational health, the areas of value people and build community are perceived as the most developed and practiced by the institution, whereas share leadership and develop people are the least practiced and the ones that need the most attention.

Subject Area

Servant leadership, Educational leadership--Brazil.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dissertations/579/

Download

Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS