Qualitative and historiometric methods in leadership research: A review of the first 25 years of The Leadership Quarterly

In the spirit of the 25th anniversary edition of The Leadership Quarterly, as the world's premier outlet for leadership research, we have reviewed qualitative and historiometric research across those 25 years. Qualitative research is a complex and cluttered area of scholarship. This is not because there is an inherent confusion about it. Rather, it is because ‘qualitative’ research is a cover-all term for a wide range of research strategies, paradigms, parent disciplines, sources of data, and methods of analysis for them. More so than in previous journal review articles, we explored variation in qualitative analysis as well as variety in qualitative data. In terms of methodologies, our efforts concentrated on case study, content analysis, grounded theory and historiometrics. We also examined trends toward post-positivism, post-modernity and liquid modernity, and their resultant benefits for researching leadership. Future directions for leadership research are posited.     

Situational impacts on leader ethical decision-making

Leader ethical decision-making has received a great deal of attention in the academic literature. Most research examining ethical leadership has focused on the leader characteristics and subordinate outcomes associated with ethical leadership, but research examining the situational variables influencing leader ethical decision-making is limited. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine a number of situational variables that may influence leader ethical decision-making. This study examined the impacts of performance pressure, interpersonal conflict, the leader's decision-making autonomy, the type of ethical issue at hand, and the level of authority of the other person involved in the interaction. The results indicated that when making a decision in response to a superior (as opposed to a peer or subordinate), leaders make worse decisions. Additionally, a number of interactions of the other variables negatively impacted leaders' ethical decision-making. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

A Multi-disciplinary Identification of Issues Associated with ‘Contracting’ in Market-oriented Health Service Reforms

Multi-disciplinary perspectives from operational research, management information systems, purposeful activity systems, accounting and finance, transaction-cost economics and organization learning are discussed in relation to `contracting' in the NHS following the recent reforms, applied within the general framework of soft-systems methodology. These are then used to frame questions for collecting information about contracting practices and issues. The data so collected suggest that the issues and activities associated with contracting can be grouped into five interacting categories of: strategy formation, making enabling arrangements, operational management of contracted activities, identifying and relating to stakeholders, and carrying forward organizational learning from experience. Each of the disciplinary perspectives attributes significance to specific forms in these five activities. The possibility of some multi-disciplinary linking of theoretical perspectives is demonstrated. Information and purposeful systems are central to this, being on the one hand created by social processes which define relevant information and corporate alignments of purpose, and on the other hand patterns of activity that can be evaluated in terms of contribution to these purposes, with properties of greater or lesser inhibition of innovation to improve purpose achievement. As a case study of an attempt at inter-disciplinary research, it demonstrates that interdisciplinary linkage can be made, though certain epistemological issues are skated over in the process. On the basis of the case study, some of the richness and insight of the different perspectives is lost in the process. The critical debate about the neutrality of soft-systems methodology is commented on in the light of the study.     

Analysis in support of strategic policy making

Policy making involves choice between alternatives in situations that are usually very complex. The process of choice in such situations is not such that a straightforward analytical procedure can be prescribed yielding a uniquely rational solution. However, decision problems arising in policy making situations can be investigated using methods based on recent developments in game and metagame theory. This methodology can form the basis of a rational decision structure of the type envisaged by Diesing that can be incorporated in the day-to-day work of most organizations.     

How Do We Know What Works? A Review and Critique of Current Practices in Ethics Training Evaluation

Training is a costly investment. As such, it is of great interest to know the extent to which that investment is yielding a positive return. Recent meta-analytic efforts have observed that ethics training programs are, indeed, having a positive effect, leading to the conclusion that the programs are working. However, they have also uncovered considerable variability in the effectiveness of ethics training programs, which leads to the purpose of the present study—to review current practices in ethics training evaluation. Through this review of 243 studies, consisting of 380 ethics trainings, we identified major themes in evaluation practices and training design. The tradeoffs associated with these evaluation procedures and designs are discussed, along with directions for future research.     

Researcher Perceptions of Ethical Guidelines and Codes of Conduct

Ethical codes of conduct exist in almost every profession. Field-specific codes of conduct have been around for decades, each articulating specific ethical and professional guidelines. However, there has been little empirical research on researchers’ perceptions of these codes of conduct. In the present study, we interviewed faculty members in six research disciplines and identified five themes bearing on the circumstances under which they use ethical guidelines and the underlying reasons for not adhering to such guidelines. We then identify problems with the manner in which codes of conduct in academia are constructed and offer solutions for overcoming these problems.     

Leader cognition: Improving leader performance through causal analysis

Prior qualitative research has indicated that leader performance in complex environments requires active analysis of the key causes operative in the organizational system. To provide some quantitative evidence to bear on this proposition, 160 undergraduates were presented with a computer simulation task that placed the participant in the role of a university president in charge of raising educational quality on campus. Training in the analysis of causes was provided, along with additional manipulations which varied the quality of case readings as well as levels of complexity in the environment. Overall, it was found that training in causal analysis significantly improved leader performance. The implications of these findings for understanding leader performance in complex environments are discussed.     

Embedded leadership: How do a leader's superiors impact middle-management performance?

This study uses a low-fidelity simulation to test the effect superiors can have on the leadership style and cognition of their subordinates who also are leaders. These leaders within the organization, often referred to as middle managers, occupy an important, albeit overlooked position within an organization. In order to emphasize the leadership that occurs at the middle levels of management the term ‘embedded leader’ is used. Using a sample of 224 undergraduates, three variables were manipulated to examine their effects on participant sensemaking, confidence, and participative leadership. The variables manipulated were the severity of individual level consequences (high vs. low), the severity of organizational consequences (high vs. low), and the superior's motivational strategy (coercive vs. supportive vs. passive style). It was found that a leader's superior can influence their leadership behaviors in a complex manner. Participant sensemaking was higher when their superior emphasized low levels of individual (or personal) consequences. Participative leadership was higher when the supervisor framed organizational level consequences as being high. Findings for participant confidence were complex, but generally suggest that one's superiors can promote or hinder confidence in a variety of situations.     

Models for decision-making in the public sector

The public sector is composed of a heterogeneous selection of undertakings which, for a variety of economic, political and historic reasons, are under direct government control. The considerable differences between these undertakings, combined with a paucity of common characteristics, has resulted in a variety of decision-making techniques being employed. In many cases there is an affinity with private sector firms, and techniques technically akin to the profit maximisation model are adopted although social welfare considerations supplant notions of financial returns. As with the private sector, textbook models are frequently abandoned to make way for more pragmatic criteria when informational or computational problems become severe. Additional to these undertakings using techniques parallel to those of the private sector, there are others for which specific decision-making models have been developed. These are mainly in areas where effective demand is considered inappropriate as a method of allocation and appraisal. Finally, there is some evidence that, as the multi-dimensional nature of public sector decisions becomes more widely accepted, the notion of satisficing is gradually gaining acceptance replacing that of maximising.