An Investigation into Transformational Leadership Behaviors and Signaling Theory

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Stock, G. (2020). An Investigation into Transformational Leadership Behaviors and Signaling Theory. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

Transformational leadership is arguably one of the most popular forms of leadership. However, despite the abundance of conducted studies on it, knowledge of specific transformational leadership behaviors is hindered by the conflation of follower perceptions and leader behaviors. Traditionally, these two elements are measured simultaneously, impeding causal inferences regarding the antecedents and consequences of such leader behavior. Thus, I first present a review of transformational leadership and propose the integration of signaling theory to ameliorate a number of issues in the transformational leadership literature. Second, I conducted two studies. In Study 1, I utilized a topic modeling approach to analyze open-ended responses (n = 109), and identified six transformational leader behaviors. In Study 2, I conducted a randomized, pre-registered, experiment and found that the presence of these signaling behaviors causes follower to evaluate the leader as more transformational (n = 416; Cohen’s d = .50). Finally, I discuss the theoretical and practical implications as well as the opportunities for future research.

Details
Author

Stock, George

Title

An Investigation into Transformational Leadership Behaviors and Signaling Theory

Physical Description

1 online resource (84 pages) : PDF

Date

2020

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

Transformational leadership is arguably one of the most popular forms of leadership. However, despite the abundance of conducted studies on it, knowledge of specific transformational leadership behaviors is hindered by the conflation of follower perceptions and leader behaviors. Traditionally, these two elements are measured simultaneously, impeding causal inferences regarding the antecedents and consequences of such leader behavior. Thus, I first present a review of transformational leadership and propose the integration of signaling theory to ameliorate a number of issues in the transformational leadership literature. Second, I conducted two studies. In Study 1, I utilized a topic modeling approach to analyze open-ended responses (n = 109), and identified six transformational leader behaviors. In Study 2, I conducted a randomized, pre-registered, experiment and found that the presence of these signaling behaviors causes follower to evaluate the leader as more transformational (n = 416; Cohen’s d = .50). Finally, I discuss the theoretical and practical implications as well as the opportunities for future research.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Organizational behavior

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Endogeneity Bias
Signaling Theory
Transformational Leadership

Subject Area

Organizational Science

Advisor(s)

Banks, George

Committee Members

Heggestad, Eric
Tonidandel, Scott

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2020.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Stock_uncc_0694N_12614

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:2130