Testing multi-dimensional nature of "new leadership" in a non-western context: the case of Malaysia.

Lo., May-Chiun ; Ramayah, T. ; de Run, Ernest Cyril 等

INTRODUCTION

Leadership can be practiced by any organization members regardless of their status in the organizations, and leadership is generally understood as the ability to exert influence over others (Peabody, 1962). Past studies (Ansari, 1990; Farrell & Schroder, 1999; Rajan & Krishnan, 2002) have conceptualized leadership as a social influence process from an organizationally designated superior to his or her subordinates.

In view of the fact that Malaysia's colonial heritage, coupled with more recent foreign direct investments by Japanese and Westerners, the traditional patterns of leadership and business management have been modified (Sin, 1991). It is evidenced that Malaysians' management styles and practices are being westernized especially in those working in manufacturing companies that reported directly to their foreign partners and/or bosses. In spite of the above statement, it has been found that Malaysian leaders are not expected to be self-serving such as placing their own interest ahead of the group, as they are still governed by their key cultural and religious values which underpin their behavior, beliefs, and attitude (Kennedy & Mansor, 2000). As revealed by Abdullah (1996), Malaysian managers are only familiar with one level of interaction; hence, it is time to learn through exposure to different work settings, social interaction, and observation of work related practices not only in intracultural levels, but at the intercultural levels, and cross-cultural levels.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Leadership Styles

Past studies on leadership have not found conclusive evidence on Malaysian leadership style. For example, Gill (1998) suggested that Malaysian managers are found to be more direct, less delegate, and are more transactional. However, Govindan (2000) reported that Malaysian leaders lean more towards participative and consultative styles. This is in line with the assertion of Abdullah (1992) that the use of stronger tactics in Malaysian context is not likable as Malaysians generally are not in favor of overt display of anger and aggressive behavior. Lewin, Lippitt, and White (1939) have pioneered the study of leadership where an experiment study was designed to examine the relative effectiveness of democratic, laissez-faire, and authoritarian leadership styles. Later, trait, behavior, leader-member exchange, charismatic, transactional, transformational, and power-influence approach came into existence. Major researches in leadership can be classified into four approaches, namely, (i) trait approach, (ii) behavior approach, (iii) power influence approach, and (iv) situational approach (Yukl, 2005). In view of the complex nature of leadership effectiveness, researchers in the past have defined leadership based on their researched frame of reference. It is generally agreed that, leadership begins with trait approach, which emphasized on the personal attributes of leaders, followed by behavior approach, which examined leadership in terms of content categories, such as managerial roles, functions, and responsibilities (Yukl, 2005).

Other approaches including contingency approach, is known as the combination of trait and behavioral approaches to leadership. This approach deduced that effective leadership is based on the match between a leader's style and situational favorability (Fiedler, 1964). On the other hand, some researchers (e.g., Hersey & Blanchard, 1984) came up with other leadership theory known as situational leadership theory that emphasized on leadership effectiveness as a function of leadership behavior and subordinates maturity. As compared to other theories, situational theory uses more contemporary approach to researching aspects of leadership (Bolman & Deal, 1997). Another contemporary approach, the integrative approach, focuses more on the dynamics between leaders and followers. The two most popular theories that fall under the integrative approaches are transformational and transactional leadership.

Transformational Leadership

Burns (1978) discussed leadership as transforming in which the leaders and the followers are often transformed or changed in performance and outlook. Further, the leader-follower interaction is known as the transformational influence process and it is also referred as transformational leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1993).

Past studies have constantly reported that transformational leadership is more effective, productive, innovative, and satisfying to followers as both parties work towards the good of organization propelled by shared visions and values as well as mutual trust and respect (Avolio & Bass, 1991; Fairholm, 1991; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubrahmaniam, 1996; Stevens, D'Intino, & Victor, 1995). This implies that transformational leaders believed in sharing of formalized power and more often practice the use of personal power. In the same vein, other study has drawn a distinction between authentic transformational leadership and pseudo-transformational leadership (Bass, 1985). It was found that pseudo-transformational leaders would seek power and position even at the expense of their followers' achievements, thus their behaviors are inconsistent and unreliable (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). The next section presents power and influence in terms of transactional leadership.

Transactional Leadership

Another type of leadership which has been widely used to describe power and influence is transactional leadership. Burns (1978) who pioneered the study oftransactional leadership indicated that transactional leaders are those who sought to motivate followers by appealing to their selfinterests.

Transactional leadership involves contingent reinforcement where followers are motivated by their leaders' promises, rewards, and praises. At the same time, the leaders react to whether the followers carry out what the leaders and followers have "transacted" to do (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). This implies that subordinates who work under transactional leaders would have a greater power and the ability to affect the strength of a leader's influence, style of behavior, and the performance of the group (Hollander, 1993).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The main focus of this paper is to assess the goodness of measure (validity and reliability) of the leadership styles, namely transformational and transactional measurement. Data was collected through survey questionnaires from targeted lecturers working in public universities in Malaysia using judgemental sampling method. 500 questionnaires were distributed to selected public universities. However, only 146 lecturers responded to the survey.

There are two main sections in this research. Section 1 requires the respondents to rate a total of 33 items on their superiors' leadership style using a 7-point Likert Scale as proposed by several researchers (e.g., Avolio & Bass, 2002; Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1994; Den Hartog, Van Muijen, & Koopman, 1997; Hinkin & Tracey, 1999) were used in this study as it still appears to be fairly representative and popular in application. Finally, Section 2 is used to collect the personal profile and demographic data of respondents.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Profile of the Respondents

The means and standard deviations among the study variables are contained in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, the standard deviations of the variables were either close to or exceeded 1.0, indicating that the study variables were discriminatory.

Testing the Goodness of Measure for the Leadership Structure Construct Content Validity

Content validity refers to the extent to which an instrument covers the meanings included in the concept (Babbie, 1992). In a similar vein, Rubio, Berg-Weger, Tebb, Lee, and Rauch (2003) refer to content validity as to the extent to which the items on a measure assess the same content or how well the content material was sampled in the measure. Essentially, the goals of content validity are to clarify the domain of a concept and judge whether the measure adequately represents the domain (Bollen, 1989). Content validation results in a theoretical definition that explains the meaning of the variable in question (Bollen, 1989) and is guaranteed by the literature overview (Gomez, Lorente, & Cabrera, 2004).

Construct Validity

To validate the goodness of the proposed measurement by Luque-Martinez et al. (2000) we used the factor analysis and reliability analysis. Factor analysis can be defined as the process of identifying the underlying structure in a data matrix; analyze the structure of interrelationships among a large number of variables by defining a set of common underlying dimensions called factors (Hair et al. 2006). Researchers often use factor analytic techniques to assess construct validity of the scores obtained from an instrument (McCoach, 2002). In this study, an exploratory factor analysis with an orthogonal rotation of varimax was used to evaluate the construct validity of the instrument. In turn, to evaluate the construct validity, we performed a principal components analysis on the set of 33 items of the scale. The result of this analysis is summarized in Table 2.

The analysis extracted only a 3 factor solutions each for transformational and transactional, each with eigenvalues above one, which explain 67% and 65% respectively of the total variance. The KMO was 0.89 and 0.88 for transformational and transactional respectively, indicating a meritorious level based on Kaiser and Rice (1974) and the Bartlett's test for sphericity was significant with [chi square] = 3498.25, p < 0.00 for transactional leadership style, and [chi square] = 1736.83, p < 0.00 for transformational leadership style.

As shown in Table 2, for transformational styles, Factor 1 consists of a combination of Idealized influence and Individualized consideration was named as Idealized Consideration based on the common premise of the items, whereas Factor II was named as Inspirational Motivation. Factor III was renamed as Intellectual Stimulation. Based on the rotated component matrix, out of the 20 items, only 1 item was dropped either due to loadings less than 0.50 suggested by Hair et al. (2006) or cross loading in another component.

Table 3 presents the factor loadings of transactional leadership styles. The factor analysis yielded a 4 factor solution. Factor 1 was named as Contingent reward, Factor II is known as Passive Management by Exception, and Factor III was named as Active Management by Exception

Convergent Validity

Further to the construct validity test using the factor analysis (between scales) another factor analysis but this time using the within scale was utilized to test the convergent validity. According to Campbell and Fiske (1959), convergent validity refers to all items measuring a construct actually loading on a single construct. Convergent validity is established when items all fall into 1 factor as theorized. Convergent validity was carried out through a within factor, factor analysis in order to obtain a more in-depth judgment of the dimensionality of the construct under study (Hair et al, 2006). All the four factors displayed unidimensionality with Contingent Rewards, KMO was 0.88 explaining 56 percent of the variation; Passive Management by Exception, KMO was 0.76 explaining 72 percent of the variation; Active Management by Exception, KMO was 0.50 explaining 67 percent of the variation; Idealized Consideration, KMO was 0.93 explaining 57 percent of the variation, Inspirational Motivation, KMO was .75, and Intellectual Stimulation with KMO of .73 and explained 78% of the variation. Thus, the analysis provided evidence of convergent validity.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity refers to the extent to which measures of 2 different constructs are relatively distinctive, that their correlation values are neither an absolute value of 0 nor 1 (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). A correlation analysis was done on the 4 factors generated and the result is presented. Thus, all the factors are not perfectly correlated where their correlation coefficients range between 0 or 1. Hence, we can conclude that discriminant validity has been established.

Nomological Validity

Nomological validity which is another form of construct validity is the degree to which a construct behaves as it should within a system of related constructs called a nomological set (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). Cronbach and Meehl (1955) posited that in order to provide evidence that a measure has construct validity, a nomological network has to be developed for its measure.

In essence what this means is that we have to develop a nomological link between the variable we would like to validate and another variable which has been proven theoretically to be related to this particular variable. For example, previous researchers (e.g., Shamir, Zakay, Breinin, & Popper, 1998; Walumbwa & Lawler, 2003) have found a meaningful relationship between the 2 types of leadership styles and organizational commitment to change. So when we validate the construct validity of a power measure, we will use commitment to change to test the nomological validity. As organizational commitment to change has been shown to be related to leadership styles, we used the Capacity Beliefs dimension of organizational commitment to change to be correlated with the 3 dimensions of transactional and transformational styles, respectively, and the result is presented in Table 6. As theorized, the 2 dimensions were significantly related to organizational commitment to change thus confirming nomological validity.

Reliability

Reliability measures the degree to which the test score indicates the status of an individual item on the factors defined by the test, as well as the degree to which the test score demonstrates individual differences in these traits (Cronbach, 1947 as cited in McCoach, 2002). "A reliability coefficient demonstrates whether the test designer was correct in expecting a certain collection of items to yield interpretable statements about individual differences" (Cronbach, 1951, p. 297 as cited in McCoach, 2002). The reliability coefficient was 0.86 for Contingent Rewards, 0.87 for Passive Management by Exception, 0.50 for Active Management by Exception, 0.93 for Idealized Consideration, 0.81 for Inspirational Motivation, and 0.86 for Intellectual Stimulation. Hence, it can be concluded that these measures posses sufficient reliability for except Active Management by Exception as it consists only 2 items.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This study has chosen universities' employees in Malaysia as respondents. It is believed that exploring the phenomenon of transformational and transactional leadership styles among higher education learning in Malaysia has certainly broaden the understanding of these two leadership styles. Without a doubt the research on these two leadership styles are still limited in its ability to provide an unequivocal guideline and to advise on the best way to exercise their power. However, by drawing upon the diverse literatures, this study has inevitably developed some guidelines for scholars as well as leaders on the effective use of new leadership styles.

It has been propounded that, the progress of researches on leadership styles have been slow but steady (Bruins, 1999). Over the past few years, there has been a strong increased interest in these matters both in terms of theoretical thinking as well as empirical research. It is believed that an appropriate time to address the extent to which the progress about transformational and transactional leadership styles thus far could be applied to a variety of social issues.

Hence, it is timely to understand the importance of the dimensionality of leadership styles as it can be extremely useful for organizational behavior studies. Although the dimensionality of leadership styles has been studied in previous researches, no known researches have been found to empirically study the dimensionality of leadership styles in the Malaysia context. Hence, this study has added to the growing body of research in power by using a series of tests to test for validity and reliability of the constructs. Preliminary results demonstrated a valid (content, construct, convergent, disriminant and nomological) as well as reliable six dimension scale for measuring both transactional and transformational leadership styles.

It was found that only three dimensions each of transactional and transformational namely, Contingent Rewards, Passive Management by Exception, Active Management by Exception, Idealized Consideration, Inspirational Motivation, and Intellectual Stimulation. are capable of explaining sufficient variation in the construct being measured in Malaysia context. Hence, the results of this study show some interesting similarities and differences concerning the dimensionality of leadership construct between western context and eastern context. Thus, having a guide like the present study to follow can be very helpful to researchers in leadership structure related areas.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

This research triggers the need for more research in power bases literatures as individuals holding powerful positions would normally act and present themselves in more idiosyncratic and variable ways (Guinote, Judd, & Brauer, 2002). Perhaps future researches should look at the consequences of various leadership styles and to investigate when the right time to exercise the right type of leadership.

Although the study has provided sufficient insights into the studied dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership styles, the results could not be generalized in view of the fact that all the variables were taken form the same source and there is a possibility of common methods variance. Thus, longitudinal studies are likely to provide a better insight into the dimensionality of leadership styles over a period of time. In addition, different cultural and international contexts may limit the generalizability of results. It is unclear whether the findings may have the same implications for leadership styles in different cultural environment as the values of the participants in this current study might not accurately represent the values of other countries'.

REFERENCES

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May-Chiun Lo. Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

T. Ramayah' Universiti Sains Malaysia

Ernest Cyril de Run, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Table 1: Demographic Characteristic of Respondents

Demographics                                    Frequency   Percentage

Subordinates'   Male                                80         54.8
Gender          Female                              66         45.2

Superiors'      Male                                92         63
Gender          Female                              44         30.1
                Missing                             10          6.8

Status          Permanent                          117         80.1
                Contract                            29         19.9

Position        Tutor                                9          6.2
                Lecturer                            75         51.4
                Senior Lecturer                     37         25.3
                Associate Professor                 17         11.6
                Professor                            8          5.5

Superiors'      Bachelor local                       7          4.8
Education       Bachelor overseas                    2          1.4
Background      Master local                        55         37.7
                Master overseas                     21         14.4
                PhD local                           27         18.5
                PhD overseas                        33         22.6
                Missing                              1          0.7

University      UKM                                 52         35.6
                UPM                                 38         26
                UIA                                 33         22.6
                UM                                  18         12.3
                Missing                              5          3.4

Faculty         Natural and Physical Science        32         21.9
                Engineering and Related              3          2.1
                  Technology
                Architecture and Building
                Agriculture, Environmental          13          8.9
                  and Related
                Studies                              6          4.1
                Health
                Education                            3          2.1
                Management and Commerce              9          6.2
                Society and Culture                 18         12.3
                Missing                             37         25.3
                                                    25         17.1

Table 2: Descriptive for the Major Constructs

                 Mean      Std. Deviation

trancCR         5.4481         .90780
trancPA         5.7106        1.01612
trancAC         4.9829         .93295
transfII_IC     5.5178         .92358
transf_IM       5.0171         .91570
transf_IS       5.0023         .92102

Table 3 Factor analysis results for Transformational Leadership Style

                                                    Component

                                           1      2       3       4

displays a sense of power and             .745   .171    .219   -0.064
  confidence.
specifies the importance of having a      .743   .144    .251    -.030
  strong sense of purpose.
considers the moral and ethical           .727   .011    .334    -.180
  consequences of decisions.
helps me in developing my strengths.      .712   .366   -.024     .125
considers me as having different needs,   .709   .139    .203     .239
  abilities and aspirations from
  others.
acts in ways that builds my respect.      .693   .326    .019     .119
re-examines critical assumptions to       .662   .517    .040     .046
  questions whether they are
  appropriate.
seeks different perspectives when         .638   .176    .266     .151
  solving problems.
spends time teaching and coaching me to   .631   .541    .130     .038
  improve my performance.
gets me to look at problems from many     .619   .507    .020     .027
  different angles.
treats me as an individual rather than    .616   .470    .083     .211
  just as a member of a group.
talks about my most important values      .575   .193    .435    -.028
  and beliefs.
instils pride in me for being             .279   .749    .090     .120
  associated with him/her.
gives a convincing vision of the          .306   .731    .187     .052
  future.
talks enthusiastically about what needs   .126   .706    .308    -.003
  to be accomplished.
emphasizes the importance of having a     .138   .700    .289    -.106
  collective sense of mission.
talks optimistically about the future.    .029   .183    .860     .069
goes beyond self-interest for the good    .307   .264    .776     .116
  of the group.
suggests new ways of looking at how to    .322   .203    .759     .133
  complete assignments.
expresses confidence that goals will      .092   .024    .184     .923
  be achieved.

Table 4 Factor analysis results for Transactional Leadership Style

                                                        Component

                                                    1      2       3

recognizes what needs to be accomplished.          .851   .088    .124
takes no action unless a problem arises.           .698   .274   -.074
arranges to provide the resources needed by        .685   .268    .253
  followers to accomplish their objectives.
remains alert for violation of non-compliance      .628   .374    .076
  with the rules.
follows up to make sure that the agreement is      .589   .427    .047
  satisfactorily met.
teaches followers how to correct mistakes.         .589   .359    .307
gives recognition to followers when they perform   .549   .473    .246
  and meet agreed-upon objectives.
provides support in exchange for required          .200   .867    .185
  effort.
enforces corrective action when mistakes are       .323   .801    .154
  made.
avoids unnecessary changes.                        .283   .782   -.008
fixes the problem and resumes normal               .460   .606    .188
  functioning.
arranges to know if something has gone wrong.      .041   .039    .924
attends mostly to mistakes and variations from     .297   .399    .526
  the original objective.

Table 5: Intercorrelations of the major constructs

                  trancCR        trancPA       trancAC

trancCR          1.000
trancPA           .733 **       1.000
trancAC           .467 **        .464 **      1.000
transfII_IC       .872 **        .840 **       .572 **
transf_IM         .558 **        .562 **       .770 **
transf_IS         .584 **        .356 **       .396 **

                transfII_IC     transf_IM     transf_IS

trancCR
trancPA
trancAC
transfII_IC      1.000
transf_IM         .654 **       1.000             *
transf_IS         .515 **        .491 **        1.000

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01

Table 6: Results of the nomological validity test

                                          Passive         Active
                        Contingent      Management      Management
                          Rewards      by Exception    by Exception

Dependent Commitment                                       -.00
  to change

                         Idealized     Inspirational   Intellectual
                       Consideration    Motivation     Stimulation

Dependent Commitment       .18 *          -.18 *          .21 **
  to change

** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05

Table 7: Reliability coefficients

Variable                            Cronbach Alpha

Contingent Rewards                       0.86
Passive Management by Exception          0.87
Active Management by Exception           0.50
Idealized Consideration                  0.93
Inspirational Motivation                 0.81
Intellectual Stimulation                 0.86

Table 8: Descriptive for the major constructs

                 Mean      Std. Deviation

trancCR         5.4481         .90780
trancPA         5.7106        1.01612
trancAC         4.9829         .93295
transfII_IC     5.5178         .92358
transf_IM       5.0171         .91570
transf IS       5.0023         .92102

Note: All items used a 7-point Likert scale with
(1 = Strongly disagree and 7 = Strongly agree)