Browsing by Author "Huff, Anne"

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    A Cross-Cultural Test of Implicit Leadership Theory
    (Cranfield University, 2003-11) McKie, David S.; Huff, Anne; Communal, Christine; Fishwick, Frank
    This research builds on Implicit Leadership Theory, which suggests that a leader’s performance is likely to be higher when there is congruence between a follower’s prototype of what a leader should be and his or her perception of the leader’s behaviour. The essence of effective leadership, according to this theory, is being seen as a leader by others. Data were collected from 196 leaders and 1,738 followers from 23 countries within Cargill Incorporated, a US food and agricultural multinational. The research was conducted in two phases. During the first phase data were collected on followers’ desired leadership values and their perception of their leader’s behaviour on the same dimensions. These data were used to compute a congruence score based on a weighted sum of absolute differences. The congruence score data formed the heart of an individualised Leadership Fit Report written for each leader in the study showing the extent of congruence across 21 leadership characteristics (see Appendix A). The second phase of the study focused on a subset of 933 followers from five countries testing the two hypotheses. The two hypotheses in Phase Two were partially supported. The first was that congruence between desired leadership values and perceived behaviour leads to high performance of a leader and incongruence leads to lower performance. The second was that the relationship between congruence and leader performance varied by nationality. The cross-cultural test of Implicit Leadership Theory captured in Hypothesis 2 was particularly important to Cargill because it revealed unique and important 9 differences between the five countries included in the second data set. This study found that the nature of the relationship between congruence and leader performance varies significantly between all five countries. More specifically the data suggests that congruence does not always lead to high performance. This study, albeit exploratory, makes theoretical, methodological and practical contributions in the following ways. i. A cross cultural test of Implicit Leadership Theory in a multinational organisation with a significant sample size. ii. An existing desired leadership values questionnaire was used and developed further to measure leadership values and leader perception. iii. All 196 leaders received a personalised feedback report showing the level of congruence (or degree of fit) for 21 leadership characteristics. iv. A methodological contribution was made by using Polynomial Regression Equations and Response Surface Methodology to measure the nature of the relationship between desired leadership values, perceived behaviour and leaders’ performance. Implicit Leadership Theory was shown to be complex yet very relevant to management practice. The research undertaken was exploratory yet it has created the basis for on going discussion.
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    A study of cognition and behaviour in top management team interaction
    (Cranfield University, 1998-12) Johnson, Phyllis; Daniels, K.; Huff, Anne
    This thesis is concerned with strategy development processes in top management teams. It focuses on an explanation of consensuality in these teams; in particular, collectivc cognition and its relationship to convergent behaviour. Four different explanations of the nature of collective cognition and its rdationship to convergent behaviour were established in a review of the extant literature. These explanations were operationalised in the lorm of four propositions that wcre tested using a progressive case study design. In total three case studies were conducted. The first case, University Business School, was used as a pilot and helped to generate a more concrete operationalisation of three of the four. propositions. These were then examined and refined in a second case study; Colour Scheme. The third and final case, Construct Chemicals, was conducted longitudinally over time and tested these relined propositions. In all of the cases, data was collected in a similar way. That is, tcam members were intcrviewcd both belore and after importl1nt strategy development meetings. During these interviews, team members' views about their strategic issue were approximated using a cognitive mapping technique. Other additional data were also collectedl1t this time. The behaviour exhibited during team meetings was observed and discussions tape recorded. In the first two cases, only one meeting was attended, whereas in the tinal case four meetings were attended. These qualitative data were analysed to ascertain the presence and nature of collective cognition in the teams and to explore the extent to which this collective or indeed individual cognition was retlected in the behaviour observed in the team environment during periods of strategy development. It was established that in the organisations studied, collective cognition existed in various forms within dyads or subgroups within the top teams. However, several context dependent contingent variables were found to affect the development of collective cognition in the teams. Equally, a range or context specific contingencies mediated the relationshipbetween cognition and behaviour in the top team environment. All of these variables were built into a complete framework that represented the data collected.