An archival review of preferred methods for theory building in follower research

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title An archival review of preferred methods for theory building in follower research
 
Creator Feldman, Joseph A.
 
Subject — follower perceptions; follower attributions; follower motivation; leadership behaviour; contextual leadership-followership factors; follower attributes
Description Aim: The purpose of this research was to delineate methodological trends in articles published both internationally and locally that will reveal the extent of new theory building. Setting: The research strategy and methodology examined trends in theory building over a 52-year period (1962–2014). Method: An archival review of the published literature was conducted and each article was examined to identify the general research method employed. The chi-square test was used to determine whether there is a significant difference between the expected frequencies and the observed frequencies in one or more of four categories. Results: The archival data indicate that articles published over the past 52 years in major international and South African journals are skewed towards quantitative and conceptual research. This implies that researchers in leadership studies employed qualitative and mixed methodologies in their work less often than quantitative and conceptual methodologies. Conclusion: This trend has implications for the development of leadership-followership research. Research methods should be used with mindfulness, with qualitative methods being used to observe social and human problems, followed by quantitative methods to test inductively formulated followership theories. It is particularly important, in the context of diverse cultures, to note that local attempts to formulate authentic theory development will remain difficult and unsuccessful until endogenous management systems are established and institutionalised. This is very important for scholars who believe that an affinity for qualitative methodology affords the opportunity for emic research rather than merely for testing theories and constructs that may not capture local followership phenomena.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor none
Date 2018-06-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v21i1.1582
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 21, No 1 (2018); 7 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1582/1327 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1582/1326 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1582/1328 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/1582/1321
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Joseph A. Feldman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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