Date of Award

1987

Degree Name

EdD Doctor of Education

Dissertation Committee

Joseph C. Rost, PhD, Director; William P. Foster, EdD; Jerome J. Ammer, PhD

Keywords

correlation, homophily, leader communication, Leadership studies, organizational structure

Abstract

Considerable literature has mounted concerning the central theme of leadership. The perspective of this study is that leadership inherently involves the process of shaping and maintaining a desirable organizational culture. A critical means by which a leader shapes and maintains an organizational culture is through effective and competent communication. The present study sought to explore the relationship between an organizational member's perception of the communication competence and homophily of his/her leader and the member's degree of shared culture, as espoused by the leader. Five hypotheses were advanced as well as five research questions regarding the relationship and predictive power of the communication variables (encoding, decoding, and homophily) on the degree of shared culture. To test the hypotheses and research questions, data generated from the Communicator Competence Questionnaire, the Homophily Scale, and a shared culture instrument developed by the researcher were subjected to correlation and regression analysis. Thirty subjects responded to the survey regarding the chief executive officer of a major restaurant chain based in San Diego. All but one null hypothesis were retained, which indicates that the shared culture between the leader and followers is not significantly correlated with either the leader's communication competence or the existing homophily between leader and follower, or both variables collectively. The results did indicate that a leader's decoding competence is a statistically significant correlate of the followers' degree of shared culture. The results also indicate that encoding and decoding are highly correlary and that all instruments are highly reliable. The study concludes by presenting possible explanations which account for the results and implications, and considerations for future research.

Document Type

Dissertation: Open Access

Department

Education

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