Presenter: Isabelle Mary Mosley

Faculty Sponsor: Tarya Bardwell

School: Salem State University

Research Area: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Session: Poster Session 3, 1:15 PM - 2:00 PM, Auditorium, A65

ABSTRACT

Existing research has not determined whether leadership in collegiate academic settings should employ a scheduled, planned mode of change or a responsive, emergent mode of change during leadership transitions. Regarding the transitional periods caused by emergent changes in leadership, it is unknown what members of college academic departments experience during organizational leadership change, and what model would best support their department's transition. The two models of comparison in this study are the transformational model and the transactional model. The transformational model asserts that during times of change within a group, shared vision, motivation, and member encouragement are necessary for productive leadership change. In a transformational model, leaders facilitate this cohesion and aim to develop group members into future leaders. In contrast, the transactional model describes that during leadership change, structured rewards and goals are needed for a productive transition. A transactional approach establishes clear roles on the individual employee level, with performance motivation being less based on group values. This qualitative study will utilize open-ended interview questions with 10-20 participants snowball sampled from professors at Salem State University's academic departments to address the following questions: 1) how should departments negotiate emergent change and enact a transformational model during leadership transitions, and 2) how should departments decrease the presence of role stressors during this transition? The assessment of faculty experience from this research aims to identify challenges departments face during leadership change and reveal which model, transformational or transactional, institutions should employ for professors to be best supported.