The Leadership Practices of Middle Managers - A Case Study in Clinical Oncology Department

Healthcare    Managers/Executives/Administrators

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TITLE The Leadership Practices of Middle Managers - A Case Study in Clinical Oncology Department
 
RESEARCHER Hung Wai Man
Graduate School: Health Sciences
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Master’s Thesis: May 2000

OBJECTIVE
To study the relationship between the leadership practices of middle managers of Clinical Oncology Department in hospitals and the job satisfaction of subordinates.

METHODOLOGY
The population consisted of all 120 therapeutic radiographers (who are not taking the post Department Manager and Senior Radiographer) and who are working in Hospital Authority. Eighty-four respondents (70%) completed the Leadership Practices Inventory (Individual Contributor version), as well as the Nurse’s Job Satisfaction Measure (Cheung, Shae, Wong, Luk and Fielding, 1993). The typical respondent was male (58%), 26-30 years of age (42%), with less than five years of service (51%). Internal reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s Alpha) for this sample were as follows: Challenging (.82), Inspiring (.90), Enabling (.93), Modeling (.88), and Encouraging (.89).

KEY FINDINGS
Multiple regression analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship between the five practices of exemplary leaders and job satisfaction of subordinates (explaining about 42.3% of the variance). Further analysis showed that the five leadership practices were significantly related to the separate facets of job satisfaction: Commitment, Professionalism, Job Nature, Personal Control, Locus of Control, Communication, Pay and Prospect, and Education and Training. Analyses by age, professional qualification and years of service did not indicate any moderating impacts of these demographic variables. Males and females differed only the leadership practice of Challenging the Process.