The Relationship between Perceived Leadership Practices and Organizational Culture within the Aerospace Industry

Business    Employees/Individual Contributors/Members/Adults

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TITLE: The Relationship between Perceived Leadership Practices and Organizational Culture within the Aerospace Industry
 
RESEARCHER: Bradley M. McCain
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Nova Southeastern University
Unpublished doctoral dissertation: Fall 2010

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between employee perceived leadership practices and organizational culture within the aerospace industry.

METHODOLOGY
The target population was defined as the U.S. space shuttle program aerospace manufacturing and production operations personnel. Survey data was obtained from employees of United Space Alliance, which consisted of 1,793 employees of varying job classifications. The survey was web-based and 367 surveys were completed (response rate = 20.5%). Respondents completed the Leadership Practices Inventory–Observer and the Denison Organizational Culture Survey (Denison & Neale, 1996). The typical respondent was male (82%), in engineering (41%), non-management (87%), college educated (68%), 46.3 years of age, with 20+ years of service. Internal reliability coefficients in this study for the LPI-O were: .90 Model, .91 Inspire, .88 Challenge, .92 Enable, and .94 Encourage.

KEY FINDINGS
The most frequently practiced leadership behavior was Enabling, followed by Modeling and Encouraging, and then Challenge and Inspire. Average scores from the sample respondents were generally lower than those in the Kouzes Posner normative database.