Drivers of Mastery: A quantitative study of the relationship between servant leadership and mastery climate.
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2019
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Management and International Business (MIB)
Language
en
Pages
50 + 6
Series
Abstract
While changes in the nature of work provide a plethora of new opportunities, it has also caused wide-ranging problems in employee wellbeing and performance. This phenomenon has resulted in new demands for workgroup leaders. The fundamental skills for emerging leaders are the ability to promote intrinsic motivation, cooperation and an attitude in their followers that embraces change. Mastery climate is a motivational climate type that typifies all of these three qualities. Despite the benefits associated with the mastery climate, little is known of the specific factors that contribute to the development of said climate. The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between servant leadership and mastery climate and the research question was fashioned as follows: is the extent to which a workgroup leader exhibits servant leadership behavior positively associated with mastery climate? The hypothesis was built on the idea that different leadership behaviors result in different climates (Lewin, Lippit & White, 1939) and that the climate generated is likely to resemble the particular behavior of the leaders. (Schneider, 1990) The research question was investigated through quantitative methods. A questionnaire was compiled based on previously validated constructs and sent through Webropol-survey to 123 middle managers and 937 subordinates working in a Finnish company operating in retail and service industry. The hypothesis was tested by using the general linear regression model. The results indicated that servant leadership is positively associated with mastery climate with a high level of significance. The implications of the thesis are both theoretical and practical. The study brings new theoretical insight in providing information of a particular leadership behavior that is positively associated with mastery climate. The practical implications of the study are relevant to organizations, HR leaders and work group leaders interested in generating a mastery climate. This thesis suggests, that servant leadership is a significant driver of mastery climate, while leaving it for the future research to study the mechanism that explains these findings.Description
Thesis advisor
Hakkarainen, TuuliMäkelä, Kristiina
Keywords
servant leadership, mastery climate, motivational climate, leader behaviour