An exploratory study of managerial leadership in mechanistic, organic and virtual organisations

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Current time pressures, complexity, rapid change, global competition, and the merging ofcomputer and communication technology are facilitating a trend toward the virtual workplace.As the growth in the virtual workplace accelerates, organisations face new challenges to copewith new organisational structures and managerial leadership roles. Of particular relevance tothis study is that the new organisational forms necessitate new management structures, whichmight be different from mechanistic structures. It also implies that the prevalence of managerialleadership in different organisational structures might be different.Using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) of Bass & Avolio (1994) andOrganisational Structure Questionnaire of Miller & Droge (1986), this research attempted toinvestigate the prevalence of leadership in mechanistic, organic and virtual structures.Hypotheses were tested to determine the relationship between leadership and structure;leadership and environment; and environment and structure.The data was collected through a field experiment. The study was aimed at middle, senior andtop level management. Of the 165 questionnaires sent out, 80 middle level managers, 20senior level managers and two top level managers completed questionnaires.The results reflect that both transformational and transactional leadership occur in organicorganisations. The results also reflect that both transformational and transactional leadershipoccur in virtual organisations. The results of the survey also show that only some of theorganic-mechanistic dimensions predicted the prevalence of leadership in these structures. Apositive relationship was found between organic and virtual structures. Environment served asa poor predictor for the prevalence of transformational and transactional leadership in adynamic or stable environment. The results also confirmed that virtual organisations do occur indynamic environments. However, no relationship was found between environment uncertaintyand either mechanistic or organic structure.Conclusions are drawn from the results obtained and recommendations are made for futureresearch.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University