Departmental leadership roles and responsibilities : a case study

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Role ambiguity and role conflict are issues that regularly confront departmental leaders inacademic departments at higher education institutions. This research focused on the roles andresponsibilities of departmental leaders in four academic departments in the Faculty of Business atthe Bellville campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.The research was conducted within the framework of the Qual-quan research approach. TheQual-quan research approach is a combination of the traditional qualitative and quantitativeresearch approaches, with the qualitative approach being used predominantly and the quantitativeapproach being used as a complementary approach to the qualitative approach. The researcheremployed the personal hand-delivery and collect data collection method and more specificallyquestionnaires to elicit information from respondents. Each of the four questionnaires was linked toa research aim.The first aim was to establish how ready each departmental leader was for the leadership role. Thesecond aim was to find out what the dominant and back-up role identities of departmental leaderswere. Job analysis, that is the systematic gathering of information regarding a job, in this instancethe position of the departmental leader, was the third aim of the research. The fourth aim of theresearch was to establish the perceptions and expectations of what followers have of departmentalleaders in terms of the roles and responsibilities that the departmental leader must perform.The research results indicated that one departmental leader was not ready for the leadership role. Interms of the categorisation of departmental leaders' role identities, the research showed that threedepartmental leaders had leader as their dominant role identity and the other departmental leaderhad manager as dominant identity. The responses to the job analysis questionnaire showed thatall departmental leaders needed to prioritise duties under the domains of leadership, interpersonalrelations and research/professional/community endeavours. The responses to the leadershipmatrices indicated that the majority of responses were plotted in the savour success and maintaineffectiveness quadrant. This meant that on aggregate, followers regarded the roles of thedepartmental leaders as important and at the same time were satisfied with the level of skilldevelopment attained by the departmental leaders in terms of their roles and responsibilities. Based on the findings of the research, several recommendations were made. A change in certainbehaviours is required for those departmental leaders who were not ready for the leadership role.Departmental leaders should align their dominant role in accordance with the nature of thedepartment and the future direction of the department. All the departmental leadership domainsshould be regarded as essential by departmental leaders. It was also recommended that the focus interms of the location of responses on the leadership matrices should be on the opportunity forleadership development quadrant, particularly to shift those plotted responses to the savoursuccess and maintain effectiveness quadrant.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University