Faculty Members’ Perception of the Effectiveness of Departmental Leadership and Management at a Saudi Higher Education Institution

Abstract

This study investigated the perception of Saudi faculty members regarding departmental leadership and management functions, and how these functions relate to the faculty members’ perception of departmental leadership and management effectiveness. This study used the competing value framework in order to investigate departmental leadership, management, and effectiveness. This framework proposes four leadership and management constructs: collaborate, create, control, and compete (independent variables) and leadership and management effectiveness construct (dependent variable). This study also examined the relations between a number of categorical variables (Source of PhD credentials of the faculty members, academic fields (STEM and non-STEM) of the faculty members, years of experience of faculty members, and years of experience of being department chairs) and faculty members’ perceptions of departmental leadership and management effectiveness. Descriptive, correlational, and multiple regression analyses were employed in order to answer the research questions posed in this study. The descriptive analysis showed that department chairs were perceived by the faculty members to practice more control and compete functions compared to creative and collaborate functions. Correlational analysis showed that the four leadership and management functions (independent variables) are strongly correlated. These leadership and management functions also correlated highly with the leadership and management effectiveness construct (dependent variable). Thus, these independent variables were not used for predicting departmental leadership and management effectiveness (the dependent variable) due to their strong correlations. However, multiple regression analysis revealed that all the categorical variables except for one independent variable (years of experience of being department chairs) predict the perception of faculty members regarding departmental leadership and management effectiveness. This study put forth some implications for academic and institutional leaders and policy makers. It also highlighted some implications for department chairs and aspiring faculty members. Most importantly, this study indicated some implications for future research.