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Date of Graduation
Spring 2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Education (MSEd)
Department
Department of Learning, Technology and Leadership Education
Abstract
Leadership techniques have a vast effect on job morale and intentions to remain with an organization. Studies often base their inquiries on how to apply leadership strategies in a versatile, hierarchical format to situations that require astute leadership practices (Maslow, 1954), but do not assess the opinions of graduate students with some degree of workforce experience. Given the lack of research on the graduate student population with workforce experience, the current study sought to understand which leadership techniques have positive and negative impacts on their job morale and employee satisfaction utilizing a web-based survey. The following research questions were addressed: How have positive and negative leadership techniques been defined by graduate students who have workforce experience, and what have been the effects of positive and negative leadership techniques on job morale for these graduate students? The results of this study suggest that positive leadership techniques involving high trust levels, empowerment, and learning opportunities yielded increased levels of job morale, while poor leadership methods that involved a lack of support during times of change yielded decreased morale. The implementation of incentives did not yield significant results in either direction in terms of productivity. Future studies may wish to address in greater depth the factors that affect employee satisfaction. In order to gain a clearer understanding of this relationship, how these factors contribute to graduate student turnover rates could also be explored.
Recommended Citation
Terrell, Nicole Rose, "The effect of leadership on job morale for graduate students" (2013). Masters Theses, 2010-2019. 184.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/184
