Relationship Between Leadership And Career Aspirations Among Organisational Behaviour Students

Purpose of the Research

Question:

Discuss about the Examine the Relationship Between Leadership and Achievement Career Aspirations.

The significance of inspiring individuals to long for leadership, achievement as well as advanced education should never be overlooked in the culture that has never usually backed females in powerful roles. The young men and women will be likely to build their respective ships to reach beyond the expectation of the traditional society as well as make salient contribution to the society (Brown and O’Donnell 2011). The main purpose of the research is to examine the relationship between leadership and achievement career aspirations. It is hypothesized that there is a positive relationship between the above variables.  

1. There is a positive relationship between leadership and career achievement aspirations
2. Men have a higher career aspirations than women
3. Both men and women have career aspirations to allow them become leaders

Participants

The available data for the Research Report came from 230 participants who were students studying Organisational Behaviour from the Parramatta campus of the Western Sydney University.  There were 125 males (54.3%) and 105 females (45.7%).   The data was collected during the tutorial session in week 3 of the semester.

The available data for the Research Report came from 230 participants who were students studying Organisational Behaviour from the Parramatta campus of the Western Sydney University.  There were 125 males (54.3%) and 105 females (45.7%).   The data was collected during the tutorial session in week 3 of the semester. To give the indication of where the scores stand, the total was divided by the number of items in each scale.  Therefore, the means represent where they would ‘fit’ in the Likert scale used.  For example, the scale to measure Proactive Personality had a 7-point Likert scale.  Therefore, the means of 4.57-4.65 indicates that both males and females scored slightly above the mid-point of 4.

Students completed a number of questionnaires and information about these questionnaires can be found in the Mandatory Scales (readings) in your learning guide. The results collected from the students were measured using a quantitative data analysis software program (SPSS). Two tables were created from the data collected. These tables are a Mean and Standard Deviation Table and a Correlations table. The mean age of the participants was 21.08 (DS=3.61).

The results for the study have been shown in the two tables below. Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations (an indication of how far the scores deviated from the mean/average) for male and female participants. Table 2 gives you the correlations between the variables.  There were no significant differences between males and females on some of the measures.  The statistics that were used here were t-tests.

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviation of Subscales Measure

Table 2. Correlations among Subscales of the K-CASR and Achievement Motivation, Career Orientation, and Goal Engagement

The hypotheses for the study were supported. The outcome of the study suggest that this measure consists of the elements of assessing achievement, leadership as well as education aspirations (Watts et al. 2015). Both internal consistency alongside test-retest reliability estimates backed the reliability of the measure as well as relationships as per the hypothesized direction with career-associated variables backed the convergent validity of the instrument when utilized with these young men and women (Bulmer 2013).

Participants

The study given significant contribution to the literature through the provision of a model that can be used in translating the measure to additional cultures. Despite being extremely intensive procedure, it resulted in the psychometrically solid measure which can be utilized with a lot confidence with Australian graduate men and women. The study further adds to the available literature through the replications of 3-factor solutions discovered in sample of the American graduate as well as undergraduate.

The career aspirations were better represented as a 3-dimensional construct compared to a single construct in both American and Australian culture. Such a factorial invariance could serve as support for the Australian men and women interpreting the construct in an alike fashion. Nevertheless, subject an approach effect linked to negatively worded items arose in the sample. The subjects seemed to respond differently to the above items with an exception of underlying constructs when contrasted to respondents.

The method effects linked to negatively worded variables have been discovered in the self-report survey in the psychology. Given that most of the negatively worded variables in the measure had limited ranges, the university males and female students in Sydney could have dodged recommending explicit non-positive pronouncement relating to their aspirations (Rigotti, Schyn  and Mohr  2008). This revelation remained consistent with the study on the Korean version of the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale whereby the function of negatively as well as positively worded translated variables need to be investigated in the forthcoming studies.

The convergent validity of the measure was backed by the comparatively firm correlations among the subscales as well as achievement motivation, career orientations as well as career goal engagement. Men and women with high aspirations remained more probably to have motivation to master a given task as well as outperform their respective colleagues. This remained consistent with the initial studies indicating that men and women with high career aspirations showed a high confidence in their respective academic tasks.

With respect to career orientations, the university students with high career aspirations tended to give much priority to their careers over the family. Further, men and women with high career aspirations remained probably to engage in activities that enable them pursue their respective careers as well as to have positive perceptions relating to their ability to accomplish their respective goals.

The explorations of the variables that enhance the success of men and women in Sydney in their careers could advance study in vocational psychology, provided that initial studies relating to men and women’ career development profoundly emphasized on blockades as well as challenges in their respective career choices. The university students in this study exhibited moderate aspirations in leadership, achievement as well as education, despite the varied university majors, geographical locations in Australia, as well as varsity rankings.

Provided the several cultural blockades for the female’s career accomplishment in Australia, it stood distinguished that several young women aspired to achieve in their respective careers. It would become stimulating to track trend of women’s career aspirations over their respective life phases to comprehend the drop in employment among the Australian women once they have a family. Provided the paucity of the women leaders in Australian society, forthcoming study should emphasize on how the young females develop leadership aspirations as well as how such aspirations could be encouraged (Gregor and O’Brien 2016).  

Data Analysis

Various limitations have been distinguished in the study. Theories on contemporary career outline the significance of sociocultural variables in career development of the women (Hoobler, Lemmon. and Wayne 2014). The sample used in this current study entailed university women registered in the past with moderate career aspirations. Thus, generalizations of these findings is impossible to other Australian women and men such as those married, with kids, in diverse age-cohorts, or with restricted privileged backgrounds.

As a result of a great proportion of the sample majored in traditional fields for females, the generalizing these findings to the university women in non-traditional sectors like science and engineering (Fuller and Marler 2009). Females in non-traditional sectors could have additional challenges in respective career development such as lack of role models; upcoming study is essential to examine underlying variables structure as well as validity of evidence of the measure with diverse cohorts of Australian men and women along with university females in non-traditional sectors (VandeWalle 1997).

K-CASR can be utilized in the future to develop a detailed model to explicate the career development of Australian women and men. Especially, longitudinal research is essential to examine how the men and women’s career aspirations alter over time as well as correlated with diverse career outcomes like promotion, wages, termination, and job satisfaction (Huffman et al. 2014). This kind of a study is necessary to understand how career aspirations impact the career choices which men and women make when faced with conflict between family and work (Creed et al. 2013).

A married employed mommy for example, who has high career aspirations could wish to continue with her work rather than compromising her goals for becoming a future leader in her expertise (Gray and O’Brien 2007). Conversely, where a curvilinear correlation exists between career aspiration and positive career outcomes, females with extraordinary high career aspirations could be extremely depressed when respective career aspirations cannot completely accomplished because of career barricades or family responsibility (Brown and Segrist 2016).      

Conclusion

The result of the study confirms that career counsellors have the best opportunity to enhance the young men and women’s career explorations via psychoeducational interventions as well as counselling (Bateman and Crant 1993). Career counsellors particularly can assess the career aspirations of the academically talented and gifted young men and women as well as explore the perceived external as well as internal barriers to accomplish leadership and recognition.

The three dimensions of the career aspirations could be utilized in developing short term as well as long term plans to allow clients to accomplish their respective goals. Nevertheless, utilizing these results in career counselling need to be empirically evaluated for the assessment of the efficacy of such clinical interventions (Bacha 2014).

References

Bacha, E., 2014. The relationship between transformational leadership, task performance and job characteristics. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), pp.410-420.

 Bateman, T.S. and Crant, J.M., 1993. The proactive component of organizational behavior: A measure and correlates. Journal of organizational behavior, 14(2), pp.103-118.

Brown, D.L. and Segrist, D., 2016. African American career aspirations: Examining the relative influence of internalized racism. Journal of Career Development, 43(2), pp.177-189.

Brown, S. and O’Donnell, E., 2011. Proactive personality and goal orientation: A model of directed effort. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communication and Conflict, 15(1), p.103.

Bulmer, J., 2013. Leadership aspirations of registered nurses: who wants to follow us?. Journal of Nursing Administration, 43(3), pp.130-134.

Creed, P., Buys, N., Tilbury, C. and Crawford, M., 2013. The relationship between goal orientation and career striving in young adolescents. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(7), pp.1480-1490.

Fuller, B. and Marler, L.E., 2009. Change driven by nature: A meta-analytic review of the proactive personality literature. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75(3), pp.329-345.

Gray, M.P. and O’Brien, K.M., 2007. Advancing the assessment of women’s career choices: The Career Aspiration Scale. Journal of Career Assessment, 15(3), pp.317-337.

Gregor, M.A. and O’Brien, K.M., 2016. Understanding career aspirations among young women: Improving instrumentation. Journal of Career Assessment, 24(3), pp.559-572.

Hoobler, J.M., Lemmon, G. and Wayne, S.J., 2014. Women’s managerial aspirations an organizational development perspective. Journal of Management, 40(3), pp.703-730.

Huffman, J.B., Hipp, K.A., Pankake, A.M. and Moller, G., 2014. Professional learning communities: Leadership, purposeful decision making, and job-embedded staff development. Jsl Vol 11-N5, 11, p.448.

Rigotti, T., Schyns, B. and Mohr, G., 2008. A short version of the occupational self-efficacy scale: Structural and construct validity across five countries. Journal of Career Assessment, 16(2), pp.238-255.

VandeWalle, D., 1997. Development and validation of a work domain goal orientation instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 57(6), pp.995-1015.

Watts, L.L., Frame, M.C., Moffett, R.G., Van Hein, J.L. and Hein, M., 2015. The relationship between gender, perceived career barriers, and occupational aspirations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45(1), pp.10-22.

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