A systems-based approach to assessing leadership styles in engineers

A systems-based approach to assessing leadership styles in engineers

A Systems–based Approach to Assessing Leadership Styles in Engineers BY Olatoyosi Olud ´ e–Afolabi B.S., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1998 M.S., State University of New York, Binghamton, 2003 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Systems Science in the Graduate School of Binghamton University State University of New York 2010 UMI Number: 3408995 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3408995 Copyright 2 010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 c  Copyright by Olatoyosi Olud´e–Afolabi 2010 All rights reserved Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Systems Science in the Graduate School of Binghamton University State University of New York 2010 April 08, 2010 Prof. Eileen. C. Way, Chair Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, Binghamton University Prof. Harold. W. Lewis III, Graduate Chair Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, Binghamton University Prof. Shelley Dionne, Member School Of Management, Binghamton University Prof. William D. Spangler, Member School Of Management, Binghamton University Prof. Bahgat Sammakia, External Examiner Department of Mechanical Engineering, Binghamton University iii Abstract There is a widely recognized gap in the skill set of newly graduated engineers and the needs and expectations of industry. The Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) has taken steps to address this gap by adjusting its criteria for accrediting engineering programs. In particular, ABET has specified program outcomes that address technical skills in relation to the ability to function on teams, the ability to communicate effectively and an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. However, there are still gaps not directly addressed by ABET, gaps involving leadership skills, which are defined as a combination of leadership terms. These leadership terms are communica- tion, motivation, team–building, visionary, coaching & mentoring, time management, listening and innovation. This research explores the key components of leadership to engineering academia and industry using system techniques that classifies the differ- ent definitions of leadership. Through the use of text mining, data was collected from industry trade journals then fuzzy similarity was used to classify different terms employed in the definition of leadership. Finally, the results suggest that the more terms used by journals were classified by engineering academia as having more leadership terms in defining leadership when compared to industry. iv To Mark, JoAnne, JoElle and Jolla Afolabi. v Acknowledgments I am expressing my profound gratitude to Professor Eileen Way, my advisor, for her suggestions and constant support during my research. She has been a mentor and a coach throughout my graduate career. Without her, I would be languishing on my adventure to knowledge. Advisors like her are extremely few to find. In addition, I will like to thank Professor Hal Lewis for his support, teaching and encouragement in all of his classes. I appreciate his persistence in my learning, he imparted confidence about being a doctoral student. I am also thankful to Professors Shelley Dionne and Don Spangler for their guidance through the early years of chaos and confusion. They taught me the importance of leadership and the appropriate use of leadership skills to solve problems. Definitely, the adventure to knowledge is worth the effort. The Clifford D. Clark Fellowship, awarded to me for the period 2002–2007, was crucial to the successful completion of this research. Without this financial support research like this would have been impossible. I am grateful to my parents and siblings for everything. I will use this opportunity to express gratitude to my friends, mentors and in–laws who supported me through my difficult years to complete this dissertation. I will like to remember my sisters and mother-in-law, who taught me love, courage, and confidence and without them I wouldn’t be this successful. Last but not the least, I will like to thank my daughters and my better half for their great sense of humor. The adventure is an excitement. vi Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction 1.1 Problem Definition—Assessing the Key x xi 1 Components of Leadership in Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.2 Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.3 Research Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.3.1 Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.4 Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.5 Dissertation Overview . . . . . . . . …… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2 Literature Review 9 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.1.1 The Leadership Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.1.2 Required Leadership Skill Set for New Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.1.3 Leadership and Management Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.1.4 Important Elements for Engineering Definition of Leadership & Why . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.1.5 What does leadership mean in an engineering context? . . . . 19 2.1.6 Ideal Concepts of Leadership based on Research Experts . . . 20 2.1.7 Actual Data Concepts vs. Ideal Concepts of Leadership . . . . 25 2.2 Overview of Classification Methods for Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.2.1 Overview of Text Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.2.2 Overview of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.2.3 Overview of Fuzzy Set Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.2.4 The Value of Fuzzy Set Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.2.5 Overview of Fuzzy Similarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 2.2.6 The Value of Fuzzy Similarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 2.2.7 Applications of Fuzzy Similarity Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 vii 2.3 Overview of Data Collection Methods for LeadershipAnalysis 50 2.3.1 Types of Data Collection Techniques 50 2.3.2 DirectObservationversusSurveys 51 2.3.3 ContentAnalysis 53 2.3.4 EspousedTheoryofAction 53 2.4 Chapter Summary 55 3 Methodology 56 3.1 Introduction 56 3.2 Research Design 58 3.2.1 Level1:DataCollectionProcess 58 3.2.2 Level2:CollectedData 64 3.2.3 Level3:FuzzySystem 65 3.2.4 Level4:AnalysisofResult 68 3.2.5 Level5:Conclusions 69 3.3 Software Design—Engineering Leadership Fuzzy System (ELFS) . . . 69 3.4 Procedural steps of Classifying the definitions of leadership 70 3.5 PrototypeofEngineeringLeadershipFuzzySystem(ELFS) 71 3.6 Text–Mining Tool—YALE 73 3.6.1 YALE: Mapping Ideal Concepts of Leadership 73 3.7 Chapter Summary 76 4 Results 77 4.1 Introduction 77 4.2 Five–StageAnalysisSystem 78 4.2.1 Stage I: Ideal Concepts of Leadership based on Research Experts 78 4.2.2 Stage II: Mapping Ideal Concepts of Leadership 79 4.2.3 Stage III: Frequency of each Ideal Concept per Document . . . 79 4.2.4 StageIV:MeasureofImportanceofeachIdealConcept 82 4.2.5 Stage V: Actual Data Concepts vs. Ideal Concepts of Leadership 83 4.2.6 Summary of the Five–Stage System 83 4.3 AnalysisofResults 84 4.3.1 Reliability of Collected Data 84 4.3.2 Reliability of Classified Data 86 4.4 Results Summary 87 4.4.1 How does the definition of leadership and management in En- gineering Academia differ from Industry? . . 87 4.4.2 Do the leadership skill sets relate to management skills? . . . 90 4.5 Chapter Summary 92 5 Conclusion 94 5.1 Introduction 94 5.2 Research 95 5.3 Contributions & Recommendations 98 viii 5.4 BenefitsofResearch 99 5.5 Limitations of Research 100 5.6 FutureResearch 101 5.7 Chapter Summary 102 6 Appendix 104 A ABET’s Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs 104 B ABET’s Surveys 127 C Maple Code 149 7 Bibliography 158 ix [...]... of leadership that are important to engineers based on research data from surveys of leadership and management (AMA Research, 200 0a; AMA Research , 2000b; AMA Research, 2003; American Management Association, 2005; Harper Jr., 2003) The critical dimensions from research data are compared to the leadership skills needed that industry communicates in trade journals This comparison is determined using a. .. Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000) i.e Accreditation by assessment (ABET, 200 0a, b) In addition, the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) has established funding for sparking innovative spirit in both faculty and engineering students (National Academy of Engineering of Academies, 2003) 1.1 Problem Definition Assessing the Key Components of Leadership in Engineers In an attempt to improve engineering programs,... Getting and giving information 3 Making decisions 4 In uencing people Similar to the definitions of leadership, there has been different definitions of management Daft (2002) defined management as the “ attainment of organizational goals in an effective and efficient manner through planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling organizational resources.” Management involves stabilization 17 and... Yukl, and Zaleznik agreed that managers were responsible for supervising, planning and organizing, decision making, controlling, consulting and coordinating subordinates Research shows that unlike leaders, managers have a hectic work life that is disorderly and political Yukl describes a manager’s activity in terms of four primary processes which are (Yukl, 2002): 1 Developing and maintaining relationships... theory and fuzzy similarity In order to clarify implicit theories of leadership that academia and industry have, data collection techniques needs to be investigated This chapter concludes with an overview of text–mining including its approaches and drawbacks 9 2.1.1 The Leadership Theory The definition of leadership has been evolving because according to Bennis and Nanus in 1985, they reported that “approximately... Wholly Management Terms (WMT), and Partial Management Terms (PMT)) are based on research data from surveys of leadership and management from various sources Examples of such surveys are listed below: AMA Research (200 0a) ; AMA Research (2000b); AMA Research (2003); American Management Association (2005) and Harper Jr (2003) discussed important and effective skills for leadership and management The best case... skill Being able to motivate and inspire others (56%), having team building skills (46%), and being a visionary (42%) were also top rated skills” • American Management Association (2005)—This survey was a global study of leadership now and in the future i.e in 2015 The countries involved in the 21 study are USA, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Canada, Asia, and Latin America Some of the questions... for any engineering position in today’s global workforce For example, if a manufacturing engineer graduate is involved with the production of goods, the generation of knowledge and the creative skills needed to generate new knowledge allows for manufacturing to compete 13 in a global marketplace (Davis, 2004) The ability to explain an individuals’ actions and the process of making key decisions, the ability... program can be created to measure the accomplishment of leadership skills in students 3 Measuring the definition of leadership that has roughly three hundred and fifty definitions is obviously challenging Also, assessing an education program based on this measurement is a daunting task; nonetheless, in order to improve engineering programs this challenging problem was divided into four phases, as follows:... “the area where the perceived gap was the greatest was leadership (Farr et al., 1997; Summers et al., 2004) Similarly, in order to meet industry needs, the American Society for Engineering Education has found that leadership education in engineering programs need to be improved to stay competitive in today’s global economy (ASEE, 1994), hence the need of leadership skills in engineers Russell and Yao . journals were classified by engineering academia as having more leadership terms in defining leadership when compared to industry. iv To Mark, JoAnne, JoElle and Jolla Afolabi. v Acknowledgments I am. 88 4.4 Engineering Academia, Industry and Total Classification in Compari- son 90 4.5 Engineering Academia, Industry and Overall Level of Importance in Comparison 91 x List of Tables 2.1 Leadership. addition, the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) has established funding for sparking innovative spirit in both faculty and engineering students (National Academy of Engineering of Academies, 2003). 1.1