Title: Leadership style and quality climate perceptions: contrasting project vs. process environments

Authors: Yair Berson, Jonathan D. Linton

Addresses: Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. ' Lally School of Management and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110, 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180, USA

Abstract: This study considers differences in leadership style for establishing a climate for quality improvement on project vs. process environments. A total of 1,050 employees, working for a high-tech organisation (511 in high volume assembly line manufacturing environments and 539 in R&D environments) rated the transformational and transactional leadership of their unit managers as well as a company survey measure of quality management practices of their units. Contrary to our expectations, transactional leadership was not positively associated with quality climate perceptions in process settings. The implications to quality management research is also considered.

Keywords: leadership style; quality improvement; process oriented environments; project oriented environments; R&D; research and development; manufacturing; quality management; job satisfaction; transactional leadership; transformational leadership.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2006.008193

International Journal of Technology Management, 2006 Vol.33 No.1, pp.92 - 110

Published online: 22 Nov 2005 *

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