The relationship between perceived leadership practices and organizational culture within the aerospace industry

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED LEADERSHIP PRACTICE S AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE WITHIN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY by Bradley M. McCain There is a common thread of leadership research that theorizes the dynamic bet ween a leader’s behavior and their followers is essential in encouraging employee s to xceed expectations, thereby increasing organizational performance (Bass, 1985; Be nnis & Thomas, 2002; Kouzes & Posner, 1987). Research indicates transformational leadership correlates well with organizational culture, but the number of empirical studies is f w. Kouzes and Posner (2002) maintain that organizations create culture; therefore a l ad r’s behavior can and does affect organizational performance. Schein (2004) maintains it i s leadership’s duty to step outside the organizational culture to initiate changes (b y their behavior) when warranted. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between employee perc eived leadership practices and organizational culture within the aerospace industry. T he U S. space shuttle operations prime contractor, United Space Alliance, was select ed as the population for this research. This research addresses the current dilemma in NAS A’s manned spaceflight program and their contractors with regard to their future: Organizational and cultural change must occur or routine access to space for t he United States will become obsolete (Bergin, 2007; Guthrie & Shayo, 2005; Mason, 2004). United Space Alliance provides a unique population within which to sample, as it is a joint venture LLC with employees of varying heritage companies and job occupati ons. Use of Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Practices Inventory–Other (LPI-O ) and the Denison Organizational Culture Survey (DOCS) have not been performed in such a n environment. Web-based surveys collected data from the Manufacturing and Operations direc torate (N = 1793). A total of 367 surveys were completed for an initial response rate of 20.47%. Both the LPI–O and DOCS raw mean scores were compared against published database s; only the Enabling Others to Act practice scored as a moderate impact. Customer focus scored the highest amongst cultural indices, with all three Mission indices ranking in the lowest percentiles. Regression analyses indicated neither leadership prac tices nor cultural traits explained any differences within respondents. Hierarchical regre ssion revealed the five leadership practices accounted for 24% of the Total Culture variance. Pea rson’s Product-Moment correlation examined the strength of linear association betwee n the variables. This study provided statistically significant ( ρ < .05), weak to moderate positive correlation coefficients for all hypothesized relationships. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to thank my Mother and Father for their unconditional love and support through all of my academic endeavors; they never doubted I would finish this project, and were always available to help when needed. I would like to acknowledge the late Dr. Rick Rees for his guidance in the beginning of this research study. I am enormously grateful to Dr. Joe Heinzman for agreeing to step in as my comm ittee chair, and ultimately assisting me in the establishment of a new committee . I would like to thank my methodologist, Dr. Aysegul Timur, and subject matter expert, Dr. Barry Barnes, for their timely and insightful comments during this effort. Their in put contributed to a greater understanding of the research process on my part, and a high er quality product at completion. Also, special thanks to my extremely talented edit or, Stephanie Ferrari, who managed to turn an engineer’s writing into a coherent dra ft. My sincerest gratitude goes to United Space Alliance, LLC, for their fi nancial support in the pursuit of this degree, as well as for agreeing to allow my research to o cur within the context of the organization. Special thanks to the executive management team of Jim Cawby, Mike Orr, and Vicky Lorick for all their assistance and support; Vi cky offered constant encouragement and counseling, usually when I needed it the most. I would like to thank my children, Jason, Jared, and Alexis, for their understanding of why I sometimes stayed home as the family ventured out, as well as being tol rant f my often short-tempered behavior. Finally, I will eternally be grateful to my wife, Riva, for her unwaverin g support in my pursuit of this goal. It took longer than I expected, and I faltered some toward the end. The time away from the family left much on her plate, and the money spent was ofte n needed for other things. I would have never finished without her.