College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

Spring 6-8-2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Suzanne Bell, PhD

Second Advisor

Goran Kuljanin, PhD

Abstract

Throughout the past few decades, organizations have shifted from a management mandated, top down approach to a more collaborative, team based, horizontal structure (Miles & Snow, 1992). As a result, work teams are on the rise, which has led to an increase in leadership roles within organizations. The relationships between procedural justice and trust in leadership, and trust in leadership and performance are well established in current literature. The former relationship, however, has been analyzed only at the individual level. Given the prevalence of teams in academic and applied settings, it is imperative to understand how this relationship exists, if at all, at the team level. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine and establish the procedural justice, trust in leadership, and team performance relationship at the team level. Additionally, this study indirectly examines the impact of the leader selection process on procedural justice perceptions, and its ensuing influence on trust in leadership and team performance.

Data was collected from 252 participants encompassing 60 teams with appointed group leaders engaged in a semester long Strategic Management group project. After removing data from teams with two or fewer individuals responding, the final sample used for analyses included 132 participants encompassing 47 teams. Data collection occurred at two time points during the semester. Time 1 data collection occurred during weeks 9 and 10 of the 16-week semester, and time 2 data collection occurred during weeks 15 and 16. Measures targeting participants’ procedural justice perceptions regarding the leader selection method were collected, as well as participants’ trust in their team leader; these measures were aggregated to the team level. Mediated regression was used to analyze the data. This study hypothesized that trust in leadership would mediate the relationship between procedural justice and team performance, and trust in leadership would lead to increased team performance. Contrary to expectations, however, the aforementioned hypotheses did not receive support. Theoretical and practical implications regarding the findings are detailed further in the discussion section.

SLP Collection

no

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS