Principal Leadership Style And Management Behavior In Two Ethnic-Cultural Settings: A Comparative Case Study

• Main Author: Ng, Yoon Mooi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: L7-991 Education (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.usm.my/55862/1/00001648474.pdf; http://eprints.usm.my/55862/

Emerging research has shown that successful leaders view their organizations' environment in a holistic way. This wide-angle view offers school principals the concept of school culture. The concept of school culture provides a wider framework for understanding complex relationships and solving problems within the school. By taking into consideration the school cultural context, school principals will be better equipped to shape the values, beliefs and attitudes that are prerequisites to promoting a stable and nurturing learning environment. This study explores and seeks to illuminate the situational dynamics of leader-followership, to disclose the genesis and development of principals' value frameworks and work styles in the two mainstream schools in Malaysia, the ethnic Malay-majority and the ethnic Chinese-majority school. . Using a theoretical framework that looks into the instructional. transformational and transactional leaderships as well as other management behaviors, and by using the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) and Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), this study explored principals' leadership style and management behavior of two principals in their respective school's cultural context. The objectives of the study were: 1) to profile and compare the distinctive characteristics of the ethnic Malay-majority school and the ethnic Chinese-majority school; 2) to study principal's leadership style and management behavior of the principals managing the two schools and how they interacted with the school context; 3). to study how the teachers interpreted the leadership approaches, culture-building behaviors and other leadership characteristics of their principals. This study employed the qualitative case study method to study the principals' leadership style and management behavior of two principals using a cross-cultural comparative approach. By prolonged engagement and close interactions with the teachers and principals, the data collected showed how school culture and context combined with principals' personal attributes shaped their school leadership. Teachers' perceptions of their respective principals' leadership style and management behavior obtained by PIMRS and MLQ were summarized and validated. Further information was obtained through interviews with the teachers and observations of their behaviors and activities. The results show that there were significant differences between the characteristics of the two mainstream schools and that there were significant differences in the principals' leadership style and management behavior. Based on Hofstede's five dimensions, the ethnic Malay-majority school was characterized by a larger power distance, more collectivistic in orientation, more feminine inclined, low uncertainty avoidance and short-term time orientation when compared to the ethnic Chinese-majority school. Common local values that were identified were also used to reflect the culture and values of the teachers in the two schools. Again there were distinctive differences in these values between the two mainstream schools. The cultural context and characteristics of the respective schools that were identified showed that they influenced the respective principals' leadership style and management behavior. The limitations of the research were addressed and its implications for further study were discussed.