Hypothesis identification article

Running head: ANALYSIS OF AN ARTICLE

Analysis of the article

“Personality and Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analysis”

By the researchers Joyce E. Bono (University of Minnesota) and Timothy A. Judge (University of Florida)

Introduction

The above-named article[1] has great bearing on spheres like communication, economics and marketing. The said article had conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between personality and ratings of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors where it used the 5-factor model of personality as an organizing framework to accumulate 384 correlations from 26 independent studies to meet their hypotheses mentioned as below:

Hypothesis 1: Extraversion will be positively related to a) charisma, b) intellectual stimulation, and c) transformational leadership overall.

Hypothesis 2: Neuroticism will be negatively related to (a) charisma, (b) intellectual stimulation, and (c) transformational leadership overall, and positively related to (d) passive leadership.

Hypothesis 3: Openness to experience will be positively related to (a) charisma, (b) intellectual stimulation, and (c) transformational leadership overall.

Hypothesis 4: Agreeableness will be positively related to (a) charisma, (b) individualized consideration, and (c) contingent reward, and negatively related to (d) passive leadership.

Hypothesis 5: Conscientiousness will be positively related to (a) contingent reward, (b) management by exception–active, and negatively related to (c) passive leadership.

How Hypothesis Statements Used in this Paper
The researchers had cleared their intention at the outset by clearly stating about using a 5-factor model of personality as an organizational framework, where they evidenced about accumulating 384 correlations from 26 independent studies. Accordingly they focused on the build up of their hypotheses, where they brought in the relevant issues like

1. The state of previous research: Here they mentioned other instances of meta-analysis on this issue and their outcomes, like the one done by Lord, Devader, and Alliger (1986), or another done by Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt (2002), and used the outcomes of such instances as planks to their own research.

2. Introduction of the main subject in contention, i.e., leadership: The researchers brought in discussion about the essential elements of leadership, before putting up the special types of leadership like transactional and transformational leadership, and emphasized on the later, as it provided more scope to highlight the core idea of the above five hypotheses as mentioned below:

a)      Extraversion

b)      Neuroticism

c)      Openness

d)     Agreeableness

e)      Conscientiousness.

The researchers were careful enough to justify their emphasis on transformational leadership, and accordingly they cited quite a few references from the works of other acclaimed researchers like Yukl and Van Fleet (1992), Burns (1978) or Bass (1985), which eventually helped them to direct the discussion towards dimensions of transformational leadership, where they could cite more references from the works of many other researchers like Avolio, Bass & Jung (1999) , Bycio, Hackett, & Allen (1995), or Lowe et al. (1996) to further direct the issue towards personality and ratings of leadership behavior, which automatically brings in the core elements of the hypotheses into discussion, providing the researchers the necessary scope to explain each of the five components in detail with the help of the references from other researchers. Accordingly each discussion on those components brought in arguments and a conclusion that aligned to the theme of each hypothesis.

As for example, when the researchers started explaining Extraversion, they did not forget to add its definitions as provided by other acclaimed researchers like Costa & McCrae (1992) or Watson & Clark (1997). Such definitions generated an argument like “extraverts will tend to exhibit inspirational leadership” (Bono & Judge, 2004, p. 2). Towing this line, the components of four other hypotheses provided four separate arguments before they made their way to hypotheses.

The utilization of the said hypotheses took off with the introduction of the research method, where the researchers clearly stated that their studies were confined within the periphery of leadership behavior, thereby once again justifying the hypotheses from another perspective.

Now the researchers had no problem in conducting the said meta analysis of the relationship between the big five personality traits (which by had already been established as the core components of the hypotheses). Accordingly they put up those five components under the formula of Whitener (1990) to detect standard errors and using the procedures recommended by Hunter and Schmidt (1990), before conducting a multiple regression to examine the extent to which personality (combining all traits) predicted ratings of the dimensions of leadership behavior and the transformational leadership composite.

The result boiled down to the discussion, which finally produced a mixed bag of results, where it strongly backed hypothesis one, and moderately supported the rest, though in essence remaining close to all of them.

Conclusion

The usage of hypotheses in this article had eased the research design and execution to a great extent, where it guided the buildup of the research at the outset, assisted in conducting the meta-analysis and finally helped in building the outcome. In all, hypotheses in this article worked as its skeleton.

Ends

References

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Bono, J.E., & Judge, T.A. (2004). Personality and Transformational and   Transformational Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology:     2004, Vol. 89, No. 5, 901-910. Retrieved 20 July 2008, from             http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:JiWrdpP4r9wJ:www.psych.umn.edu/facult            y/bono/documents/BonoJudgeBigFiveTransformational.pdf+Personality+and+Tra            nsformational+and+Transactional+Leadership:&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2

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[1] Bono, J.E., & Judge, T.A. (2004). Personality and Transformational and Transformational Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology:2004, Vol. 89, No. 5, 901-910.