| Popis: |
Leadership studies have begun to emphasize the importance of cultivating unique ways to foster leadership development. Whether you are an institution, company, community, or a youth sports team, training individuals of various confidence levels to become leaders helps to dictate the quality and longevity of the organization (Friedkin, 2004; Piper et. al, 1983; Tyler & Blader, 2003). Unfortunately, the capabilities of measuring how an individual, one whom has adopted the leader identity, changes behavior over time have been lacking in practice and in the literature. This makes it difficult to determine the effectiveness of a leadership program. However, the Virtual Academy of Leadership Organization and Resolution (V.A.L.O.R.) has developed a unique virtual platform curriculum that provides an opportunity to measure leader identity behavior as it changes over time. At 4 hours a week for 10 weeks, 80 undergraduate participants hone their leadership and teamwork skills such as project management, communication techniques, task delegation, and motivation skills. A combination of identity theory dimensions, survey analysis, and path model analysis is used to measure how V.A.L.O.R. participants’ behaviors associated with the leader identity change over time. The results begin to show how identity theory can explain change in behavior associated with the leader identity. By extension, this dissertation explores the potential of virtual platforms as a tool in the bridging of identity and behavior. Ultimately, understanding how the V.A.L.O.R. process works will help to shed light on how leadership identities are established and cultivated amidst group interactions both within the virtual platform and beyond the virtual platform. |
