INVESTIGATING SHARED LEADERSHIP IN UNDERGRADUATE CAPSTONE DESIGN TEAMS: A PILOT STUDY LTC Brian J. Novoselich, West Point, Virginia Tech Dr. David B. Knight, Department of Engineering Education, Virginia Tech

Research Team EDUCATION Ph.D. Higher Education, Pennsylvania State University, 2012 M.S. Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, 2009 M.U.E.P Urban and Environmental Planning, University of Virginia, 2009 B.S. Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, 2006 Dr. David Knight LTC Brian Novoselich EDUCATION M.S. Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 B.S. Mechanical Engineering, United States Military Academy, 1996

CALL FOR LEADERS  Leadership is essential to long term tech success:  Growing interdependence of technological/ economic/ social functions “demands” technologically adept leaders to make sound policy decisions for a sustainable future. NAE (2004)  ABET Leadership requirements for Civil Engineering/ Construction Engineering/ Engineering Management & Overall Teaming Requirements.  “an engineer is hired for her or his technical skills, fired for poor people skills, and promoted for leadership and management skills” Russel and Yao (1996).

TEAM LEADERSHIP  Leadership is an important component of team success:  “most would agree that team leaders and the leadership processes that they enact are essential to promoting team performance, adaptation, and effectiveness” Salas et. al. (2007).  Lack of Eng. Ed. Focus on leadership for effective teams.  Borrego et al. (2014) literature review:

FACULTY PERCEPTIONS  Non-purposeful treatment of leadership within the curriculum.  Knight & Novoselich (2014): Analysis of nationally representative undergrad engineering data set (P2P, 2008)  Is our conceptualization of design team leadership accurate?

SHARED LEADERSHIP  The shared paradigm is changing perceptions of leadership  Historical leadership perceptions are individual and hierarchical.  Shared leadership can be more effective in knowledge work that is: Creative, Complex, Interdependent. i.e. Pearce (2004).  Shared Leadership: “a simultaneous, ongoing, mutual influence process within a team that is characterized by ‘serial emergence’ of official as well as unofficial leaders” Pearce (2004).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (Northouse, 2013, p. 194)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1)To what degree are transactional and transformational leadership shared within undergraduate engineering student design teams? 2)How is the degree of shared leadership related to undergraduate engineering student design team effectiveness? 3)What role does faculty involvement play in undergraduate engineering student design team leadership and outcomes?  Initial focus on Senior, ME Capstone design teams:  Design Pervasiveness in ME  Seniors at height of “expertise”

RESEARCH DESIGN Sequential Explanatory Research Design (Creswell, 2009) Survey MLQ Control Var. Dep. Variables Survey MLQ Control Var. Dep. Variables Leadership Scales Sociograms Network Centralization Network Centralization Interviews Course Documents How/Why Leadership Developed Team performance/outcomes How/Why Leadership Developed Team performance/outcomes 1) Degree of Shared Leadership 2) Correlation of sharedness to outcomes/effectiveness 3)Advisor Role 1) Degree of Shared Leadership 2) Correlation of sharedness to outcomes/effectiveness 3)Advisor Role Pilot Study Scope

CURRENT STATUS Pilot data collection on-going: – ME specific capstones. Virginia Tech (population=350, responses =221, teams=61) – Fall: complete. – Spring: to initiate. West Point (population=108, teams=18) – Spring: on-going. – Preliminary factor analysis completed. – Three teams from VT fall data analyzed.

FACTOR ANALYSIS Transformational Leadership Transformational Leadership Transactional Leadership Transactional Leadership Laissez Faire Intellectual Stimulation Individualized Concern Idealized Influence (B/A) Inspirational Motivation Management by Exception (P) Contingent Reward Laissez Faire Management by Exception (A) 221 students. Peer ratings treated as individual cases. Resulted in 1460 total cases. EFA conducted in SPSS. Anticipated Scales

Laissez Faire Transactional Leadership Transactional Leadership Transformational Leadership Transformational Leadership FACTOR ANALYSIS Non-Corrective Leadership Non-Corrective Leadership Corrective Leadership Corrective Leadership Delayed Leadership Delayed Leadership Intellectual Stimulation Individualized Concern Idealized Influence (B/A) (-) Inspirational Motivation Management by Exception (P) Contingent Reward Laissez Faire Management by Exception (A) (+) Eigen Values supported 5 Scales. 3, 5, and 9 Scales Explored Principal Axis and Maximum Likelihood. Oblimin Rotation. Construct generally held across 3 and 5. Discovered Scales (Re-named from Transactional Leadership) (Re-named from Laissez Faire) (Re-named from Transformational Leadership)

OUT DEGREE CENTRALIZATION High Centrality Variation: Out Degree Centralization= S c 2 = 1 “Star Network” Low Centrality Variation: Out Degree Centralization = S c 2 = “Linear Network” (Mayo et al. 2003) (i.e. individual leadership) (i.e. shared leadership)

TEAM SUMMARY Delayed Non-Corrective Corrective Centralization: 0.444Centralization: Advisor (0.00) Member 2 (0.00) Member 1 (0.00) Member 3 (0.00) Note: Link cutoff set to 3.00 Centralization: Centralization: Centralization: 0.250Centralization: 0.167

Delayed Non-Corrective Corrective Centralization: 0.250Centralization: TEAM 156 SUMMARY VariableTeam Mean Prior Work1.43 Overall effectiveness4.50 Satisfaction4.50 Goal Achievement4.50 High Perf. Expectation5.00 Relationship4.83 Mistrust1.50 Previous Leadership4.33 Motivation5.00 Note: Link cutoff set to 3.00

TAKE AWAYS  Teams are showing varying degrees of centralization.  Leadership may be unique for design teams.  Full team participation is challenging.  Survey fatigue may be an issue.  Skewed centrality for Advisor.

NEXT STEPS  Incorporate spring survey data.  Initial correlation of network centralization to team outcomes.  Assess likelihood of adequate participation.  Increase research sites.

QUESTIONS?