Browsing by Author "Witbooi, Moses John Samuel"
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- ItemDepartmental leadership roles and responsibilities : a case study(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2006-04) Witbooi, Moses John Samuel; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Curriculum StudiesENGLISH ABSTRACT : Role ambiguity and role conflict are issues that regularly confront departmental leaders in academic departments at higher education institutions. This research focused on the roles and responsibilities of departmental leaders in four academic departments in the Faculty of Business at the Bellville campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. The research was conducted within the framework of the "Qual-quan" research approach. The "Qual-quan" research approach is a combination of the traditional qualitative and quantitative research approaches, with the qualitative approach being used predominantly and the quantitative approach being used as a complementary approach to the qualitative approach. The researcher employed the "personal hand-delivery and collect" data collection method and more specifically questionnaires to elicit information from respondents. Each of the four questionnaires was linked to a research aim. The first aim was to establish how ready each departmental leader was for the leadership role. The second aim was to find out what the dominant and back-up role identities of departmental leaders were. Job analysis, that is the systematic gathering of information regarding a job, in this instance the position of the departmental leader, was the third aim of the research. The fourth aim of the research was to establish the perceptions and expectations of what followers have of departmental leaders in terms of the roles and responsibilities that the departmental leader must perform. The research results indicated that one departmental leader was not ready for the leadership role. In terms of the categorisation of departmental leaders' role identities, the research showed that three departmental leaders had "leader" as their dominant role identity and the other departmental leader had "manager" as dominant identity. The responses to the job analysis questionnaire showed that all departmental leaders needed to prioritise duties under the domains of leadership, interpersonal relations and research/professional/community endeavours. The responses to the leadership matrices indicated that the majority of responses were plotted in the "savour success and maintain effectiveness" quadrant. This meant that on aggregate, followers regarded the roles of the departmental leaders as important and at the same time were satisfied with the level of skill development attained by the departmental leaders in terms of their roles and responsibilities. Based on the findings of the research, several recommendations were made. A change in certain behaviours is required for those departmental leaders who were not ready for the leadership role. Departmental leaders should align their dominant role in accordance with the nature of the department and the future direction of the department. All the departmental leadership domains should be regarded as essential by departmental leaders. It was also recommended that the focus in terms of the location of responses on the leadership matrices should be on the "opportunity for leadership development" quadrant, particularly to shift those plotted responses to the "savour success and maintain effectiveness" quadrant.