Browsing by Author "Smit, Helene Magda"

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    An integrated framework for the development of leadership integrity in business school students
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-04) Smit, Helene Magda; Malan, Johan; Naude, Piet; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. University of Stellenbosch Business School.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: The lack of leadership integrity is a pernicious world-wide problem, resulting in a range of negative economic, organisational, social, and psychological consequences. This exploratory theory-building study is situated in the institutional context of business schools and considered how they could approach and improve their often-stated goal of developing integrity in students of leadership. Although many business schools imply that graduate integrity is important, the literature shows both a lack of shared understanding of what leadership integrity means, as well as a lack of institutional and curriculum frameworks for an explicit, integrated approach to the development of leadership integrity in students. This transdisciplinary study explored leadership integrity and its related constructs to develop a clearer understanding of as well as a proposed framework for developing leadership integrity in business school students. The theorising process used a configurational approach based on an extensive multi-disciplinary literature review. This was supported by a five-round Delphi study, each with a minimum of twenty subject matter experts per round, who considered and commented on the definitions and framework as these developed. After Round 4 of the Delphi study, two smaller focus groups were conducted, with 6 and 7 participants respectively, to gain a deeper insight into the expert commentary of that round. A transdisciplinary definition of leadership integrity was developed and later reframed as a vision of leadership integrity in which the leader develops a moral ecology in the self, the group, the system, and the environment. The study found that the phenomenon of leadership integrity manifests in multiple interconnected underlying graduate attributes, and after several iterations of analysis and synthesis, it was further found that these could be synthesised into six mutually constitutive, self-development trajectories described as follows: the moral self, the intrapsychic self, the agentic self, the relational self, the systemic self, and the leadership self. Each of these selves can be developed at various levels comprising foundational capacities; values, beliefs and attitudes; skills; and finally, knowledge and insight. A small quantitative supplementary questionnaire was added to the study, which explored the internal consistency of the grouping of the graduate attributes in the model and was administered to 880 University of Stellenbosch Business School MBA alumni, of which 106 responded. The study yielded relatively good inter-item homogeneity and high levels of internal consistency and thereby laid the groundwork for further research. The questionnaire could be utilised to assess the degree of mastery of the different graduate attributes. A business school educational framework was developed, which describes the appropriate institutional environment and curriculum requirements to develop each of these selves. This resulted in an embedded integration of a moral curriculum, a psychological curriculum, an ecological curriculum, and a leadership curriculum. In addition, certain high-leverage, catalytic attributes were identified, which have widespread positive ripple effects on the other attributes. A theoretical analysis of the relationships between the attributes indicated that the capacity of secure attachment seems to be the most significant of all the attributes. Finally, the study offers guidelines for developing this and other high-leverage attributes in realising the aim of leadership integrity.