APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

DRE 6001 Research on Leadership

Responsible for the course
Øyvind Martinsen

Department
Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction

This course targets research on the characteristics of effective leaders and the conditions for effective leadership. The central premises are that leader effectiveness is dependent on leader characteristics, task characteristics, and contextual influences while the concept leader effectiveness itself is multifaceted. Challenges in this field is that the influence mechanisms themselves have not always been clearly understood and that a large number of theories have been postulated over the years. Despite this, leadership research has made progress during the last two decades through a renewed emphasis on leader traits and new theories on transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and more recently self leadership. Several developments in these areas will be emphasized in this course in addition to an in depth focus on methods and research design issues. Thus, the course aims at giving students an advanced theoretical basis for some of the scientific problems that are at the frontiers of leadership research today.

Learning outcome
1. Participants should become acquainted with central perspectives in past and present research on leadership.

2. Participants should develop knowledge about strategic leadership and upper echelons theory.

3. Participants should develop knowledge about advances in contemporary theories in the leader trait and leader behavior traditions and in theories on charismatic and transformational leadership.

4. Participants should develop in depth knowledge about central methods, like 360 degree leader evaluations, and about strong and weak research designs in leadership research.

5. Participants should become able to recognize research opportunities in this field, e.g., as regards influence mechanisms and more.

Prerequisites
Admission to a PhD Programme is a general requirement for participation in PhD courses at BI Norwegian Business School.

External candidates are kindly asked to attach confirmation of admission to a PhD programme when signing up for a course with the doctoral administration. Other candidates may be allowed to sit in on courses by approval of the courseleader. Sitting in on courses does not permit registration for courses, handing in exams or gaining credits for the course. Course certificates or conformation letters will not be issued for sitting in on courses

Compulsory reading
Books:
Shadish, William R., Thomas D. Cook, Donald T. Campbell. 2002. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Houghton Mifflin. (chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8) (165 pages)
Yukl, Gary A. 2013. Leadership in organizations. 8th ed. Pearson Education

Collection of articles:
A collection of articles which will be made available before the course starts

Recommended reading

Course outline
Topics covered
- Leader traits and leader behaviors
- Dangerous leadership. Dark side.
- Transformational and charismatic leadership.
- Strategic and upper echelons theories
- Gender and leadership.
- Team leadership or leadership development.
- 360 degree leader evaluations
- Research design issues.