Relationships among leadership, communication and outcomes in research teams

Abstract

The relationships among leadership, leader-subordinate interpersonal communication and outcomes in a research team were investigated for six policy analyses institutes and three hardware development institutes sponsored by the Korean Government. Consideration and initiating structure were used as leadership dimension. Official and non-official communication were used as dimension of leader-subordinate interpersonal communication. Subordinate satisfaction with supervision and with work, and project success were considered as outcomes in a research team. Official communication., subordinate satisfaction with supervision and project success were positively related to consideration and initiating structure, and non-official communication was positively related to consideration but not significantly related to initiating structure of leader behavior for the both kinds institutes. Subordinate satisfaction with work was positively related to initiating structure but not significantly related to consideration of leader behavior for policy analyses institutes, on the contrary, it was positively related to consideration but not significantly related to initiating structure of leader behavior for hardware development institutes. For the entire sample, the official and non-official communication were positively related to each outcome in a research team, however, when leadership effects to the relationship between the communication and outcomes were controlled by subgroup analysis for each category of leadership, each communication was differently related to the outcomes according to leadership types and to the kinds of institutes.