Correlation between Servant Leadership and Organizational Learning in a Military Socio-cultural Archetype: Innovation of Strategic and Operational Capabilities.

摘要

Organizations that cultivate leadership competencies as part of their social and cultural (socio-culture) doctrine inherently optimize their adaptation to change, innovation, and capacity for learning. The continuous lifecycle of learning and leadership adaptation is essential for organizations to remain competitive in an ever-changing operating environment. The problem addressed by this study was the obscurity across the human resource and organization development (HROD) community to confidently adapt exclusive leadership competencies that develop an organization's capacity for learning within heterogeneous socio-culture archetypes. The purpose of this study was to determine if servant leadership predicts organizational learning within the inherent socio-culture of a military unit. The study's theoretical framework was comprised of two HROD theories, servant leadership and organizational learning. The research methodology first assessed the relationship between servant leadership and organizational learning using a Pearson correlation analysis. The results showed servant leadership was positively correlated with organizational learning (r = .69, p < .001). Next, a multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between servant leadership and organizational learning within the ethos of a military unit after controlling for four prominent socio-culture attributes: gender, rank, years of service, and education level. The results demonstrated the overall regression model was significant (F(5, 78) = 14.73, p < .001, R2 = .49), indicating the predicators accounted for 49% of the variability in organizational learning. Furthermore, the beta coefficient for servant leadership was significant ( B = 1.02, t = 8.25, p < .001), indicating servant leadership positively predicted organizational learning after controlling for the socio-culture variables. Additionally, the study expanded upon the theoretical framework by further validating the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) and the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) instruments in a new context. Lastly, recommendations for future research included (a) a quantitative study exploring the relative influence servant leadership has on the resiliency of a military organization (b) a study evaluating how organizational resiliency influences the capacity for learning, (c) an expansion on the relationship between toxic leadership and organizational learning, and (d) a study that further expands on the findings of this study by comparing multiple military units.