Scheduled for Sport Management, Psychology, and Leisure & Recreation Posters, Thursday, April 1, 2004, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Session


The Effectiveness of Charismatic Leadership and Support Toward Team Behavior and Cohesion

Yen-Hsiang Huang, Hungkuang Institute of Technology, Daphne, AL, Steve Chen, U S Sports Academy, Daphne, AL and Cynthia E. Ryder, U S Sports Academy, Fairhope, AL

The purpose of this study was to investigate how charismatic leadership and perceived class support affect class citizenship behavior, class cohesion and competition performance. The participants of this study were 300 students from six classes that won the championship of Tug-of-War competition at Hung-Kuang University (Taiwan). All of the participants were female, and the range of their ages was between 16 and 20. A survey that contained five subscales (including MLQ, OCB, and GEQ, etc.) was conducted a week following the competition. Among the 300 participants, eight did not complete the responses. The overall rate of return for this study was 90%. A Linear Structure Relationship method was employed to examine the causal-linked relationships among the tested variables. A factor analysis was also utilized to examine whether the observed variables explain its latent variable or not. The goodness of fit index of the measured model were listed as following: chi square (181)=535.35, p<.05, GFI=.81, AGFI=.76, NFI=.85, NNFI=.88, RMR=.052. These results had accepted the researchers' model as a legitimate model to further analyze the collected data. Based on the analyses of the LISERL model, the charismatic leadership was positively related to class citizenship behavior (r=0.17, p< .001), and perceived class support was positively related to class cohesion (r=0.26, p< .001). In addition, class cohesion was positively related to competition performance (r=0.59, p< .001), and class citizenship behavior was positively related to class cohesion (r=0.42, p< .001). The results of the path analyses showed that charismatic leadership was positively correlated with class citizenship behavior and class cohesion. Therefore, the researchers encourage class mentors to build an intimate relationship with students by involvement in students' lives and sporting activities. The researchers also conclude that class citizenship behavior can create class cohesion, and the high level of class cohesion would enhance the friendship among class members. In this study, the relationship between class citizenship behavior and competition performance was unproven. This fact may be due to the nature of tug-of-war is accounting for the accumulation of cohesion performance, but not class citizenship behavior. Consequently, in order to have a better performance, class cohesion seems to be much more important than class citizenship behavior.


Keyword(s): leadership development, performance

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