Essay 4: Leadership and ethical behavior

Essay 4: Leadership and ethical behavior
Essay 4: Leadership and ethical behavior
The individual/team research project is designed to answer one key question: using a unique theory of leadership, how does leadership and ethical behavior affect employee performance? Phase I: Theory→Hypotheses: In this first phase, a theory is built about leadership behavior or leader ethical behavior and how those behaviors impact employee performance. Using text material, research, readings, and in-depth interviews (each will interview at least 4 people; the people interviewed must be employed full-time and not attending our University, and hopefully, those interviewed will be as different from one another as possible). The specific interview questions will be left up to you, but you should explore the interview subjects’ beliefs about which leadership or ethical behaviors are important, and how these behaviors affect employee performance. Let them tell you what is important! Do not provide a set of concepts for them! For example, one interview question might be: “When you think about times that you had good leadership, what specific leader behaviors contributed to how you performed?” or “When you think about good ethical leaders, what behaviors stand out as being particularly effective in changing employee behavior/performance?” Your project can focus on the concepts in this course, but should go beyond those concepts as well. Phase II: Interview Method Description: This section of your research paper should describe your interview participants (no names or other identifying information), the questions asked in the interviews, the participants’ responses to the interview questions, and the themes/concepts that emerged from the interviews. Phase III: Incorporate Interview Data into Theory and Hypotheses: Once your interviews are completed, you will distill the most interesting themes from your interviews and convert those into specific predictions that can be tested with data. Hypotheses can focus on the concepts in this course, but (again) should go beyond these concepts as well. Feel free to focus on the concepts that interest you or your team. Incorporate your interview data into your Leadership Theory. Explicitly show the changes you made to your original Leadership Theory based on the interviews. Express your theory in diagram form.Phase IV: Recommendations for practicing managers: Use this section of your paper to make recommendations to practicing managers based on your theory and the interview data that you collected. No two individuals/teams may present the same leadership theory. To meet the threshold for a B grade, no fewer than 10, non-textbook, relevant references must be used and cited [use the APA Publication Manual for citation style; this is very important for electronic sources–Internet, etc.]. At least ten sources are required; with at least eight of those sources from current (2011-2015), reputable, peer-reviewed journals. The other sources may include academic and professional periodicals, government publications (to include CD ROM resources), magazines, and newspaper articles. All work submitted must be the original work of the student(s), and will be checked for originality using online software (Turnitin.com). Plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the project, and possible for the course [see Cheating Policy]. Essay 4: Leadership and ethical behavior
This paper should be between 10 and 14 pages in length—hopefully no more than 15 pages. Number all pages and use American Psychological Association (APA) format, 12-point font, double-spacing (LS = 2), paragraph indention, section headings, and submit in MS-Word format. It need include a title page, executive summary, research report body including introduction, theory/problem/issue, and recommendations/suggestions for managers, (at least one) graphic(s), and references page. Grades will be based on scholarship, application of course material, use of course research concepts, coherence, reference quality, format, and grammatical correctness, and all research projects will be rated and/or ranked within the class, and grades assigned accordingly (in line with the ratings/rankings). Your work should look business-like and professional. Written assignments displaying disproportionately poor grammar or a poor quality of written communication skills will be assigned a grade that is at least one letter grade lower than might otherwise have been assigned. Use Turnitin.com (instructions to be provided in class) to establish the originality of all workBEFORE it is submitted for grading if requested by your instructor. The Research Project will be due March 20EXAMPLES OF REPUTABLE JOURNALS (primarily in Management