INVESTIGATING SHARED LEADERSHIP IN
UNDERGRADUATE CAPSTONE DESIGN
TEAMS: A PILOT STUDY
LTC Brian J. Novoselich, West Point, Virginia Tech
Dr. David B. Knight, Department of Engineering Education,
Virginia Tech
Research Team
Dr. David Knight
EDUCATION
•Ph.D. Higher Education, Pennsylvania State
University, 2012
•M.S. Environmental Sciences, University of
Virginia, 2009
•M.U.E.P Urban and Environmental
Planning, University of Virginia, 2009
•B.S. Environmental Sciences, University of
Virginia, 2006
LTC Brian Novoselich
EDUCATION
•M.S. Mechanical Engineering, The
University of Texas at Austin, 2006
•B.S. Mechanical Engineering, United
States Military Academy, 1996
CALL FOR LEADERS
 Leadership is essential to long term tech success:
 Growing interdependence of technological/ economic/ social
functions “demands” technologically adept leaders to make sound
policy decisions for a sustainable future. NAE (2004)
 ABET Leadership requirements for Civil Engineering/
Construction Engineering/ Engineering Management & Overall
Teaming Requirements.
 “an engineer is hired for her or his technical skills, fired for poor
people skills, and promoted for leadership and management skills”
Russel and Yao (1996).
TEAM LEADERSHIP
 Leadership is an important component of team
success:
 “most would agree that team leaders and the leadership processes
that they enact are essential to promoting team performance,
adaptation, and effectiveness” Salas et. al. (2007).
 Lack of Eng. Ed. Focus on leadership for effective
teams.
 Borrego et al. (2014) literature review:
Eng. Ed. Team Effectiveness Articles
120
100
80
60
104
40
20
0
0
Total Articles
Advocate
Leadership
7
Leadership as
outcome
FACULTY PERCEPTIONS
 Non-purposeful treatment of leadership within the
curriculum.
 Knight & Novoselich (2014): Analysis of nationally
representative undergrad engineering data set (P2P, 2008)
Faculty/Admin Perceptions
4
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2
Leadership Emphasis
4.5
Preparing students as
community leaders
4
3.5
Professional skills detract
from technical content
(rev)
Leadership in ExtraCurriculum (rev)
3
2.5
Course/program
emphasis: Leadership
Skills
Course/program
emphasis: Project
Management Skills
Importance of leadership
skills in your work now
2
Importance of project
management skills in your
work now
 Is our conceptualization of design team leadership
accurate?
SHARED LEADERSHIP
 The shared paradigm is changing perceptions of leadership
 Historical leadership perceptions are individual and hierarchical.
 Shared leadership can be more effective in knowledge work that is:
Creative, Complex, Interdependent. i.e. Pearce (2004).
 Shared Leadership: “a simultaneous, ongoing, mutual influence
process within a team that is characterized by ‘serial emergence’ of
official as well as unofficial leaders” Pearce (2004).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
(Northouse, 2013, p. 194)
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1) To what degree are transactional and transformational
leadership shared within undergraduate engineering
student design teams?
2) How is the degree of shared leadership related to
undergraduate engineering student design team
effectiveness?
3) What role does faculty involvement play in
undergraduate engineering student design team
leadership and outcomes?

Initial focus on Senior, ME Capstone design teams:
 Design Pervasiveness in ME
 Seniors at height of “expertise”
RESEARCH DESIGN
Sequential Explanatory Research Design (Creswell, 2009)
QUANT
QUANT
QUANT
Data
Collection
Data
Analysis
Survey
•MLQ
•Control Var.
•Dep. Variables
Pilot Study Scope
Leadership
Scales
Sociograms
Network
Centralization
qual
qual
Data
Collection
Interviews
Course
Documents
qual
Data
Analysis
Interpret
Results
1) Degree of Shared
Leadership
2) Correlation of
sharedness to
outcomes/effectiveness
3) Advisor Role
•How/Why Leadership
Developed
•Team performance/outcomes
CURRENT STATUS
• Pilot data collection on-going:
– ME specific capstones.
• Virginia Tech (population=350, responses =221, teams=61)
–Fall: complete.
–Spring: to initiate.
• West Point (population=108, teams=18)
–Spring: on-going.
– Preliminary factor analysis completed.
– Three teams from VT fall data analyzed.
FACTOR ANALYSIS
Anticipated Scales
Intellectual Stimulation
• 221 students.
•Peer ratings treated as individual cases.
•Resulted in 1460 total cases.
•EFA conducted in SPSS.
Individualized Concern
Idealized Influence (B/A)
Transformational
Leadership
Inspirational Motivation
Contingent Reward
Management by Exception (A)
Transactional
Leadership
Management by Exception (P)
Laissez Faire
Laissez Faire
FACTOR ANALYSIS
Discovered Scales
Intellectual Stimulation
• Eigen Values supported 5 Scales.
• 3, 5, and 9 Scales Explored
•Principal Axis and Maximum Likelihood.
•Oblimin Rotation.
•Construct generally held across 3 and 5.
Individualized Concern
Idealized Influence (B/A) (-)
Non-Corrective
Transformational
Leadership
(Re-named from
Transformational
Leadership)
Corrective
Transactional
Leadership
(Re-named from
Transactional
Leadership)
Inspirational Motivation
Contingent Reward
Management by Exception (A) (+)
Management by Exception (P)
Laissez Faire
Delayed
Laissez Faire
Leadership
(Re-named from
Laissez Faire)
OUT DEGREE CENTRALIZATION
“Star Network”
0
“Linear Network”
0
0
4
0
2
0
High Centrality Variation: 1@4, 4@0
Out Degree Centralization= Sc2= 1
(i.e. individual leadership)
0
1
1
Low Centrality Variation: 1@2, 2@1, 2@0
Out Degree Centralization = Sc2 = 0.375
(i.e. shared leadership)
(Mayo et al. 2003)
TEAM SUMMARY
Non-Corrective
Delayed
Corrective
Advisor
(0.00)
Centralization: 0.333
Centralization: 0.444
Centralization: 0.375
Centralization: 0.3125
Centralization: 0.167
Centralization: 0.250
Member 2
(0.00)
Note: Link cutoff set to 3.00
Member 3
(0.00)
Member 1
(0.00)
TEAM 156 SUMMARY
Non-Corrective
Variable
Corrective
Team Mean
Prior Work
1.43
Overall effectiveness
4.50
Satisfaction
4.50
Goal Achievement
4.50
High Perf. Expectation
5.00
Relationship
4.83
Mistrust
1.50
Previous Leadership
4.33
Motivation
5.00
Note: Link cutoff set to 3.00
Centralization: 0.167
Centralization: 0.250
Delayed
TAKE AWAYS
 Teams are showing varying degrees of centralization.
 Leadership may be unique for design teams.
 Full team participation is challenging.
 Survey fatigue may be an issue.
 Skewed centrality for Advisor.
NEXT STEPS
Incorporate spring survey data.
Initial correlation of network centralization to
team outcomes.
Assess likelihood of adequate participation.
Increase research sites.
QUESTIONS?