The Impact of Leadership Style on the Feature-Level Usage of Graduate Processing Technologies in the Former TBR Universities: A Case Study
Abstract
The Focus On College and University Success (FOCUS) Act of 2016 changed the scope of higher education in Tennessee by eliminating the shared governance of six public state universities. These six locally-governed universities (LGUs) were empowered to make programmatic decisions, pass their own budgets, and oversee standard university operations such negotiating contracts with external vendors. They faced a drastic shift in identity, organizational change, and cultural change as they began to select new technologies that supported their processes and brand. However, in order to increase job performance, employees must first accept and use new technology. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Technology (UTAUT) suggested that the transformational leadership style could increase job performance while also reducing legacy system habit, which impedes feature-level usage of new technology. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to determine the perceptions of graduate processing staff regarding (a) the degree to which leadership style impacted feature-level usage of new graduate processing technologies as well as (b) the degree to which leadership style impacted their overall job performance during new technology rollout periods. This qualitative, instrumental case study was bounded by time (four months, during the busiest graduate processing time of the year), by place (the six LGUs formerly governed by TBR) and by the job position of the participants (graduate processing personnel). Data was collected through interviews, observations, and document review. The UTAUT theory was used as a framework for analysis to examine the stories told by graduate processing staff at the former TBR universities who were currently implementing new technologies in an effort to streamline their processes and improve job performance. The findings of this study indicate that leadership style did impact the feature-level usage of new graduate processing technologies, with transformational leadership having a positive effect on technology implementation because transformational leaders created the facilitating conditions necessary for usage and acceptance. It also indicates that missing links between new technology and legacy systems create busy work for graduate staff.
Subject Area
Higher Education Administration|Educational leadership|Information Technology|Higher education|Educational technology
Recommended Citation
Brittney Elaine Mabry Young,
"The Impact of Leadership Style on the Feature-Level Usage of Graduate Processing Technologies in the Former TBR Universities: A Case Study"
(2020).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI27962977.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI27962977