Examination of three theories of leadership in the telecommuting context.

Abstract

This study examined how three theories of leadership, namely the Substitutes for Leadership theory, the Leadership Behaviors Theory (specifically, Consideration and Initiating Structure), and the Transactional versus Transformational Leadership Theory, apply in a telecommuting versus a non-telecommuting environment. First, this research aimed to find out whether particular Leadership Substitutes and Neutralizers prevent hierarchical leadership from influencing the behaviors of telecommuters and/or nontelecommuters. Second, this study measured whether telecommuting and nontelecommuting subordinates give different or similar ratings to their supervisors in terms of the Consideration, Initiating Structure, Transactional and Transformational leadership behaviors exhibited by those supervisors. Third, this research asked whether the supervisors of both telecommuters and non-telecommuters would give themselves similar or different ratings in terms of their own Consideration, Initiating Structure, Transactional and Transformational leadership behaviors with their telecommuting and their non-telecommuting subordinates respectively. The study could not definitively answer the research questions due, most probably, to the small sample size. That is, according to the results, leadership substitutes and neutralizers do not seem to influence telecommuters and non-telecommuters differently. Further, managers of both telecommuters and non-telecommuters do not perceive their leadership behaviors to be different with their two types of subordinates. Lastly, employees themselves did not perceive the Consideration, Transactional and Transformational leadership behaviors of their supervisors to be different. The only leadership behavior that made a difference between the two employee subsamples was Initiating Structure-telecommuters thought that supervisors were higher on this leadership behavior than their office co-workers.