Types Of Cam And Follower Pdf

[Margarita Lovvorn]

Criticalthinking ranges between dependent uncritical thinking and independent critical thinking (Kelley, 2008). Dependent uncritical thinkers accept information that is provided to them at face value without any evaluation or questioning (Latour & Rast, 2004). Independent critical thinkers do not accept information without questioning, rather, they evaluate and analyze information to identify consequences and opportunities (Latour & Rast, 2004).

Passive followership. Passive followers are low in active engagement and are dependent uncritical thinkers (Kelley, 1992). Passive followers are referred to as sheep (Kelly, 2008) who unquestioningly follow the leader but only after being given constant direction (Bjugstad et al., 2006). After completing a task, the passive follower typically waits for direction before beginning the next task (Latour & Rast, 2004).

Alienated followership. Alienated followers are highly independent critical thinkers but are low in engagement (Kelley, 1992). They think for themselves, but instead of being positive like exemplary followers, who proactively provide alternative solutions to the leader, alienated followers are negative critical skeptics (Kelley, 2008). They consider themselves as mavericks who are willing to oppose management (Kelley, 2008).

Pragmatist followership. Those with the fifth follower style are pragmatists who have a moderate level of engagement and portray a moderate level of critical thinking (Kelley, 1992). They are uncommitted and wait to see where things are going before they take action (Kelley, 2008). Pragmatists tend to maintain the status quo and wait for crises to pass before taking action (Kelley, 2008).

followers engaged in critical thinking, intrinsic job satisfaction but not extrinsic job satisfaction increased. Low active engagement followers who engaged in independent critical thinking had decreased extrinsic job satisfaction (Blanchard et al., 2009).

Lastly, since alienated followers vociferously criticize the leader and the organization (Kelley, 1992), it was posited that their job performance was probably significantly less than any of the other types of followers. Consequently, the study included the following hypotheses:

Followership styles and organizational performance. The unit of analysis for the study was followers from acquisition project management and R&D teams. Since organizational outcomes within acquisition project management offices are similar to R&D teams (Huang, 2009), this study examined not only follower performance but organizational performance. This is because both R&D teams and acquisition project management teams are focused on developing innovative solutions within a prescribed cost and schedule. Furthermore, similar to R&D teams (Huang, 2009), project management is a complex endeavor (Ng & Walker, 2008) that requires the integration of a diverse set of teams of multiple cross-functional experts (Stagnaro & Piotrowski, 2014). To achieve success, project managers and R&D team leaders must integrate stakeholders into the process, build teams, and generate a cohesive environment (Johnson, Boucher, Connors, & Robinson, 2001). Since active followers tend to actively or proactively follow orders that requires working collaboratively with others, it was posited that work groups with exemplary followers, who are actively engaged, probably have higher organizational performance. Consequently, the study included the following additional hypotheses:

Active engagement, critical thinking, and job and organizational performance. The key dimensions of each of the followership styles was the level of the follower active engagement in the organization, and the level of the critical thinking of the follower. Consequently, since followers with different styles were theorized to have different levels of job performance that impacts organizational performance, it was posited that active engagement and critical thinking were probably correlated with job and organizational performance. Consequently, the study included the following additional hypotheses:

The population for the study was 224 employees in one Army project management and 54 personnel from one R&D organization in the United States. The Army has 13 program executive offices (PEO) that conduct project management activities to acquire new defense materiel for the United States military and seven laboratories that conduct R&D research projects spread throughout the United States. Each of these offices and laboratories is led by either a general officer or a civilian senior executive servant (SES). Each PEO and laboratory have several project management offices and directorates that are led by Army colonels or GS15 civil servants.

The research performed a convenience sampling (Cozby & Bates, 2012) of both 22 supervisory and 35 non-supervisory employees that volunteered to participate from each of the organizations that had been purposively selected and voluntarily agreed to partake in the study. Since most supervisors within the American culture are direct reports to someone else, supervisors within the acquisition and research and development communities serve in both leadership and followership roles. Consequently, supervisor viewpoints on their own followership experiences was included in this study.

Active Engagement. Active engagement represents that amount of involvement the follower has in organizational activities (Kelley, 1992). High active engagement involves proactive participation in organizational activities, while low active engagement involves reactive participation in organizational activities after being provided guidance and direction (Kelley, 1992). The active engagement independent variable was used in hypotheses 3a and 4a.

Critical Thinking. Critical thinking represents the level where the follower accepts information with or without self-analysis (Kelley, 1992). High critical thinking involves follower analysis of information before it is accepted (Kelley, 1992). Low critical thinking involves followers accepting information without question (Kelley, 1992). The critical thinking independent variable was used in hypotheses 3b and 4b.

Exemplary. The exemplary variable represents a followership style that is high in both critical thinking and active engagement dimensions (Kelley, 1992). The exemplary followership variable was used in hypotheses one and two.

Conformist. The conformist variable epitomizes a follower style that is low in critical thinking and high in active engagement dimensions (Kelley, 1992). The conformist followership variable was employed in hypotheses 1a and 2a.

Passive. The passive variable characterizes a follower style that is low in both critical thinking and active engagement dimensions (Kelley, 1992). Hypotheses 1b and 2b included the passive followership variable.

Alienated. The alienated variable represents a follower style that is high in critical thinking and low in active engagement dimensions (Kelley, 1992). The alienated followership variable was used in hypotheses 1c and 2c.

Pragmatist. The pragmatist variable characterizes a follower style that is moderate in both critical thinking and active engagement dimensions (Kelley, 1992). Hypotheses 1d and 2d included the pragmatist followership variable.

The study collected information on six demographic variables. These included: age, gender, organizational position, type of service, time in current position, and career field. The variables on type of position and type of service captured whether the respondent was a supervisory or non-supervisory employee, military or civil servant. The career fields for the study were: acquisition, research and development, or other.

Consequently, this resulted in participants with critical thinking scores of 31 to 60 and active engagement scores of 41 to 60 or zone 1 critical thinking scores of 41 to 60 and active engagement scores of 31 to 40 being categorized as exemplary followers as described in table 1. Conformist followers had critical thinking scores of 0 to 30 and active engagement scores of 41-60 or zone 2 critical thinking scores of 0 to 19 and active engagement scores of 31 to 40. Passive followers had critical thinking scores of 0 to 30 and active engagement scores of 0 to 19 or zone 3 critical thinking scores of 0 to 19 and active engagement scores of 20 to 30. Alienated followers had critical thinking scores of 31 to 60 and active engagement scores of 0 to 19 or zone 4 critical thinking scores of 41 to 60 and active engagement scores of 20 to 30. The measurement instrument possesses face and content construct validity (Cozby & Bates, 2012) since it was based directly on the two dimensions and five follower types developed by Kelley (1992).

ask all their supervisors and employees to volunteer to participate in the study and to have the volunteers complete the survey instruments within a two-week period. Once the program executive office and laboratory were recruited to support the study, arrangements were made to have HCMD and the engineering directorate send out an email announcing the survey and solicit voluntary participation in taking the digital survey that was available on survey monkey. This enabled the participants to anonymously access the digital survey to input their perspectives into the instrument. The emailed survey instructions, as well as the instructions on the survey monkey web site, included a guarantee on the anonymity of the respondents, and informed the prospective participants that that if they voluntarily chose to participate in the survey it implied their voluntary consent. The email as well as the survey monkey web site instructions included a description of the purpose of the survey.

Ethical Considerations. The research adhered to ethical standards of quantitative studies by obtaining approval of the survey instruments from the institutional review board (Cozby & Bates, 2012), and by providing the participants a full disclosure of the research intent (Qu & Dumay, 2011). The study guaranteed the participants the right to privacy and confidentiality prior to obtaining their informed consent to complete the empirical survey instrument (Cozby & Bates, 2012). Maintenance of confidentiality was

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