Deberry Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of DeBerry’s (2010) dissertation described data collection and analysis, demographic characteristics of the participants, and results broken down by each of her four research questions. In Chapter 5, DeBerry (2010) summarized her findings on leadership style in a unionized governmental organization, summarized her research related to non-government organizations, and compared her study to Kest’s (2007) study. She then added a discussion of how current economic challenges in Detroit and city government in particular influenced her research and a discussion of her results in general. Next, she shared implications and limitations of her research along with recommendations for further study before her final concluding remarks.

Summary

She shared her perspective that governmental organizations must overcome unique challenges specific to the environment, which can benefit from a combination of transactional and transformational leadership styles. She expressed hopefulness that Detroit’s new mayor with industry experience, instead of government or political, would bring fresh ideas and new methods for organizational improvement to the city and her organization. Under the section on implications, DeBerry (2010) expressed the way she believed her research could contribute to governmental organizations and their success. She definitely believed that changing the organizational culture through focusing on vision and mission with participative decision-making could improve employee performance and the work environment. Although she had listed limitations as they occurred in her research process, she reiterated them in this section for clarity. Since she only used two surveys, she suggested using other instruments to measure leadership and organizational culture to see if they produce similar results. Low return rate limited her ability to generalize results from the data, and the local economy limited objectivity by the participants. DeBerry (2010) listed unbalanced demographic data and potential research bias as additional

On page 62 in the last sentence of the second paragraph, DeBerry in an obvious proofreading error used the word “chosen” twice. In the first sentence of the second paragraph on page 88, DeBerry (2010) stated that “leadership do not have,” and it should read, “leadership does not have.” In Chapter 5, DeBerry (2010) changed type color twice: Once on page 91 in the first paragraph; and, once on page 92 in the second paragraph. On page 95, DeBerry made statements about the unique challenges of government organizations and about an “entitlement mindset” without citing the source of this information. On page 96 in the last paragraph, she used the word “less” when she should have used the word “fewer.” These errors, though minor in that they represent proofreading gaffs, emphasize the importance of having another set of eyes review dissertations prior to publication. However, if content or concept mistakes existed, they were not