Research Framework
This study mainly discusses the supervisor’s leadership styles in the public museums and their influences on employee’s creativity. The research framework is constructed as what Figure 3.2 shows. It is taken to be the basis of the study inference, exploring the relationships among different leadership styles and different influences on the employee’s creativity.
Figure 3.1. Research Framework
Research Method
As a result of the lack of the study on the impact of leadership styles on the employee’s creativity domestically, the complete theoretical foundation has not been formed. Therefore, this study adopts multiple case study of qualitative research to explore the influence of leadership styles on employee’s creativity. There are three research methods during the research processes in this study:
Literature Analysis
Collecting, arranging and analyzing domestic and international researches and books in the literatures which are related to creativity, leadership and museum so as to understand the foundation of the theories and further establish the research mode in this study. As what Strauss (1995) said, theories can provide this world modes or illustrations of certain situations, and the purpose of which is to explain and elaborate the operation condition of some fields. Nevertheless, Becker (1986) considered that in terms of qualitative research, if researchers can not clearly develop sufficient concepts and theoretical frameworks or over-depend on theories and force the problems, methods or data to be filled in the set extent, it would result in the distorted demonstration and weakened logic. Consequently, the critical strategy to resolve this problem is to continuously test with scientific methods and multiple sources of evidence. In view of this, this study will proceed with multiple case study and triangulation to test or modify the existing theories and also demonstrate the discoveries in this study.
Multiple Case Study
Yin (1994) considered that case study can make researchers to describe the real conditions and processes of the incident development in this intricate real world, and due to that researchers do not control the incident, the integrity of the incident would be completely preserved. And this study is to explore the impact of leadership styles on the employee’s creativity and the relevant issues; consequently, during the process of research, in order to realistically reflect the status quo of leadership styles and creativity in the working environment, the adoption of case study would be the most ideal choice in this study.
Nevertheless, the research design of case study can be categorized as single case study and multiple case study. This study proceeds with multiple case study because:
(1) Yin (1994, 2001) proposed that the reason for choosing single case study is to test critical case, extreme or unique case, or revelatory case with mature theories. Yet, this study is to discuss the impact of leadership styles on creativity, and there is no extreme case; consequently, it is not suitable to study with single case. (2) The evident from multiple cases is considered to be more powerful and firm (Hrrriott & Firestine, 1983). Therefore, if to repeat the same research process in the different cases, inducing and comparing the results of them with theoretical frameworks in the literatures, the induced results of this study can more sufficiently explain the research logic and context. On the basis of the above reasons, this study takes individual museums as the integral research units and adopts multiple case study to proceed open in-depth interviews.
Triangulation
For the accuracy of the research results, this study collect data with multiple sources of evidence, multiple checking to handle the research data. Besides, when selecting the research subjects, it is under the objective conditions to choose the cases with big heterogeneity in order to expand the comparative range of the research results.
Research Subject
The main purpose of this study is to discuss the influences of supervisors’
leadership styles on employee’s creativity. Because of the personal interest, the booming trend of creative industry in Taiwan, and scarcity of relevant studies in the context of museums, three public museums were selected as the cases. There are 9 research subjects in this study, including one supervisor and two subordinates in each museum. The characters of research subjects’ departments and museums are briefly described as follows:
Case A1, A2 and A3
National Science and Technology Museum, the Case A1, A2 and A3 belong to, was established in 1997, focusing on the promotion of technology education in the society. Its task is to study, design and exhibit a wide variety of technology themes and introduce the influence of the important technology development on the human life. There are mainly four divisions in the museum except the administrative ones, including Collections and Research Division, Exhibition Division, Technology Education Division, and Visitor Service Division. There are 138 staffs in all (2006).
And the interview subjects are one supervisor and two subordinates in the Division of
Technology Education.
Case B1, B2 and B3
National Museum of Natural Science, the Case B1, B2 and B3 belong to, was established in 1986. The content of exhibits emphasizes the concept of “human and nature,” educating the public to understand the mutual-dependent relationship between human and nature with different angles. There are mainly eight departments in the museum except the administrative ones, including Zoology Department, Botany Department, Geology Department, Anthropology Department, Registrar Department, Science Education Department, Exhibits Department, and Information Department.
There are 335 staffs in all (2007). And the interview subjects are one supervisor and two subordinates in the Science Education Department.
Case C1, C2 and C3
National Palace Museum, the Case C1, C2 and C3 belong to, was established in 1965, exhibiting Chinese antiquities, books and documents which mainly inherited from the royal collections in Sung, Yuan, Ming and Ching Dynasties. There are mainly seven departments in the museum except the administrative ones, including Department of Antiquities, Department of Painting and Calligraphy, Department of Rare Books and Documents, Department of Conservation and Preservation, Department of Marketing and Licensing, Department of Exhibition Services, and Department of Education Promotion. There are 743 staffs in all (2007). And the interview subjects are one supervisor and two subordinates in the Public Affairs Office.
The interview related information is arranged as follows:
Table 3.1. Interview Related Information
Case Division Seniority Interview Date Duration Place A1 Division of Technology Education 7 years Aug 12, 2008 1 hour Kaohsiung A2 Division of Technology Education 14 years Aug 12, 2008 2 hours Kaohsiung A3 Division of Technology Education 17 years Aug 12, 2008 1 hour Kaohsiung B1 Science Education Department 22 years Aug 22, 2008 1 hour Taichung B2 Science Education Department 20 years Aug 22, 2008 1 hour Taichung B3 Science Education Department 15 years Aug 22, 2008 1 hour Taichung C1 Public Affairs Office 2.5 years Aug 25, 2008 2 hours Taipei C2 Public Affairs Office 2.5 years Aug 25, 2008 1 hour Taipei C3 Public Affairs Office 8 months Aug 25, 2008 1 hour Taipei
Data Collection
This study takes the way of face-to-face in-depth interview as the instrument for data collection. In-depth interviews proceed with open attitude and semi-structured questions. The entire process is described as before interview, during interview, and after interview as follows:
3. Before interview: construct the interview outline and design the interview questions after collecting and arranging literatures and target museums’ related information. And then e-mail the letter of invitation and interview questions to the interviewees to let them understand the background of this study, research purpose, interview time, and interview content.
3. During interview: after attaining the agreement from interviewee, record the complete interview process with digital recorder, note down the key points with paper and pen, and record the interview process by the way of interview diary for the reference in the future.
3. After interview: transfer the recordings into words and e-mail the interview conversation back to interviewees to further confirm. The interview conversations with the confirmation from interviewees will be the basis of data analysis in this study. When there are new problems occur during the data analysis, it can be resolved with another interview, phone or e-mail.
This study first proceeds with literature review based on the research purposes.
After confirming the interview direction, the interview outline is drafted with arranged materials and research purposes. The early version of interview outline is directed and modified by experts and further modified as the formal one. The interview outline of this study is shown as follows:
1. Please describe the background of you and your team members.
(E.g. the number of members, gender, age, education, experience, special abilities, and the way of interaction with group members…)
2. Please describe your job content and procedure.
(To understand when could employees perform their creativity?) 3. How does supervisor evaluate the team performance?
(By whom, how, when, solutions…)
4. Please deliver your opinion about “innovation.”
5. Please describe the innovative outcomes directly related with group goals which you or your team members have ever proposed or completed.
(Innovative idea, technology, process, service, products, management…) 6. Please describe the leadership styles of your direct supervisor (or yourself).
(E.g. task/relation orientation, level of centralization/delegation, severe/gentle, level of encouragement, support and trust, and the level of adoption of employee’s opinions…)
7. Does your supervisor’s leadership style inspire or restrain your creativity? Or it would not influence your creativity at all?
8. Does your supervisor value your creativity development?
9. Does your supervisor give you opportunities for delivering creative ideas?
10. Does supervisor’s leadership style influence your willingness of proposing creative ideas?
Data Analysis
In terms of qualitative research, the data collection and analysis are usually continuously proceeding during the whole research process. However, there is no standardized procedure for the data arrangement and analysis. There are three stages of data analysis in this study: stage of research design, stage of research implementation and stage of conclusion:
Stage of research design
This stage lays emphasis on the collection of literatures and data, including the related theses, journal articles, books of creativity, leadership and museum issues. The concepts and mutual relationships among these materials could further be the important reference for the interviews. Therefore, the data analysis in this stage is conducted by the following method: arrange the data and classify them into different categories. And then do the cross-comparison among the filed data and select out the critical or frequently occurred concepts or problems, taking them as the fundamental framework for interview questions.
Stage of research implementation
Interview content and the continuous collection of literatures are the main source of data in this study. During the interview period among different interviewees, continuous collection of literatures can complement the insufficiency in the stage if research design and re-structure the question framework.
The data collected from the in-depth interviews is analyzed with seven steps which proposed by Jian & Zou (1998):
1. Confirm the research purpose to decide the emphasis of data analysis. This study mainly focuses on the influence of leadership on employee’s creativity;
consequently, the analysis emphasis is laid on interviewee’s experiences, perspectives and suggestions.
2. Accomplish the preparatory work of data arrangement before the data analysis.
The interviewees and interview questions are coded with English letters and numbers. The interview content is also coded and categorized by the question order. The same question is taken as the same category from different interviewees. It analyzes the data by the way of inter-case and classifies all the categories into files by different questions.
3. Proceed with trait analysis according to the content of each category. It is to give the content of each category a conceptualized name.
4. Focus on the main traits and proceed with inductive analysis. Simply classify the traits appear in each category, and analyze them according to their special meanings or frequency of appearance.
5. Repeatedly examine the context of the topic extent and expand and adjust the questions for the follow-up interviews on the go.
6. The special relationship among variables presented from the trait analysis
7. The terminal goal of qualitative data analysis is to reach the presentation of integral concept.
Stage of research conclusion
The emphasis in this stage is the composition of research report. The purpose is to completely and clearly present the discovery of data analysis and draw the conclusion with the reference of the previously collected literatures. Some important topics are also further developed for the reference of follow-up studies.
Procedure of Data Coding
Keyword code
I carefully read and examined the interview dialogues. After underlining the meaningful sentences, the “data units” were formed. The proper keywords were used to represent the concepts of the data units and noted with the codes of data units for the following analysis and data track. The keyword code has four digits – the 1st digit is the code of case (e.g. A), the 2nd digit is the code of interviewee, the 3rd code is the number of times of interviews, and the 4th digit is the code of interviewee’s statement order. For example, A3121 refers to the 21st statement in the first interview with the third interviewee in the group A. The formation of keyword code is as follows:
Table 3.2. Formation of Keyword Codes
Keyword Code Keyword Data Unit
B2110 Subordinates are
highly authorized
I think there should be no influence. Maybe it has something to do with the management of our tasks. She would hand over the tasks, illustrate the items of the tasks which should be done, and then let us to do them.
She is more like a supervisor who would empower subordinates.
B2111 The increase of job quality and quantity are valued
She just hopes that our quality could be upgraded, i.e. the content of narration could be more upgraded. There is also an upgrade on quantity. I mean at least you have to upgrade your content of narration such as more correct or more attractive.
Category and main category
After the completion of keyword coding, I developed the categories and started from case A. The keywords with the same concept in case A were combined into their category. And then the keywords in case B would also be combined into the categories developed from case A. The same concepts of keywords would be combined into their corresponding categories, and the keywords with new concepts which can not be combined into the existing ones would be developed as the new categories. After repeat the above processes of keyword combination of all the cases, the similar categories would be combined, expanded and revised as the main categories. Thirteen main categories were inducted in this study. The formation of main categories is shown as follows:
Table 3.3. Formation of Main Categories
Code of Main Category
Main Category
Category Combined Keyword Combined
Keyword - Give space for subordinates
A3109 C1115
Supervisor would ask for subordinate’s opinions
- Respect subordinate’s opinions A1102
Supervisor would trigger
subordinate’s thinking
- Thoughts, willingness and actions are triggered - Inspired by discussion - Inspired by group discussion
B1108
C2109 C3106
Research theme
The main categories developed from the cases were combined by broader concepts and formed into the research themes with the reference of research purposes.
Six research themes were inducted in this study. An example of the research theme is shown as follows:
Table 3.4. Formation of Research Theme
Code of Research Theme
Research Theme Combined Code of Main Category
Main Category
B Influence of Supervisors’
Leadership Styles on
Supervisor would not influence employees’ creativity
Data presentation
After completing the above steps, the influences of leadership styles on employee’s creativity inducted from the interviewees will be presented in this study.
Research Procedure
The procedure of this study is illustrated as Figure 3.1. First, decide the research topic and confirm the research purposes, and according to them to collect the related literatures and establish the research framework through the discussion of literatures and theories. The next, decide the research methodology and design the interview questions based on research purposes and combined with literatures and theories. And then proceed to the in-depth interview. Afterwards, induce the research results by data arrangement and analysis. Finally, propose the conclusion and suggestions depending on the research results.
Figure 3.2. Research Procedure
CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
After data analysis, this chapter illustrates the research findings and discusses the causes and effects of the research items. This chapter is divided into six sections:
1. Supervisors’ Leadership Styles in Taiwanese Museums
2. Influence of Supervisors’ Leadership Styles on Employees’ Creativity 3. Attention Supervisors Pay on Employees’ Creativity Development 4. Opportunities Supervisors Give for Employees to Deliver Creative Ideas 5. Supervisors’ Influence on Employees’ Willingness to Propose Creative Ideas 6. Innovative Outcomes Employees Have Done
Each section will describe the research results and their supportive reasons, present the representative coding content, and finally do the comparative analysis with literatures.
Supervisors’ Leadership Styles in Taiwanese Museums
This section is to present the characteristics of supervisors when leading their subordinates. The data was gathered from supervisors’ own thoughts about themselves and their subordinates’ observations about them, including the data from interviews and questionnaires. It will be illustrated by museum, and the data will further show which leadership style(s) each supervisor tends to be.
1. Museum A
(1) Directive Leadership
The code of category in this study is A-1. There are no any interviewee in this museum has ever mentioned about the supervisor’s characteristic which belongs to directive leadership style.
There is no literature related to the relationship between characteristics of directive leadership and creativity was found.
(2) Supportive Leadership
The code of category in this study is A-2. There are 12 times that interviewees in this museum have mentioned about the supervisor’s characteristics which belong to supportive leadership style. Interviewees in this museum consider that their supervisor (or supervisor herself) acts friendly (A-2-01), respects subordinates (A-2-02), has mutual trust and dependence with subordinates (A-2-04), encourage subordinate (A-2-05), care about subordinate (A-2-06), pay attention to subordinate’s need (A-2-07), and would greatly help subordinate when needed (A-2-08).
[A-2-01] Friendly attitude
Comparatively speaking, I tend to agree with the respected mutual-trust and interdependent relationships, which is very important to the goal achievement; consequently I tend to treat my subordinates more mildly, encouragingly and supportively. I would also authorize my subordinates and believe in the opinions proposed from them. (A1101)
There is no literature related to the relationship between friendly treatment and creativity was found.
[A-2-02] Respect subordinates
Comparatively speaking, I tend to agree with the respected mutual-trust and interdependent relationships, which is very important to the goal achievement; consequently I tend to treat my subordinates more mildly, encouragingly and supportively. I would also authorize my subordinates and believe in the opinions proposed from them. (A1101)
…She would not force us and say “Ok, it’s you. You are going to take this job.” You still have opportunity to tell her that you are busy currently, and so on. Nevertheless, whether to say so or not depends on the different people. Basically we would not refuse her too much. (A2103)
Actually my job tends to be more independent. After assigning the tasks from the supervisor, I will complete them alone or discuss with my colleagues and then complete them. I co-worked with her in the Division of Public Service for five years before. She really respects to our own
Actually my job tends to be more independent. After assigning the tasks from the supervisor, I will complete them alone or discuss with my colleagues and then complete them. I co-worked with her in the Division of Public Service for five years before. She really respects to our own