Destructive Leadership in the Military - Dissertation Example

?Informed Consent According to Dunn & Chadwick (2004) informed consent is information exchange, including recruitment materials, verbal instructions, written materials, questions and answer sessions and signature documenting consent with date (p. 33). It is important that participants of the study understand the intent of the research study and the guidelines of the study as a voluntary participant for this will help enforce ethical practices. Flory and Emmanuel (2004) indicated valid informed consent reduces the chance for unethical research. A valid informed consent is also a requirement by federal regulation, which identifies the eight basic disclosure elements. According to the National Archives and Records Administration (2012), a statement of the contents of the research, its purpose, the expected length of participation, was clearly explained to the potential participants. The informed consent will be given to participants prior to the start of the research. The informed consent will concentrate on the ethical and legal framework of the research. First, a brief will be conducted with the participants to provide essential information about the research. The participants will be provided an opportunity to ask questions which will be answered correctly and broadly. When all participants are thoroughly briefed and have a clear understanding of the study, they will each receive a copy of the informed consent to sign as evidence. A copy of the form will be retained by the researcher, and the other copy given to the respondent. If any new information arises as the research progress, the participants will be informed The respondents will also be made aware they can withdraw from the research any time before the final dissertation is written. By providing substantial background information, and enumerating the rights of the participants, voluntary, and signed consent of the participants will be obtained. The informed consent not only ensures that the participants are made fully aware of what they can expect during the research, but alsohow the information provided by them is to be used for the study (Bernard, 2012). Informed consent also ensures that the research has credibility and validity as expected by research rigor (Akerlind, 2012). Confidentiality The confidentiality of the participants will be of paramount importance, especially in the current case in which the respondents are active members of the Marine Corps and may be working under the very senior enlisted Marines about whom they have provided the information. The following measures will be taken to ensure the protection of respondents. First, the research will ensure that respondents’ names and any other identifying characteristics will not be mentioned in the dissertation, and the collected data will be used only for developing the research analysis. Furthermore, interviews and interviewees will be identified by a generic code and all information that relates to the interviewee will be kept in a secure location for a three-year period from the completion of the study, after which all information and data will be destroyed. A code will be given to all participants who have signed the informed consent. Each participant will be given a code, example (MIL 001) for the first participant up to (MIL 00n) for the nth participant. The participants will be required to identify themselves using the assigned code for every interview or questionnaire administered to them. Once the data collection process begins, participants will not be addressed by name, but by their assigned code, which they will receive prior to the interview process. The participants will not write their names on the interview or questionnaires, and any data that contain the participant’s name will be invalid and destroyed immediately. The confidentiality of the participants is the respondents are active members of the Marine Corps and may be working under the senior enlisted Marine whom they have provided the informationof great importance because it protects them from being disclosed in the research due to many risks associated with participants’ exposure. This means the respondents can be in a vulnerable position if they are identified as the sources of this research. Confidentiality is also important as it safeguards the privacy of the respondents and prevents them from cross questions or treated bydifferently by their colleagues in any way for their participation in the research. Geographic Location The participants for the study will be Marines stationed on a military base in the southeastern geographical area of the United States. A particular base will be selected because of the high population of Marines, which will make the sample selection activity exhaustive. An additional reason for selecting the base is the availability of several official (though confidential) reports of discontentment and low morale among the junior enlisted Marines as well as several unofficial (though authentic) accounts of destructive leadership practices among the senior enlisted Marines. The base also has a culturally and ethnically diverse Marine population, which means that the final sample selected for the research will reflect this diversity. The population sample will range from 5-25 active duty service members with a minimum of two years of active duty service. The research will aim at determining how destructive leadership by senior enlisted Marine leaders affected junior enlisted Marines in the Marine Corps, which means that the final sample, selected for research reflectswill reflects this diversity. By selecting an ethnically diverse population for the sample, it is expected to portray a holistic understanding of how destructive leadership may be operant across the base irrespective of race or ethnicity. As such, the selected base makes a suitable and representative example for the US military population. Instrumentation The purpose of this study will be to explore the perceived existence and perceived effects of destructive leadership by military leaders on junior Marines. The research questions were created to determine if destructive leadership exists and the possible effects it may have on junior enlisted Marines. The research instruments that will be used are questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires and interviews will be appropriate in this research because they will enable the researcher gather first-hand information from respondents. The following instruments were selected because the researcher required to collect information from reliable sources to make it more valid. Before constructing questionnaires, the researcher will collect an IRB approval to to grant permission for conducting the study. The questionnaire will consist of 15 questions as shown in(Appendix J. The questionnaire will address leadership traits, leadership principles, how satisfied are the junior military with their seniors, the leadership behavioral traits, and leadership influence. The research will use an open-ended semi-structured questionnaire to collect the data from the respondents along with interviews to collect data. Respondents will answer questions as an individual with a researcher timing the responding time with a stopwatch. The respondents will be allocated a maximum of three hours to respond to the open-ended questionnaire to provide them with adequate time to express their thoughts about military leaders. Only questions that would have been answered by the end of three hours will be used for data analysis. An open-ended instrument is appropriate for collecting data from a phenomenological stance as it allows the participants freely to express themselves (Bryman, 2012; Creswell, 2011). The questionnaire will be based on the theoretical framework of the research and use the exhaustive literature review to develop questions. The underlying aim of the research questionnaire is to answer the following two research questions successfully.  The research instrument is therefore designed to gain insight into how junior enlisted Marines are affected by destructive leadership from senior enlisted Marines and to understand the junior enlisted Marines’ perspective on improving destructive leadership. Pilot Study a pilot study will be conducted. The pilot study, other than addressing the quality of data and appropriateness of the methods to use, will address issues of reliability. four months and the selected military base will be visited to collect data. The objective of the pilot study is to evaluate the capabilities to conduct the data collection activity and to make any changes in the proposed research (Briggs, Coleman, and Morrison, 2012). As such, the pilot study will provide an opportunity to explore any personal biases or preconceived notions about leadership in military. The participants of the pilot study will consist of five junior enlisted Marines selected from a list of Marines who will be provided to the research by the personnel department. Those Marines selected will have met the requirements for the main research, which includes being in the age group of 20 and 35, pay-grades of E-1 through E-5 and having two or more years of active duty in the Marine Corps. The selected participants will be provided with informed consent forms and be scheduled for interviews. The findings from the interviews will be analyzed to assess if the questions included in the questionnaire could measure the desired information. If there were any problems or hesitations reflected in the attitude of the respondents, it will be noted. Based on these observations and reflections, the final research instrument will be modified. The data collection instruments used in the pilot study will consist of questionnaires and written interviews. The data collection instruments will elicit the data on the cause and effects of destructive leadership in the military. After the pilot study, the researcher will be in a position to make corrections on the instruments chosen in order to ensure the validity and reliability in the final research. Data Collection The respondents for the current research will be selected using quota and criterion sampling methods. Quota and criterion sampling methods allowed the researcher to include Marines from diverse groups like different ethnic, age, and educational background. As such, quota and criterion sampling methods rendered a sample size that was representative of the diversity prevalent at the base, and hence it is expected that the findings from the sample are truly representative of the Marine population at the selected base. The selected Marines will be junior enlisted Marines who had worked directly with senior enlisted Marines and as such were in an appropriate situation to provide detailed perspective on the leadership qualities of senior enlisted Marines. 5-25 respondents will be selected using the quota sampling method from among those in the pay grades of E-1 through E-5 and are between the ages 20 to 35. This pay-grade group will be selected as it is found to be most vulnerable to the possibility of destructive leadership. Once the sample is selected, the subjects will be provided with the informed consent forms (APPENDIX D and APPENDIX E). The consent form must be received prior to the interview being conducted. Moustakas (1994) suggested starting interviews off with casual conversation to relax the environment to make the interviewee comfortable. This approach will be used to help the interviewee feel comfortable during the interview process. The research will use a phenomenological approach where the perspective and the opinions of the research participants are valued and desirable as findings (Erikson, 2012). A phenomenological research is deemed suitable in the cases in which the need is to obtain an understanding about the situation under study from the perspective of the people involved (Creswell, 2012; Riviera, 2011). The qualitative method would be the most suitable method to use for phenomenological research because the method will allow the collection of detailed and raw information with contextual background. The collected information will be authentic because the information comes from the respondent’s own perspectives and serves the purpose of the study well. The selected respondents will be scheduled one-on-one interviewto undertake questionnaires that will last 3 hours per participant. that should last no longer than one hour. To avoid instances of respondents panicking, the research will be conducted in a quiet place and away from the military base where they are stationed. If a questionnaire is restricted to a phone interview, participants will be required to send a signed copy of the consent form via e-mail, fax, or mail through the U.S. Postal service. Before the interview starts, respondents will be given time to refresh their mind and focus. On the other hand, Face-to-face interviews will help in further exploring a particular theme if needed (Bernard, 2011; Bowling, 2009; Elmes, Kantowitz, &Roediger, 2011) and in assessing the non-verbal cues and body language of the subjects. These non-verbal cues enable in interpreting the verbally provided information better and give an opportunity to pursue themes and explore further in-depth by using cross-questions (Robson, 2011). By using an open-ended semi-structured questionnaire, the interviews can be kept on-track while providing flexibility to discuss and explore additional or side themes as and when necessary (Kumar, 2010). The interviews will be recorded via a phone and devices tape recorders that will be used to collect data. Before the recording starts, the participant will be notified in order to acquire permission to record their voices. The use of these two devices will ensure reliability of the captured information; in case one fails, the other one can act as a substitute. Recordings will be done simultaneously. The recordings for each participant will be saved using the code provided and no photos, or video recordings will take place for confidentiality. The information on written interviews will be kept in tamper-proof envelopes until the time of data analysis. Any envelope that shows signs of tampering will be rejected. Data Analysis The data will be analyzed using thematic content analysis (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2010). The analysis will be conducted using the NVivo version 9 software. Therefore, the validity of the analysis is high as there is little scope for subjective bias (Riviera, 2011; Trotter, 2012). The data collection techniques selected will be most appropriate for this research because they allow the participants to provide the required information with no biases. The information collected from interviews and questionnaires will be coded using the thematic analysis application. The data analysis process will follow the following steps: Before the thematic Content analysis begins, the researcher will make multiple copies of interview responses and stipulate them in the method chapter. All descriptions relevant to the research topic that include leadership characters influence and principles will be marked with an electronic highlighter using the criteria provided. The information gathered from the highlighted areas will be distinctively marked and separated by a break. Units vary with the length of texts. Similar units will be cut out and assembled in a pile and each unit coded according to the type of interview. Each pile will be labeled by category, which will be determined by the key words from the highlighted text. All missing categories will be identified at this stage. The researcher will go through the entire interview transcripts identifying varying units and grouping similar and dissimilar units while relabeling categories along the way. All meaning units per category will be read through and units redistributed as appropriate. Categories will be reliable as appropriate. Additionally, categories will be subdivided as appropriate. The categories are checked to determine whether there are too many categories or too few that will give an analysis in respect to the highlighted areas of discussion. Validity Validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what the researcher wishes to gauge (Roberts, 2008, p. 231). The reliability and validity of the systematic data analysis method will be ensured by taking several steps. According to Johnson (1997), there are five types of validity considered in a research. These are interpretive, descriptive, theoretical, internal, and external validities. The reliability of a qualitative instrument is based on its consistency through repeated measures (the results are the same each time the instrument is used), and the inter-rater reliability (the degree to which different raters will agree on the result). Since interpretive researchers are objective and construct their own reality through the inquiry process, the interpretive researcher applies such criteria as plausibility, authenticity, and relevance in the place of quantitative measurement criteria (Gall, et. al., 1996; Gay, L.R., 1976). The research will focus on all ethical considerations, including obtaining informed consent of the participants, maintaining confidentiality, privacy, and safety of the respondents. Furthermore, the researcher will use extensive detailed theoretical and conceptual framework to support the research questions and to develop the research instrument (William, 2009), which adds to the credibility of the research. The reliability of the research will be further tested and established with the help of the pilot study as discussed in the previous section. , the research will be made reliable In additional, more reliability will be ensured through administering the two test instruments to the same respondents under same conditions: questionnaires and interviews. Both instruments will measure the similar variables and will therefore be consistent. . Summary This chapter presented a detailed discussion of the phenomenological research approach and the qualitative methods used in the conduction of the current research. The advantages of the qualitative face-to-face interviews as will be discussed as the ability to garner a large amount of detailed and contextually rich data. Sampling entails getting a small group from the big group or population of study. Available resources and time are not always enough to allow the whole population in the study. The quota and criterion sampling methods employed in the research will be elaborated and open-ended data collection instrument discussed. The chapter provided details of data collection and analysis and highlighted the ethical considerations like the informed consent and the confidentiality of the responses. The research validity was established by rooting the research questions and research instrument in the theoretical framework and literature background. The research reliability will be established through the pilot study, which will provide the ability to overcome subjective bias as well as fine tune the research instrument. Read More