A measurement scale developed to investigate the effect of leaders perceptions.pdf

It is broadly acknowledged that, for quality management to be effective, it needs to be viewed and implementedas a dynamic and active process by people in an organisation, specifically its leaders. This study aimedto determine the level of leaders' commitment with regard to their perceptions and attitudes concerningquality management of training in corps training units within the South African Army. The Leader Perceptionand Attitude Scale was developed for this purpose. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a sampleof 229 leaders at six of the eight South African Army's corps training units. Correlation coefficients were determined,and structural equation modelling was performed. The results indicated that leaders' attitudes hada statistically significant influence on their commitment (p < 0.001), whereas perceptions had no statisticallysignificant influence (p = 0.488). The results contrast with previous studies, which have mostly indicated thatperceptions influence employee commitment. By targeting leaders' attitudes, therefore, the South AfricanArmy may be able to design and implement appropriate strategies to improve leaders' commitment and thereby enhance training effectiveness. The potential usefulness of a scale that measures the level of commitmentof leaders and is able to indicate the level of effect that perceptions and attitudes can have, may be of interest toother military settings and organisations that conduct in-house training.