Researching Research Leaders: A Qualitative, Phenomenological, Transcendental Study of University Institutional Official Relations with Stakeholders Using the Competing Values Framework

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological, transcendental exploratory study was to understand institutional officials’ (IO) lived relational leadership experiences with internal and external stakeholders with competing values in U.S. research universities. The competing values framework guided the study to investigate IOs’ lived experiences when relating to diverse stakeholders in research universities. The central research question asked was what are the experiences of IOs in research universities when practicing relational leadership with diverse stakeholders with competing values? Ten participants were recruited for this qualitative study using the purposeful sampling and then snowball method of recruiting. The elite participants had experience serving as IOs responsible for the research activities conducted in U.S. research universities. The data for this study were collected in written form, electronically, digitally, and audibly with interviews using photo elicitation, surveys, and letter-writing. The data collection methods in this study provided systematic documentation of the participants’ experiences. The gathered data were subjected to the epoché process described by Moustakas (1994) to suspend the researcher’s prejudgment and knowledge of the phenomena from previous experience. The researcher used NVivo qualitative research software to aid analysis to detect emerging patterns (Allsop et al., 2022; Saldaña, 2021), and then the data were triangulated to elucidate themes, subthemes, and the essences of the phenomena. This study revealed that research university institutional officials navigate complex relational leadership challenges while maintaining a spirit of innovation and scientific integrity and valuing their role as a privilege to serve diverse stakeholders.