Department

Graduate School of Business

Degree

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Chair

Mark Ellis

Keywords

Transformational Leadership, Organizational Change, Agile, Enterprise-Scale

Disciplines

Business | Leadership Studies

Abstract

The rate of organizations adopting Agile and DevOps methodologies has grown in recent years, with researchers observing the impact of leadership styles and methodology adoption, presenting challenges with sustaining and scaling change initiatives. Where organizations within the marketplace today reveal the significance of leadership in influencing change, while findings signal deficiencies with having leaders who are ready. The purpose of this quantitative correlational research examines the increased probability of failure organizations face when engaging in enterprise Agile and DevOps transformational change initiatives. Through investigating the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors, readiness for change, and organizational citizenship behavior exhibited by management and employees engaging in Agile and DevOps initiatives within regional financial services companies with a presence in the South Eastern United States. The resulting study surveyed 390 anonymous participants with varying backgrounds and organizational roles based upon predetermined quota constraints aligning with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census, and FDIC data. Utilizing three principal instruments to measure transformational leadership, change readiness, and organizational citizenship behavior; conducting statistical analysis for construct reliability, descriptive properties, and hypothesis testing, concluding the existence of influential correlation of change readiness and organizational citizenship behaviors having a relationship with transformational leadership. The research findings identify the association of organizational readiness and employee social citizenship responsibility with applicability to transformational leadership, bringing light to the significance of grooming and sustaining leaders at all levels of the organization.

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