THE EFFECTS OF THE FACTORS OF GROUP STRUCTURE AND THE DEGREE OF TASK PERFORMANCE ON GROUP MEMBERS' PERCEPTIONS OF LEADERSHIP FUNCTIONS

Abstract

This study was to examine in a laboratory situation the effects of communication structure and the degree of task performance upon the followers' perceptions of leadership functions.A taped message was used to provide leadership behavior objectively as a same condition to all the subjects (followers). Introduced as communication structure were the two levels of the Wheel and Comcon types. Regarding the degree of task performance, high performance and low performance were introduced. Combining these things, four kinds of groups with different experimental conditions were formed; namely, Wheelhigh performance groups, Comcon-high performance groups, Wheel-low performance groups and Comcon-low perfomance groups. Each kind of these groups was made up of four experimental groups comprizing 4 subjects each. The following results were found. The main effect (p<. 10) of the factor of communication strcuture was found regarding the perception of the P function of leadership. The scores for the perception of the P function was higher in the Wheel condition than in the Comcon condition. The interaction among the three factors, i. e., communication structure, degree of task performance and sessions, was statistically significant (p<. 01). In the Wheel structure groups, the scores for perception of P function was high in low performance condition, and low in high performance condition, whereas in the Comcon structure, it was high in high performance condition and low in low performance condition.As for the scores for M function, the main effect of the factor of session was statistically significant (p<. 005). In other words, the scores for perception of M function varied according to the number of sessions.