The relationship between and effect of visionary leadership on organizational culture was explored within Campus Recreation Programs housed in Big Ten and Mid American Conference universities. Visionary leadership was measured by the Leadership Behavior Questionnaire (LBQ) while the Culture Strength Assessment (CSA) and Culture Building Activities (CBA) instruments provided two measures of organizational culture. Quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were triangulated to enrich and cross validate the data. Furthermore, the relationships between both visionary leadership and organizational culture on program success (measured by student satisfaction scores) were examined. Twenty-one research hypotheses were constructed to test seven research questions.
The 19 schools from the two conferences were reduced to eight on the basis of the Campus Recreation Director's LBQ scores. The two highest and lowest scores from each conference (N = 8) were found to be statistically different (.05 level of significance). The researcher concluded that high visionary leaders direct programs that (1) possess stronger organizational cultures, and (2) carry out culture building activities to a greater extent, specifically the "customer orientation" activity. Although the culture scores were greater for the programs from the Mid American Conference, the impact of visionary leadership on culture strength and culture building activities was greater in the Big Ten Conference programs. A significant relationship was also discovered between culture strength and program success.
Insignificant relationships were uncovered between (1) all measures (total and three sub-components) of visionary leadership and culture strength, (2) all measures of visionary leadership and program success, and (3) each of the four culture building activities and program success. No significant difference was uncovered between the high and low leadership groups relative to the penetration of culture throughout the top four levels of the organizational hierarchy. Finally, the organizational values and critical success factors offered by directors of highly rated programs (student satisfaction ratings) did not differ from the listing offered by directors of lower rated programs.
A pilot study conducted with a similar sample from two Canadian universities allowed the researcher to pre-test all research procedures and conduct appropriate instrument reliability and validity measures.