Date of Award

Summer 2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Foundations & Leadership

Program/Concentration

Community College Leadership

Committee Director

Mitchell R. Williams

Committee Member

Linda Bol

Committee Member

Philip A. Reed

Abstract

Employee retention is an ongoing challenge for higher education student affairs professionals, who account for the largest employee group across the higher education workforce. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment have previously been identified as correlated with college and university employees’ decision to stay or vacate their position. Authentic leadership, an evolving theory, has been associated with greater levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment in a variety of settings. However, there is a gap in the literature about the status of this relationship within community college student affairs work environments. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between community college student affairs professionals’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment and their perception of their immediate supervisor’s authentic leadership.

Results indicated perceived authentic leadership significantly predicted the job satisfaction of community college student affairs professionals. Perceived authentic leadership also significantly predicted professionals’ organizational commitment. Further, there was a significant difference in the relationship between perceived authentic leadership and the organizational commitment of community college student affairs practitioners by racial and ethnic identity. It is recommended community college leaders promote the development of authentic leadership qualities among those charged to lead student affairs departments to increase practitioner satisfaction and strengthen commitment to the college.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/rskk-fz87

ISBN

9798384454861

ORCID

0009-0003-0025-9282

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