6.2 Dissertation Notices – The Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

Lozano, R. (2011). The Relationship Between Community Service Involvement and Student Outcomes in Mexican Higher Learning Institutions. PhD. Andrews University. JACL 6(2), 139-139.

This mixed-methods study sought to understand the way community service is implemented in Mexican Seventh-day Adventist higher education and its impact on students. In the qualitative stage, three cases were studied in which 18 people from three Seventh-day Adventist universities in Mexico participated in interviews and focus groups. In the quantitative stage, a questionnaire was given to 202 seniors at the same three universities to explore the relationships between involvement in community service experiences and the prosocial, spiritual, and personal development of students.

Qualitative cases revealed five themes around which the experience of community service on the studied campuses is understood: commitment of the institution to community service, institutional ethos, variety of community service activities, people and roles in community service activities, and impact of community service on students. In the quantitative stage, subjects reported high levels of prosocial, spiritual, and personal development associated with their involvement in community service. The most influential variables of community service involvement were involvement in church-related community service, satisfaction derived from involvement in community service, intensity of community service involvement, and learning derived from community service involvement.

As well as confirming the positive role that community service plays in the prosocial, spiritual and personal development of students, this study confirms both the validity and relevance of integrating community service into the academic program and student life of all higher learning institutions, as observed in other studies in this field.

Lui, H. H. O. (2011). Development of Chinese church leaders—a study of relational leadership in con- temporary Chinese churches.

Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary, School of Intercultural Studies.

Under the strong impact of Confucianism, the Chinese churches today have their specific ways of developing church leaders. The study of the impact of cultural situations that affect leadership development is necessary, but has not been developed effectively in previous studies on Chinese leadership. This dissertation is an attempt to study and analyze the ways of developing followers in contemporary Chinese churches. The primary purpose is to develop an indigenous approach for developing church leaders in contemporary China. The impact of Confucianism as a cultural force in affecting the perceptions and practices of Chinese pastors is discovered in this study. Based on the theories and case studies of churches in mainland China, relational leadership is shown to be an effective indigenous pattern of leadership development in contemporary China.

McCord, S. K. (2011). Leadership style and listening practices of IMB team leaders: A correlational study. Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This study sought to determine if a relationship exists between leadership style and listening practices of International Mission Board (IMB) overseas team leaders. The

Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was used to measure transformational, transactional, and passive/avoidant leadership style and the Listening Practices Feedback Report- 360 (LPFR) assessed listening practices of attention, empathy, memory, open mind, respect, and response. A correlational analysis using Pearson r was conducted between leadership styles and listening practices. Further analysis was conducted to determine which leadership style was most significantly correlated with each of the six listening practice subscales.

The findings indicated that transformational leadership had a statistically significant and moderately positive correlation with the total LPFR score and with the other five listening practices subscales. Transactional leaders also had a moderately positive correlation with total LPFR score and significant correlations on empathy, memory, and response subscales. Passive/avoidant leadership style had a significantly moderate negative correlation with LPFR and with empathy, memory, respect, and response subscales. This study shows that transformational and transactional leadership styles have a statistically significant and moderately positive relationship with listening dimension scores as measured by the LPFR and supports transformational leadership theory.

Ming, M. D. (2011). The impact of family, community, and resilience on African-American young adults who had parents incarcerated during childhood. Ph.D., Andrews University.

This qualitative, multiple-case study addressed African-American young adults’ perceptions of the impact of parental incarceration on their lives and how they were able to overcome the difficult situation and graduate from high school. Semi- structured interviews with 12 individuals revealed similar experiences across those interviewed. Interviewee responses confirmed the importance of strong family relationships. The participants sought and received support from aunts, uncles, brothers, and cousins. Mothers and/or grandmothers were the primary caregivers.

Grandmothers also became surrogate parents when a significant number of mothers worked multiple jobs, attended school or needed time to regain balance in their lives. Community was also shown to be very important. In their churches the children found normalcy, acceptance, purpose, stability, safety, father figures, and the absence of judgments because of their fathers. In the majority of cases, it was grand- mothers who introduced them to church influences. School also gave meaningful support, becoming a refuge where they received inspiration and encouragement from administrators and teachers who pushed and challenged them to achieve academic success.

Pickett, D. K. (2011). The effect of pastoral and staff leadership training on the growth of the southern African-American church. Ph.D., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

This dissertation sought to determine the impact of pastoral and staff leadership development on the southern African-American church in areas of church growth (worship attendance, Bible study attendance, and church membership census), community development (ministries that reach into the community); and economic growth (income from tithes and offerings, special fundraising, and intra church nonprofit organizations). Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed. Thirty-five leaders from seven African-American churches participated in the study by providing information regarding their educational and professional background and by completing MLQ surveys on themselves and their peers in order to identify leadership characteristics. In addition, each of the seven churches provided data on its growth. Analysis of the data obtained suggests that a relationship exists between training and development, church growth, community development, and economic growth. Suggestions given included ways to improve current methods of development or to create new methods.

Turner, R. L. (2011). Leadership development process of select house church networks in North America: A multi-case study.

Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This multiple-case study analyzed the leadership development process in four North American house church networks. Leader/trainers and house church leaders within all four networks were studied to reveal the competencies leader/trainers used to select, develop, and sustain house church leaders. This qualitative research design was achieved by engaging in on-site interviews with the leader/trainers and house church leaders among the four selected house church networks. The researcher spent a minimum of two days on location with each house church network; this aided in providing a thick description of each network’s geographical and cultural setting. One quantitative component of the study employed Likert scales to measure objectively the self-perception of house church leaders toward the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of their leadership development. The findings identify practices of leadership development that are utilized by leader/trainers within the context of selected North American house churches, and could reveal a grounded theory or philosophy of leadership development that informs the practices of each network’s leadership development process. Ministry leaders, existing house church leaders, and potential house church planters may benefit from applying the practices and philosophy of network leadership development demonstrated in this study.

Ward, A. J. (2011). Church organizational culture: Construct definition and instrument development. Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The purpose of this research was to operationalize the construct of church organizational culture (COC) and to develop an instrument to measure the construct. In order to accomplish this goal, the researcher undertook a six phase mixed-methods study following accepted protocols for construct validation.

The six phases of this research study included precedent literature review, expert panel, modified Delphi study, instrument design, statistical analysis, and revisions to the survey. Pilot studies of the instrument were conducted at churches throughout the United States. The new instrument underwent statistical analysis for item correlation using exploratory factor analysis, for internal consistency reliability using Cronbach’s Alpha, and for content validity using an online survey of the expert panel.

While the instrument did not pass statistical tests for validity and reliability, the study yielded a definition for the new construct of church organizational culture (COC) and laid the foundation for additional research and development of a model and instrument to measure the construct. The research process also revealed a related construct of church leadership culture (CLC) and produced a reliable basic survey to measure six dimensions of CLC.

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