AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF CHANGING TASK STRUCTURE IN THE CONTINGENCY MODEL

AN EXERCISE IN SITUATIONAL ENGINEERNG

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of controlling the characteristics of a leadership situation in order to provide an effective performance comparison with leadership-style as an extension of Fiedler's contingency model in “Situational Engineering” .
Task structure as a situational variable was designed experimentally. The subjects were organized into twenty groups, each by three people.
The possibility of engineering job situation to increase efficiency was suggested by the results. Especially when the task structure was changed from a structured task to an unstructured task, the group effectiveness shifted up or down significantly as group effectiveness of the contingency model predicts. In the stituation where the order was reversed results were similar, but they were not significant.