An Empirical Study of Confucianism

Globalization has led to increased interest in leadership in indigenous cultures. The current study focused on developing a scale of faculty members’ perception of preferred academic leadership in Chinese universities. Seven factors were generated from the Confucian principles of leadership and were used to code and group items gathered through interviews. A survey consisting of 41 leadership items was administered to participants. Confirmatory factor analyses of three hypothesized models using LISREL 8.8 demonstrate that the survey is reliable with five confirmed factors—morality, nurturing, communicating/relating, fairness, and administrative competence. The findings suggest that the contemporary Chinese view of leadership is consistent with the Confucian philosophy of leadership.

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