Development and validation of a situational judgement test of Japanese leadership knowledge

ABSTRACT

Leadership research has accumulated a wealth of empirical findings about what leadership behaviours are effective in various business environments. We took advantage of these empirical findings to develop a situational judgement test (SJT) of leadership knowledge with correct answers. The SJT contains four leadership dimensions: task-focused, relationship-focused, transformational, and developmental leadership. Item response theory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the psychometric properties of the SJT, based on a sample of 658 Japanese college students. Ultimately, we confirmed a four-factor model and retained 21 of 53 situation questions for the final SJT.

KEYWORDS:

• Japan
• leadership
• leadership behaviour
• leadership knowledge
• situational judgement test
• validation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Toshio Murase

Toshio Murase is Associate Professor of Management at Waseda University. His research interests are in the following areas: teams, leadership, social networks, and measurement issues. Dr. Murase obtained his Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology from University of Central Florida, and worked as post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern University and Georgia Institute of Technology. His research has appeared in the following journals: Journal of Management, The Leadership Quarterly, Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, & Practice, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Educational and Psychological Measurement, and Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice.

Adam Roebuck

Adam Roebuck is a doctoral student in the Management Department at University of Connecticut and holds an M.A. in Industrial Organizational Psychology. His main streams of research include teams, multilevel theory, social networks, and leadership. His research has appeared in the following journals: Journal of Management, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, and Sex Roles.

Kiyoshi Takahashi

Kiyoshi Takahashi is Professor of Psychology at Ritsumeikan University. His research interests include performance evaluation, development of leadership, and Dr. Takahashi obtained his Ph.D. in Management from University of Minnesota. He has done research extensively on various topics, producing more than 20 book chapters, 3 single-authored books, and more than 100 papers. His research has appeared in the following journals: Journal of World Business, Journal of Academy of Business and Economics, Business Studies Journal, Japan Labor Review.