An assessment of the reliability and validity of the leadership practices inventory in Hong Kong

Abstract

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to assess the construct validity and reliability of the Leadership Practices Inventory in a non-western setting.

METHODOLOGY The LPI was sent to 155 middle managers in eight diverse organizations, all located in Hong Kong. One hundred and four responded (67% response rate) and they ranged in age from 26 to 55 with an average age of 39 years and 63 percent were male, 96 percent had at least a high school education (49% had some university education or an undergraduate degree), and they had been with their organizations an average of 4.5 years.

KEY FINDINGS Factor analysis with varimax rotation revealed a three-factor solution, with clear distinct factors, explaining over 57 percent of the variance. The factors closely corresponded with Enabling, Modeling and Encouraging, suggesting that “the proposed five dimensions of LPI were not confirmed and only three factors were revealed in a non-western setting. Internal consistency for the LPI, estimated using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, ranged from .744 to .834 and were equivalent to those reported by Kouzes and Posner (1988) (p. 59).

The author concludes: “The participants in this study were practicing managers in Hong Kong and their cultural norms probably influenced how they perceived leadership.....one of the prime differences between Chinese and North American culture appears to be the collective orientation of the former and the individualistic orientation of the latter....Challenging the process and inspiring a (shared) vision may not be commonly practiced in a collective culture. More research should be conducted to further investigate these differences” (p. 59).