Higher education has undergone various transformations in the last few decades due to the massive increase in students and universities and the advancement of information technology that contributes to crucial changes in operationalization and what universities can provide (Brennan et al., 2018). The success of higher education institutions in increasing differentiation between various scientific fields and knowledge to solve actual problems creates pressure on those institutions to improve their research and consultative functions to be more involved in people's lives and contribute to economic and social development, as well as increase competitiveness between higher education institutions, both at national and global levels. Various transformations and expectations for higher education institutions are also closely related to changes in the internal management of the universities, including managerialism, marketing, audits, and corporatization (Szekeres, 2004).
Thus, universities face a double challenge: increasing internal capabilities to compete globally and develop sustainable leadership. These challenges have prompted various approaches to leadership in higher education to be explored. Attention focused on the leaders began to shift towards awareness of the potential for effective leadership throughout the organization (Ramsden, 1998). That means that all parties in the organization have an essential role in an effective leadership process in higher education, both as followers and leaders.
Along with organizations' various transformations, followers' responsibilities become more considerable. The organization's various efficiency efforts enable followers to carry out functions previously performed by leaders. This change in the workplace means that greater attention is needed to followership as a component of the overall leadership process within the organization.
Higher education is no exception; it needs to look closely at followership, especially in faculty. As part of a higher education organization, faculty are essential components and have a strategic and significant role in achieving organizational goals. At the same time as universities' various transformations, faculty are increasingly expected to take on a broader institutional role. In addition, increased accountability measures result in higher administrative demands for faculty to align their personal goals with the institution's (Potter & Rosenbach, 2006). A thorough understanding of followership will strengthen organizational performance, and continuous learning about the behavior of its members also helps universities achieve better success in complex and demanding environments (Billot et al., 2013).
The topic of followership has started to draw attention in organizations over the last three decades (Carsten et al., 2010; Kelley, 1992; Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). Followership differs from a leadership perspective focusing on followers (follower-centric views). The leadership perspective that focuses on followers sees followers as parties who construct assumptions about leaders or leadership. Meanwhile, followership refers to beliefs, characteristics, and behaviors that followers carry to the relationship with the leader and how they influence leadership and organizational outcomes (Carsten et al., 2010).
Followers are increasingly being recognized as partners in achieving shared goals through relationships with leaders and as having as significant influence as leaders on organizational success (Chaleff, 1995; Kelley, 1992). Various studies have shown that followership is related to organizational results, such as organizational performance (Kim & Schachter, 2015), as well as individual results of the followers themselves, such as individual performance (Leroy et al., 2015), commitment (Blanchard et al., 2009), job satisfaction (Blanchard et al., 2009), burn-out and work stress (Kang et al., 2016).
Although followership as an area of study is experiencing growth and is related to various outcomes for organizations, empirical studies on followership theory are still in their infancy (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014), especially in the particular context of higher education institutions. Due to the specific characteristics and nature of academic work, followership among faculty in higher education institutions needs to be viewed differently from that among members of business organizations and other non-academic organizations, in which followership has been predominantly studied (Billot et al., 2013).
Like other professionals such as researchers or doctors, faculty are seen as reluctant to occupy positions as leaders or followers (Clegg & McAuley, 2005). Faculty see themselves as autonomous professionals who have many choices and are generally able to manage themselves (Evans, 2008). However, apart from having academic authority in their scientific field, faculty in higher education institutions are also bound by administrative authority, which official authorities, or so-called structural leaders, support. Institutional characteristics of universities also affect followership. Organizational theorists describe universities as unique institutions: semi-anarchic, loosely coupled organizations associated with a robust academic subculture and a distinctive academic and professional character (Beerkens & Hoek, 2022; Cohen & March, 1974; Handoyo, 2010). These characteristics create a unique leadership context and emphasize the importance of paying close attention to followership among faculty.
Followership as an area of study needs to be developed due to the relatively limited amount of empirical research on this topic compared to conceptual discussions. A literature review on followership between 1988 and 2015 found that of the 88 articles reviewed, 41 were conceptual articles, 12 were literature reviews, and only 35 were empirical (Byun et al., 2016). One of the reasons for the limited number of identified empirical studies on followership is the need for valid and reliable followership measurement instruments (Park, 2013).
The need for valid and reliable measurement instruments creates theoretical gaps that research needs to address. Therefore, this study purposes to develop a new scale to measure followership. Validated instruments can stimulate the growth of subsequent studies in the field of followership, expand understanding of followership, and provide opportunities to advance the development of followership theories by increasing the number of quantitative studies on followership (Park, 2013). A valid and reliable instrument for measuring followership in the context of higher education institutions is urgently needed to become the basis for drawing appropriate conclusions, resulting in a strong understanding of organizational phenomena (Hinkin, 1995).
Uhl-Bien et al. (2014) intensively reviewed various literature related to followership. They concluded that there are two approaches to research on followership, namely: (1) a role-based approach, which views followership as a role performed by individuals who occupy formal as well as informal positions and focuses on the follower characteristics and behaviors, and (2) a constructionist approach, which describes followership and leadership as something that is built together in social and relational interactions between the people involved.
This study uses a role-based followership perspective and focuses on followership behaviors by faculty. The focus on followership behaviors was chosen because behaviors are the center of a role-based perspective and are the primary determinant of achieving organizational outcomes (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). In addition, this research is expected to indirectly strengthen followership development efforts by conceptualizing followership as behavior that can be learned as a theoretical basis for those development efforts. In the role-based follower approach, followership is often defined based on conceptualizing effective followership (Stech, 2008). The discussion of the characteristics of effective followership is thus essential in the followership literature.
Before taking the first step in developing the instrument, a review of the conceptualization or definition of followership was first carried out. The goal was to develop a definition of followership, which would be confirmed or tested in the next step. Crossman and Crossman (2011), through a literature review, classified the concept of followership based on various followership concepts. Based on this, it was concluded that most of the definitions proposed by experts have the main features that define followership as individual behavior in relationships with leaders to achieve organizational goals (Carsten et al., 2010; Chaleff, 1995; Kelley, 1992; Potter & Rosenbach, 2006). Although these various definitions provide different explanations about followership, there are some similarities in the key behaviors that form effective followership, namely the existence of personal initiative (Alcorn, 1992; Chaleff, 1995; Kelley, 1992; Potter & Rosenbach, 2006); a willingness to speak-up constructively (Alcorn, 1992; Carsten et al., 2010; Chaleff, 1995; Kelley, 1992); behave collaboratively (Alcorn, 1992; Carsten et al., 2010; Chaleff, 1995; Potter & Rosenbach, 2006), and uphold ethics (Alcorn, 1992; Carsten et al., 2010; Chaleff, 1995, Kelley, 1988).
In conclusion, a comprehensive review implies a subsequent theoretical definition of followership: behaviors of individuals in relationships with leaders to achieve organizational goals, which include (a) personal initiative, (b) voice, (c) collaborative behavior, and (d) ethical behavior.
Several instruments have been developed to measure followership. Initially, Kelley's (1992) idea of followership was the most widely used concept in measuring followership in the existing literature. The original version of the questionnaire, namely Kelley's Followership Questionnaire or KFQ (1992), includes 20 items divided into two subscales that reflect the dimensions of followership: active engagement and independent critical thinking. Although Kelley's (1992) followership model is essential to followership (Crossman & Crossman, 2011), the assessment of KFQ needs to show strong support for Kelley's model. In the publication of the questionnaire, Kelley should have reported the validity and reliability of the instrument (Peterson et al., 2020). Various attempts were made to modify or test the validity and reliability of the instrument (e.g., Blanchard et al., 2009; Gatti et al., 2014; Ghislieri et al., 2015).
The Followership Profile (TFP) is based on the courage followership concept of Chaleff (1995) developed by Dixon (2003). TFP consists of five components: courage to accept responsibility, courage to serve leaders, courage to challenge leaders, courage to participate in change or transformation, and courage to take moral action. This instrument received little quantitative testing that exceeded the initial efforts made by the instrument developers (Dixon & Westbrook, 2003). The lack of further testing is possible partly due to theoretical issues arising from the operational definitions (Hogan, 2020).
Sy (2010) developed Implicit Followership Theories Instruments (IFTs), which consisted of 18 items that measure how leaders perceive effective followers, as the Implicit Leadership Theories Instrument (ILT) measures. This instrument was developed based on detailed scale development and validation steps and reported its psychometric properties in total. However, this instrument was developed based on the leader's perspective toward the followers and not from the followers' perspective. In addition, this instrument focuses on followers' cognitive schemata rather than on learnable followers' behaviors; thus, this instrument was not used as a reference in developing the scale in this study.
As the interest in research on followership increases, the measurement of followership needs to be improved. Uhl-Bien et al. (2014) concluded in their literature review on followership that there is a need for continued theorization among followership researchers, considering the unique structure and context of followership. Careful and more context-appropriate measurements of followership can be obtained if there are more reliable measurements in theory. In this article, we explain the development of the Effective Followership Scale for faculty based on the conceptualization of followership in higher education institutions from the faculty's perspective, which was created to follow up on these suggestions and upgrade the followership measure.
Aims of this study
Study 1 was a qualitative analysis aimed at empirically confirming the definition of followership and developing an initial pool of items. Study 2 identified the initial factor structure using exploratory factor analysis. Study 3 used the confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the factor structure and obtain evidence of convergent and discriminant validity and internal consistency reliability. Finally, in Study 4, the criterion-related validity of the scale was examined by correlating followership to individual work performance.