ERIC Number: ED242103
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1983
Pages: 33
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
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Available Date: N/A
Ego Development and Managerial Effectiveness: Early Findings from Offering Managers Feedback on Loevinger's Ego Development Measure.
Merron, Keith; Torbert, William R.
Since 1980, Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test has been used to explore the relationship between ego development and managerial effectiveness in the context of Boston College's Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program. According to the theory of ego development developed by Loevinger and others, most adults either inhabit one of four distinct worldviews or are in transition between them. The four worldviews, in ascending order of maturity, are (1) opportunistic, (2) social, (3) goal-oriented, and (4) integrative. In contrast to the first three, all of which are to some extent blind to opposing worldviews, the integrative worldview recognizes the partial validity of each of the other three. The two most frequent transitions the research has documented are the"analytic"--between social and goal-oriented worldviews--and the "relativistic"--between the goal-oriented and the integrative. Although recent research indicates that persons with relativistic and integrated worldviews make the best managers, most MBA students fall into other categories. The results of individual and group feedback sessions--as illustrated by the detailed presentations in this document of four separate cases involving four different worldviews--tend to confirm the "internal validity" of the Loevinger measure in predicting the relation of worldview to behavior. (JBM)
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Researchers; Administrators; Practitioners
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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Author Affiliations: N/A