ETHICAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES AS CORRELATES OF UNIVERSITIES’ REPUTATION IN BENUE STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated ethical leadership practices as correlates of universities’ reputation in Benue State, Nigeria. The purpose of the study was to investigate how ethical leadership practices correlate with universities’ reputation. The study was guided by two research questions, while two hypotheses were formulated and tested for the study. The design adopted for the study was correlational research design. The population was 6,930 staff in four public universities in Benue State, Nigeria. The sample size was 346 or 5% staff selected using simple random sampling technique. “Ethical Leadership Practices Questionnaire (ELPQ)” and “Universities’ reputation Questionnaire (URQ)” were used for data collection. The questionnaires were structured on a four-point scale with response modes of Strongly Agree (SD)=4; Agree (D)=3;  Disagree (A)=2 and Strongly Disagree (SA)=1. The instruments were validated by two experts in the Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education Rev. Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu University, Makurdi. A reliability test was conducted on 20 staff in one public university using Cronbach Alpha and yielded reliability coefficients of 0.87. The data collected for the study were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) to answer research questions and test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study showed that ethical leadership practices such as integrity and responsibility have significant strong positive correlation with universities’ reputation in Benue State, Nigeria. It was concluded that ethical leadership practices particularly integrity and responsibility play a critical role in shaping the reputation of universities in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommends among others that in order to uphold integrity and responsibility to promote universities’ reputation, Nigerian universities should adopt and enforce clear codes of conduct that promote transparency, honesty and fairness in all administrative and academic processes.