Higher education schools acting in a competitive and increasingly requiring to meet the consumerism-based requirements of higher education space, are affected organisationally, and scientists as the key intellectual actors in an academic community experience challenges in their everyday scientific/academic activities (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). 

An intellectual leader in academic context committed to the attainment of institutional objectives, through s/he must be able to articulate reasonable alternative view about the process leading to the achievements and show the ability to critique the objectives if necessary (Blackmore and Blackwell, 2006). Intellectual leadership means the organic personality of an intellectual in order to displace the status quo through being not detached from their peers and acting as organizers of ideas (Stevenson, 2012). The task of an intellectual leader is to establish an environment for effective and efficient group operations, when the environment is characterized by intentional structure of roles and commonality of purpose (Koontz, 1963). 

Intellectual leader - a scientist - directs his/her leadership towards (Macfarlane, 2011):

i) students through teaching, advicing, (co)supervising;

ii) colleagues researchers and academics through being a role model and mentor, (co)authorship with inexperienced researchers and higher education school teachers;

iii) higher education school in the internal context through representing the department in the higher education school, influencing the work and direction of the higher education school, and serving in higher education school committees;

iv) higher education school in the external context by influencing the public debate, and the internal context. 

The intellectual leadership is related to the following roles: academic citizen (using the expert power; autonomous acting in particular expertise-based processes, etc.), critic (reviewing, conceptualising, discussing, etc.), mentor (being a role model in research and teaching; participation, delegation and teamwork, etc.), and knowledge producer (creating networks inside and outside the higher education school and nationally, and internationally, etc.). These roles are directed towards building social and intellectual capital through intellectual leader’s (sicentist’s) involvement into community collaborative decision-making and empowerment. Here the social capital means resources (power and information) to bound the community’s social relationship that can be used to leverage additional resources. The resources of both the individual and the community can be used to obtain or maintain additional advantages by drawing on resources within and beyond the immediate community (Bolivar and Chrispeels, 2011).    

The aim was to explore the roles through which the intellectual leadership of a scientist is implemented in higher education school.   

Research question: How are perceived the roles of a scientist by implementing the intellectual leadership in higher education school?

The research design was quantitative. The data were collected by applying the questioning survey and using the closed-ended questionnaire. The main sample attirubute in research refers to already awarded PhD degree. The simple random sampling was applied by providing the request to fill in the closed-ended questionnaire for each potential respondent. On the whole, there were 318 questionnaires filled in. However 14 questionnaire were filled in incompletely. Therefore 304 questionnaires were correct. The research participants have acquired PhD in the period from 1968 to 2015. The main part of the sample consisted of representatives from social sciences. The majority of respon dents had more than 5 years’ experience of working in higher education school. More than 1/4 of respondents ahd more than 20 years of experience. The majority of scientists carry out research activities in the same field they defended dissertations; only 14 respondents carry out interdisciplinary research. The least part of respondents refers to the young scientists till 30 years old and those who are more than 65 years old. The majority of respondents were 41-15 years old. The construct of the questionnaire was based on the conception of Macfarlane (2011, 2012) on “Intellectual leadership in higher education”. The tool consistet of 3 parts, 12 questions, 116 statements in total. The measure every statement in the 2nd and 3rd parts, respondents were asked to use the Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). The data analysis was based on the applied methods of mathematical statistical analysis using MS Excell and SPSS (22.0). Descriptive analysis was applied for a sample data to be generalized according to frequences, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and presenting results in graphic charts. Cronbach’s alpha was applied for disclosing the internal coherence of the subscale: coherence was considered to be adequate if Cronbach’s alpha exceeds 0,7. ANOVA were applied with the aim to compare indexes between diverse groups of respondents. Comparison of mean using derivate indicators was applied for evaluation of scientist roles’ importance (roles’ ratings). The Spearman correlation coefficient was calculated. Correlation between blocks refers to derivative indicators and was applied with the aim to determine the strongest.

Findings 13 statements decribe scientist’s activities in regard to the role of critic. The statements uniting perceptions of paradigm change inter-correlate particularly (inter-corellation exceeds 0,9). 15 statements describe scientist as a mentor. The strongest correlation were detected between the statements “I experience success when my students or learners become autonomous and “I help less experienced colleagues by encouraging them and fostering their potential (r=0,820, p=0,000), with statements “I am following the principle of equivalence between generations” (r=0,849, p=0,000), and between the statements “I give others opportunities to implement scientific research and “I give others opportunities to acquire chances for cooperation” (r=0,856, p=0,000). 20 statements describe the role of a scientist as a knowledge producer . Strong correlations are determined between the statement “I refer to interdisciplinary research while seeking to generate new ideas, attitudes, and academic territories”, and the statements: “I seek for theoretical and practical impact while creating models and making discoveries” (r=0,691, p=0,000), “I work for personal knowledge deepening and expansion (r=0,703, p=0,000), “I develop conceptual and empirical research in represented scientific field” (r=0,744, p=0,000), “I develop links between scientific fields while implementing scientific research” (r=0,843, p=0,000), “I develop links between scientific fields while teaching” (r=0,845, p=0,000), “I combine perspectives of several scientific fields in implemented research” (r=0,790, p=0,000). There are 2 statements out of 13 indicating not significant or medium strong correlations referring to the statements, which describe the role of scientist as an academic citizen. Strong correlation is detected between the statements: “I search for science-based methods allowing to change the practice” and “I am ready to accomplish work for society being related to my scientific roles (r=0,771, p=0,000), and “I consider my work as application of scientific competence for the public interest (r=0,719, p=0,000).

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