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Why some people are motivated to become leaders is important both conceptually and practically. Motivation to lead compels people to seek out leadership roles and is a distinct predictor of leader role occupancy. The goal of our research is to determine contextual (socioeconomic status and parenting quality), interpersonal (sociometric status), and personal (self-esteem and gender) antecedents of the motivation to lead among young adults.

The authors tested the model using two samples of Canadian undergraduate students (Sample 1: N = 174, M age = 20.02 years, 83% female; Sample 2: N = 217, M age = 18.8 years, 54% female). The authors tested the proposed measurement model using the first sample, and tested the hypothesized structural model using the second sample.

The proposed 5-factor measurement model provided an excellent fit to the data. The hypothesized model also provided a good fit to the data after controlling for potential threats from endogeneity. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between sociometric status and affective-identity motivation to lead, such that this interaction was significant for females but not males.

The findings make a practical contribution in understanding how parents, teachers, and organizations can encourage greater motivation to lead, especially among young adults who have faced poverty and marginalization and tend to be excluded from leadership positions in organizations.

The authors conceptualize and test the contextual, interpersonal, and personal predictors of affective-identity motivation to lead among young adults.

Facebook community leaders, often nonprofessionals who make a personal decision to create and manage online spaces, are becoming key players on social media sites. Using the theoretical framework of the uses and gratifications theory, this paper reveals the motivations of these individuals who are responsible for the community's information flow, limits and members' well-being. While some studies have begun acknowledging community leaders' important role in the social media, very little is known about their motivations for creating and leading the communities, often voluntarily.

Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, data were collected through a survey of 94 Facebook community leaders about their motivations for creating and leading their communities.

The content analysis of the open-ended question reveals that leaders are motivated to create communities to satisfy informational needs, social needs and individual interests. A factor analysis shows five distinct motivations for leading: social, personal, influence, efficacy and community goals. Finally, a hierarchical regression indicates that extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, time spent per day and being the creator of the community can predict the level of motivation to lead the Facebook community.

As more and more organizations use online communities, the findings of this study may provide insights into leaders' motivations that can help organizations select their community leaders. This study expands on current research about a popular communication tool, Facebook communities, by examining it within the context of the unique role of online leadership in the social media environment.

This study defined and developed a four-item scale to measure motivation to serve (MTS) then correlated it with Cerff’s Motivation to Lead’s two scales as well as Affective and Normative Commitment scores. A convenience sample of 89 participants came from a non-denominational church in Oklahoma City, OK. The MTS showed significant correlation with Normative Commitment but not with the two Motivation-to-Lead scales or Affective Commitment. The benefit of this study lies in the development of a new scale to measure Motivation to Serve and the understanding that the new scale is significantly correlated with Normative Commitment.

We present a framework for understanding the relationship between individual differences in leaders’ motivations and their engagement in leader development, and we empirically test that framework across three different operationalizations of engagement, demonstrating that the motivation to develop as a leader (MTDL) is distinct from other motivational constructs (specifically, motivation to lead and motivation to learn) and that MTDL differentially predicts engagement in leader development. Finally, we provide evidence that motivation and engagement mutually reinforce each other in a virtuous spiral during leader development.

This study examined the incoming leadership-oriented differences between students (N=166) enrolled in either an elective leadership studies course (n=50) or an elective team-based engineering projects course (n=116) to determine significant predictors of transformational leadership behavior. Participants completed measures of leadership-oriented behaviors, self-efficacy, and motivation. Students enrolled in the leadership studies course scored higher on measures of both transformational and transactional leadership behaviors, as well as motivation to lead based on affective identity and social-normative motivation. For students in the leadership course, the only significant predictor of transformational leadership was leadership-self-efficacy score. For students interested in team-based projects, the significant predictors included affective-identity and social-normative motivation to lead, as well as leadership self-efficacy. While women displayed higher motivation to lead across all motivation categories, neither race nor gender emerged as a significant predictor of leadership behaviors. These findings suggest the importance of self-efficacy in predicting behavior and the need to attend to students’ internal and external motivations in creating pathways to leadership practices.

The development of effective leadership capacity involves multiple factors including increasing students’ leadership self-efficacy, motivation to lead, and leadership skills. This study of 165 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory leadership theory course explores the degree to which students report changes in these three areas of leadership from the beginning to the end of the course. Our analysis showed two important findings. First, students report significant gains in leadership self-efficacy, transformational and transactional leadership skill, and each measured form of motivation to lead at the conclusion of the course. Second, a closer examination shows that student learning is not across-the-board but, rather, differentiated. Students experience significantly different outcomes depending on their levels of self-efficacy and motivation to lead when they enter the course. These findings not only have broad implications for the way colleges and universities structure curricula around leadership development, but they also inform theoretical model-building regarding the process of student leadership development.

The emergence of mHealth applications has led to the rise of health-based services delivered over smartphones. Younger people are often found to be more innovative toward technology, especially related to smartphones (Rai et al., 2013). Most mHealth application downloaders are continually shifting between applications because of the hyper-competition making achieving loyal consumers challenging (Racherla et al., 2012). The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants that help increase young consumers mHealth application loyalty. This study integrates self-determination theory (SDT), gamification elements and engagement to examine loyalty.

A valid sample of 263 college student’s data was obtained for data analysis from a survey conducted in multiple campuses of the Delhi University in India.

The three psychological needs: need for autonomy, need for competence and need for relatedness, showed a positive impact on intrinsic motivation. From the gamification factors; perceived playfulness, the level of challenge and social interaction, only the first two showed a positive impact on extrinsic motivation. Both motivation factors influence engagement, showing a frequent interaction with the application, leading to loyalty.

Previous studies examined the adoption of mHealth services, this study is one of the first to examine young consumers’ loyalty in using mhealth apps. It sheds light on the existing literature and contributes to research on mHealth applications by determining the factors that lead to loyalty by the young consumers.

This paper aims to test a model examining precursors and outcomes of nurses’ leadership self-efficacy, and their aspirations to management positions.

A cross-sectional survey of 727 registered nurses across Canada was conducted. Structural equation modelling using Mplus was used to analyse the data.

Results supported the hypothesized model: χ²(312) = 949.393; CFI = 0.927; TLI = 0.919; RMSEA = 0.053 (0.049-0.057); SRMR 0.044. Skill development opportunities (ß = 0.20), temporary management roles (ß = 0.12) and informal mentoring (ß = 0.11) were significantly related to nurses’ leadership self-efficacy, which significantly influenced motivation to lead (ß = 0.77) and leadership career aspirations (ß = 0.23). Motivation to lead was significantly related to leadership career aspirations (ß = 0.50).

Nurses’ leadership self-efficacy is an important determinant of their motivation and intention to pursue a leadership career. Results suggest that nurses’ leadership self-efficacy can be influenced by providing opportunities for leadership mastery experiences and mentorship support. Leadership succession planning should include strategies to enhance nurses’ leadership self-efficacy and increase front-line nurses’ interest in leadership roles.

With an aging nurse leader workforce, it is important to understand factors influencing nurses’ leadership aspirations to develop and sustain nursing leadership capacity. This research study makes an important contribution to the nursing literature by showing that nurses’ leadership self-efficacy appears to be an important determinant of their motivation to lead and desire to pursue a career as a nurse leader.

A sample (N=81) of undergraduates participating in a semester-long team-project engineering course completed assessments of their leadership competence, motivation to lead, and leadership self-efficacy, as well as the leadership competence of their peers who served within their durable teams. Results indicated that peers scored students lower than students scored themselves; that males deflated the transactional leadership scores of the female peers they assessed; and that the strongest individual predictor of teammate- assigned scores was a student’s affective-identity motivation to lead (i.e. the degree to which they considered themselves a natural leader). Leadership self-efficacy failed to significantly predict teammate scores.