The Administrative Empowerment and its Relationship with the Innovative Behavior among the Head / Coordinators of the Academic Department at the Faculty of Science and Arts, Sharurah - Najran University

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the degree of administrative empowerment as well as the degree of the innovative behavior among the head/ coordinators of the academic department at the Science and Art Faculty in Sharurah from the faculty members' perspective during the academic Year 1434- 1435 H. It points out if there is correlation between the administrative empowerment and the innovative behavior according to the study variables: gender, major, teaching experience, and academic rank to achieve the objectives of the study.

Two questionnaires were designed to collect data, the first is used to measure the degree of the administrative empowerment among the head/ coordinators of the academic department at the Science and Art Faculty, while the second is used to measure the degree of the innovative behavior among the academic coordinators at the Faculty of Science and Art .The study sample involves (120) male faculty members and (44) female faculty members who were selected randomly from different human and scientific departments at the Faculty of Science and Arts in Sharurah. To answer the questions of the study, the two researchers develop the first questionnaire, which is divided into two parts. The first part is concerned with the personal data, while the second part relates to the administrative empowerment, which contains (45), items distributed on four domains: the administrative work, authority of delegation, self-motivation, communications and human relations. Meanwhile the second questionnaire is, developed by researchers, having (47) items distributed on five domains: mental characteristics, emotional characteristics, innovation and originality, teamwork and simulation

The study shows that head/ coordinators of the academic department at the Faculty of Science and Arts have a medium degree of administrative empowerment and a medium degree of innovative behavior alike. It also indicates that there is a positive correlation, which has statistical significance between the degree of administrative empowerment among the head/ coordinators of the academic department and their innovative behavior.

At the light of this study, the two researchers recommended holding training courses related to the administrative operations among academic coordinators based on efficiency and opportunity equality. The study also recommends selecting the academic Heads / coordinators from those who have innovative leaders and believe in innovation and tendency to take risks.