Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if the quality of the leader-member exchange has a direct influence on a special education administrator's intent to stay in an organization. Further, it was the purpose of the study to determine if the quality of the leader-member exchange influences the level of job embeddedness of a special education administrator. Finally, it was the purpose of this study to assess the mediating effects of job embeddedness on leader-member exchange and a special education administrator's intent to stay in a particular organization. Methodology. Survey research with a correlation statistical technique (correlation and multiple regression analyses) was utilized to describe and measure the association of several variables. Ninety-six special education administrators in the state of California responded to 3 research instruments: Holtom Short Version 18-item Job Embeddedness Scale, 7-item Leader-Member Exchange-7 (LMX-7), and Mitchel 4-item Intent to Stay Scale. Findings and Conclusions. Leader-member exchange directly influenced an administrator's intent to stay on the job, but given the standard model of job embeddedness, there was no statistically significant relationship and therefore no mediating effect of job embeddedness with intent to stay. However, a reformulated model of job embeddedness with organizational and community links removed was significantly related to, and had some mediating effects on, an administrator's intent to stay. A major limitation of this study is that, because the researcher was not able to get an exact count of the population and cannot be certain who was involved in the study and who was left out, the sampling procedures were not consistent with random sampling, so the resulting data can only be generalized on a limited basis. Recommendations. This study should be replicated by an agency or association that has better access to district and county special education administrators. Future research could investigate why community and organizational links had a negative relationship with special education administrators. Furthermore, research should be conducted in other specialty areas to determine if this negative relationship exists in other leadership circumstances. Future research should focus on ferreting out the tasks and skills that are most relevant for the administration and management of special education programs.