| Over the last one hundred years, state-supported merchant marine education in the United States has evolved from a small group of men on sailing ships to diverse, multi-disciplined colleges with administrative teams that oversee the cadet corps in leadership development and merchant marine training. These leadership teams supervise and mentor the student cadets, and they are modeled after traditional military structures in other private, public, and federal military colleges. Unlike their military relatives, the leadership teams within merchant marine institutions do not hire solely from within their organizational culture, rather they hire from a diverse pool of public and private military, para-military, and merchant marine professionals. These administrators' experiences are diverse, which can lead to challenges in leadership team formation. Using phenomenological methodology, the study focused on the lived experiences of five administrators, exploring the primary research question: How do administrators at a state-supported merchant marine college describe their formation as the leadership team? Utilizing team cohesion as the theoretical framework, this study investigated the formation of one specific leadership team, opening the door to new research within merchant marine colleges, as well as adding to the research on leadership teams and the experiences of their members. |
