ABSTRACT
The study titled "Effects of Team Leadership
Clarity on Organizational Performance: A Study of Sunrise Flour Mill Limited,
Enugu State" aims to analyze the impact of team leadership clarity on
organizational performance, with a focus on manufacturing companies. It
investigates the perception of team leadership on performance, the influence of
leadership structure, and the relationship between team leadership clarity and
organizational performance, while also identifying challenges affecting
leadership performance.
Employing a descriptive research design, the study
utilizes both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data is collected
through surveys, questionnaires, and interviews, while secondary data is
gathered from various published and unpublished sources. The population of the
study consists of 230 individuals, with a sample size of 146 determined using
the Taro Yamane formula and selected through simple random sampling.
A well-structured questionnaire serves as the research
instrument, and data analysis employs descriptive statistics such as mean,
frequency, and percentage, along with regression analysis to test hypotheses.
The findings indicate that social-economic characteristics of staff have a
significant effect on team innovation, team innovation positively influences
performance, and leadership clarity positively impacts performance. Moreover,
periodic appraisals on team innovation are conducted by the management of
selected companies.
In conclusion, the study highlights the significance
of innovation in organizational performance, emphasizing the role of leadership
in fostering team innovation and achieving enhanced performance. Effective
leadership is crucial for inspiring and developing the potential of
subordinates towards organizational goals. Leadership training is identified as
a factor influencing company performance.
Based on the findings, the study recommends that
organizations promote common interests among members, foster teamwork for
generating innovative ideas, ensure effective leadership through screening and
training, appoint leaders based on merit, and cultivate a supportive
environment for both leaders and subordinates to enhance organizational
performance.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
of the Study
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
1.3 Objectives
of the Study
1.4 Research
Questions
1.5 Research
Hypotheses
1.6 Significance
of the Study
1.7 Scope
of the Study
1.7.1 Unit
of Scope
1.7.2 Content
Scope
1.7.3 Geographical
Scope
1.8 Limitations
of the Study
1.9 Operational
Definition of Terms
1.10 Brief
Profile of the Organization under Study
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1
Conceptual Framework
2.1.1 Leadership
2.1.2 Team Leadership
2.1.3
Leadership Clarity
2.1.3.1
Vision Clarity (VC)
2.1.3.2
Vision Support (VS)
2.1.3.3
Role Clarity (RC)
2.1.4
History of the Nigerian Manufacturing Sector
2.1.5
Overview of Leadership Qualities and Responsibilities
2.1.6
Role of Leadership Clarity on Company Innovativeness and Performance
2.1.7 Evaluation
of Organizational Performance
2.2 Theoretical
Framework
2.2:1 Democratic Theory
2.2.2 Great Man Theories (Thomas Carlyle,
1800)
2.2.3 Trait
Theories (Thomas Carlyle, 1800)
2.2.4 Contingency
Theories (Fred Fiedler 1960)
2.2.5 Situational Theories (Hersey and
Blanchard)
2.2.6 Behavioral Theories
2.2.7 Participative Theories
2.2.8 Management Theories (Max Weber,
1947)
2.2.9 Relationship Theories (Burns, 1978
And Bass, 1985)
2.3 Empirical
Review
2.4 Summary
of the Reviewed Related Literature
2.5 Gap
in Literature
CHAPTER
3
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research
Design
3.2 Sources
of Data Collections
3.3 Population
of the Study
3.4 Sample
Size Determination
3.5 Sample
and Sampling Technique
3.6 Descriptive
Of Research Instrument `
3.7 Validity
of the Research Instrument
3.8 Reliability
of the Research Instrument
3.9 Method
of Data Analysis
3.10 Model
Specification
CHAPTER 4
DATA
PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 Data
Presentation
4.2 Questionnaire
Analysis
4.3. Analysis of Data on
Hypothesis One
4.4. Analysis of Data on
Hypothesis Two
4.4.1. Test of
Hypothesis Two
4.5. Analysis of Data on
Hypothesis Three
4.4.1. Test of
Hypothesis Three
4.6 Discussion
on Findings
CHAPTER
5
SUMMARY,
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary
of Findings
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendations
References
Appendix: Research Questionnaire
CHAPTER
1
INTRODUCTION
1.1
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Whether
the context is producing TV programmes, training for war, developing new
products in manufacturing organizations, or providing financial services, the
use of work teams is both ubiquitous and increasing (Guzzo, 1996). Team working
is associated with improved financial performance (Macy and Izumi, 1993) and
with improvements in organizational efficiency and quality (Applebaum and Batt,
1994). One reason why organizations are creating team-based structures is that
this form of working provides the flexibility needed to respond effectively,
appropriately, and quickly to the constantly changing demands in the
organization’s environment (Zaccaro, Rittman, and Marks, 2001).
Researchers
have focused on investigating the factors that influence the effectiveness of
work groups or teams, from the shop floor through to top management teams. Much
of the research on team effectiveness has focused on task outputs (products and
services provided by the team), but much less has been devoted to investigating
what factors influence whether teams generate and implement ideas for new and
improved products, services, and ways of doing things at work (West, 2002).
The
writings of researchers investigating creativity and innovation among work
teams have focused on three main themes (West, 2002): (a) the group task and
the demands and opportunities it creates for creativity and innovation, (b)
diversity in knowledge and skills among team members, and (c) team
integration—the extent to which team members work in integrated ways to
capitalise on their diverse knowledge and skills. Whether and how leadership in
teams influences team innovation has not been explored. Little is also known
about how leaders create and manage effective teams and promote effective team
processes (Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Zaccaro, 2001) and how leaders create and
maintain favourable performance conditions for the team (Hackman, 1990, 2002). Innovation is the
introduction of new and improved ways of doing things at work. It is a process
that is distinct from creativity, which encompasses the processes leading to
the generation of new and valued ideas. A fuller, more explicit definition of
innovation is “..the intentional introduction and application within a job, work team,
or organization of ideas, processes, products, or procedures, which are new to
that job, work team, or organization and which are designed to benefit the job,
the work team, or the organization (West and Farr, 1990).
Various processes and products may be regarded as
innovations. They include technological changes such as new products but may
also include new production processes, the introduction of advanced
manufacturing technology, or the introduction of new computer support services
within an organization. Administrative changes are also regarded as
innovations. New human resource management (HRM) strategies, organizational
policies on health and safety, or the introduction of teamwork are all examples
of administrative innovations within organizations. Innovation implies novelty,
but not necessarily absolute novelty (West and Farr, 1990). Innovation implies
that to certain extent, standardised methods and routines are not readily
available within a team to address, for example, unforeseen changes, newly
discovered implications, or problems unknown before. Addressing such issues
requires conscious and immediate attention of all group members. Whether the
issues that become apparent to particular group members are relevant for other
group members’ tasks (and in what respect) needs to be decided quickly. Here,
leadership comes into play (whether it is shared or not), e.g., in terms of
proper alignment with the overall team goals and objectives and coordination of
problemsolving activities. To the extent that it is unclear who takes the
lead—and in the case of shared leadership, who takes the lead for what
particular task— responsibility for the advancement of innovations is diffused
and the likelihood that relevant issues are not addressed is high. More
specifically, we argue that lack of leadership clarity is negatively associated
with the team processes known to be relevant for innovation (Anderson and West,
1994).
Much of the research on team leadership
has focused on the contribution made by a single leader. However, leadership
can also be provided by one or more individuals who are either formally
appointed to the role or emerge from within die team. Leadership is important
even in self-managed teams, affecting both organizational factors, such as
acquiring resources for the team, and team member behavior, such as encouraging
the team to take control of its own activities (Nygren and Levine, 1996).
Indeed, research on self managed cross-functional project teams shows that they
are less likely to be successful if they do not have a leader (Cohen and
Bailey, 1997). We propose that irrespective of the team type and team task, a
factor that is critical to the role of leadership in fostering team innovation
is that team members are clear about who is in this role (regardless of whether
leadership is shared). In contrast to classic leadership research (Yukl, 2002),
where usually attributes of an individual in a leading position are conceptualized
as leadership (e.g., leadership style and leadership behavior), the concept
used here is on the team level of analysis. Leadership clarity pertains to the
shared perceptions of group members about the extent to which leadership roles
are clear within the team. We argue that lack of clarity about or conflict over
the leadership role will be negatively associated with team innovation.
1.2
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Every organization, cities large or
small, struggles to acquire productivity through improved performance so as to
achieve success and maintain a valuable image in the present world of
organizational competitiveness. And it’s the wish of organization to see the
input they use and the resultant output they have at the end (Ruth, 2007).
The population of workers in an organization
may be very large and yet that organization is achieving a very low
productivity due to poor performance and with no improvement in their products,
could this occur as a result of absence of team work of leadership clarity to
such organizations?.
Lack of teamwork in the organization
is the failure of such organization to coordinate works into work group in
order to tap from the respective human resources the organization possesses
similar, poor leadership clarity and style may be as a result of the leadership
style of the organization possibly not favourable to team work and this has
greatly influenced the level of performance of such organization.
However, it has been observed that
most companies, in Enugu, fail to pay attention to managing these problems of
poor team work and leadership clarity and these has largely contributed to
inefficiency in production system, lack of growth and declining profits
currently fused by most of the manufacturing forms.
1.3
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The broad objective of the study is
to analyse the effects of team leadership clarity on organizational
performance. The specific objectives will be to;
i.
investigate the perception of team leadership
on performance of manufacturing companies,
ii.
investigate the effect of leadership
structure on organizational performance
iii.
examine the relationship between team
leadership clarity on the performance of selected manufacturing companies
iv.
ascertain the challenges affecting leadership
performance.
1.4
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Based on the objective of the study,
the following research question was analyses.
i.
What is the perception of team leadership
on performance of manufacturing companies?
ii.
What is the effect of leadership structure
on organizational performance?
iii.
What is the relationship between team
leadership clarity on the performance of selected manufacturing companies?
iv.
What is the challenges affecting leadership
performance?
1.5
RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The following hypotheses were tested
H01 Team leadership has no significant effect
on performance of manufacturing companies
H02 Leadership structure has no significant
effect on organizational performance
H03 There is no positive significant
relationship between team leadership clarity on the performance of selected
manufacturing companies.
H04 There is no significant difference on the challenges
affecting leadership performance.
1.6
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study will be significant in many
ways. In the first instance, a review of team innovation and leadership clarity
will provide valuable information in the problem inherent in poor team
innovativeness and leadership styles, and thus reveal the appropriate measures
to promote team innovation and leadership clarity which will in turn result to
increased organizational performance.
Furthermore, the production
management personnel, organizational specialist and others in the manufacturing
companies will be provided with additional knowledge on ways of camping with
divergent team characters in production, which is aimed at enhancing production
performance and thus the overall growth of the organization, this work will
also create awareness for management scholars on the need to promote team
innovation and leadership clarity since it will offer helpful recommendation
the benefits likely to be achieved in organization , and execute production
activities properly in the manufacturing companies. This work will some as a
guide and references materials to students who intend to carry out a research,
read or write more on this topic. Above all, those who will make or carry out a
research in future will find it useful in meeting their goals.
1.7
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
1.7.1 Unit of scope
The top management, senior management,
middle management and intermediate level management of Emenite and Sunrise
Flour mill is sampled to elicit their perspective on the effect of team
innovation and leadership clarity on the performance of their organization.
1.7.2 Content scope
The study is designed to investigate
the effect of team innovation and leadership clarity on organization
performance of selected manufacturing companies in Enugu State.
1.7.3 Geographical scope
This study covered in details past
and present team innovations and leadership styles practiced in the selected
organizations.
The specific objectives to be
considered includes the socioeconomic characteristics of the workers, the
existing team innovations in the manufacturing companies, structure of
leadership style prevailing to the selected companies, effect of team
innovation on performance of companies, effect of leadership clarity on
performance of companies, relationship between team innovation and leadership
clarity on performance of companies and factors limiting team innovation and
leadership performances.
1.8
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
A study of this magnitude cannot be
completed successfully without the researcher’s encountering some constraints
or limitations. Therefore, this work will not pretend to be containing all
holistic information on manufacturing companies team innovation and leadership
clarity on organizational performance, rather it endeavoured to highlight the
dominant issues and their impact in the growth of the manufacturing sector.
Another obvious limitation is on how
to trim the paper into a sizeable and acceptable volume for a post-graduate
diploma in business administration. This obviously will not be easy considering
the subject matter of this research which boarder on sensitive issues on the companies
team innovativeness and leadership styles; though this did not affect the
quality of this research work.
It is also pertinent to mention that
inadequacy of research work bordering on the subject matter, which is been
compounded by the inability of management bureaucracies to grant full access to
the researcher limited the extent of the researcher on the other hand, some
information are said to be classified and out-of-bound information to most
staff. Considering this, the researcher will have to seek other means to
supplement and consolidate the information through the use of internet
materials, textbooks, journals, newspapers, magazine and past research projects
by students and research institutes.
Also, to be considered as innovation
in this study is on the inability to elicit theoretical information from online
information bordering on companies historical background.
The source of financing this research
is a broad limitation on this project as it is limited the researcher for
harnessing information from critical corners of the selected manufacturing
company.
However, the researcher ensureed that
the limitations/constraints did not affect the outcome of the study by
supplementing the available information through internet materials, text books,
journals and oral interview.
1.9
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS
1.
Team:
Team is a group of [people with a full set of complementary skills required to
complete a task, job or project. Team members operate with a high degree of
interdependence; share authority and responsibility for self-management are
accountable for the collective performance and work towards a common goal and
shared rewards (Business Dictionary, 2017). A team becomes more than just a
collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy,
thus generating performance greater than the sum of performance of its
individual members.
2.
Work
team: Work team is the ability of group of persons to work
together towards accomplishing a common task and vision.
It
is a fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
3.
Leadership:
Leadership is a process by which a person influences other to accomplish an
objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and
coherent.
Northouse
(2007) defined leadership as a process whereby an individual influences a group
of individuals to achieve a common goal.Leadership according to Zeitchik (2012)
is defined as a process of inspiring others to pursue your vision within the
parameters you set, to the extent that it becomes a shared efforts a shared
vision and a shared success.
4.
Leadership
style: Leadership style is a leader’s procedure of
directing, implementing plans and motivating people. Leadership style is the
manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans and motivating
people. As seen by employees, it includes the total pattern of explicit and
implicit actions performed by their leader (Newstrom Davis, 1993).
5.
Clarity:
Clarity is defined as the quality of clear in particular possessing the quality
of being coherent and intelligible.
According
to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, clarity is the quality of been easily
understood. The quality of being expressed, remembered and understood in a very
exact way.
6.
Leadership
clarity: Leadership clarity is defined as a process of a
person influences others to accomplish an objective in a clearly understood
manner. The leaders states clearly the tasks to be achieved and how best
(processes) to achieve these task in the best qualitative manner.
According
to Harnish Knox (215), a leader most important task is to create clarity for
themselves and the organization.
7.
Organization:
An organization is an organized group of people with a particular purpose.
Business dictionary defined organization as a social unit of people that is
structural and managed to meet a need or to pursue collective goals.
Organizations are open system; they affect and are affected by the environment.
8.
Performance:
Performance is a set of financial and non-financial indicators which affects
information on the degree of achievement of objective and results (Lebars and
Euske, 2006).
9.
Organizational
performance: Organizational performance comprises the
actual output or results of an organization as measured against its intended
outputs (or goals and objectives). According to Richard et al. (2009), organizational performance encompasses three
specific areas of firm outcomes; financial performance, product market
performance and shareholder return.
Segments, an overall forecast is
obtained (for example, total company sales). The classification approach is
most useful when the groups differ substantially from one another.
1.10 BRIEF
PROFILE OF THE ORGANIZATION UNDER STUDY
Profile of Sunrise Flour Mills Limited
Sunrise
Flour Mills Limited was incorporated as a limited liability Company in 1981.
While R.C.C Nigeria Limited handled all the civil construction work, Buhler -
Miag of Switzerland/Italy did the installation of the Flour Milling Machinery.
Sunrise Flour Mills Limited, was conceived by the defunct Anambra State
civilian administration of 1978 - 1979. It was however commissioned by the
military administration on 20th December 1984. It was then managed by Crown
Flour Mills Limited of Tincan Island, Lagos. This company is 100% owned by the
Enugu State Government. It is managed on behalf of the government by Flour
Mills of Nigeria PLC. This management agent is popularly known as the Golden
Penny Group of Companies World-wide. Flour Mills of Nigeria PLC are a group of
experts whose years of experience in Flour Milling business are now put into
use in the company. The result so far has proved Golden penny products as a
leader in Nigerian market. Flour Mills of Nigeria PLC was recently co-opted
into the company after over ten (10) years of closure and inactivity.
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