Leadership styles and quality of work life in SMEs

Andalas Management Review, 2021

Empirically, previous studies found effective leadership style is critically important in improving small and medium enterprises (SME) performance in both developing and developed countries. However, many SME leaders face some problems related to leadership style due to the lack of understanding of which leadership style is appropriate. Hence, this study attempted to review various leadership styles associated with SME performance and variables that possibly mediate-moderate in-betweens. We explore in-depth 46 empirical research articles related to the leadership style and SME performance published between 2012-2021 through various reputable journal indexing sites. We found and categorized six different leadership styles that effectively improve SME performance containing transformational-transactional, entrepreneurial, sustainable, strategic, servant, as well as ethical and Islamic leadership. Among all the above leadership styles, transformational and entrepreneurial leadership are the most studied and empirically found effective in improving overall SME performance. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed further.

2019

Leadership helps to direct, guide and persuade employees towards achieving their personal and organizational goals. As a result of lack of appropriate leadership skills many SMEs fail to involve their employees in decision making thus hindering the achievement of these organizations. This study examined the impact of leadership style on small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) performance in Kaduna State. The study used a crosssectional survey research setting to obtain data from owners-managers of SMEs. The population of the study consists of 2882 SMEs in Kaduna State out of which 385 SMEs was drawn as the sample size. The sampling technique for this study is the simple random sampling technique. PLS Path analysis was used to analvze the data and the results showed that leadership style have significant and positive effect on SMEs performance. The study concludes that authoritarian, democratic and laissez-fair leadership styles impact positively on SMEs performance but at varying ...

WORLD JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS STUDIES, 2022

The performance of Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs) has been a subject of continual interest to both researchers and practitioners. This study examined the relationship between leadership styles and Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs) performance. Leadership is a key factor for improving the performance of any organization. The objectives of the study are to: examine the effect of autocratic leadership style on SMEs performance; examine the impact of transformational leadership style on SMEs performance; examine the impact of democratic leadership style on SMEs performance and to examine the impact of transactional leadership style on SMEs performance. A survey research was adopted for the study. Questionnaire was the major instrument of data collection. Pearson Moment Product Correlation Coefficient and Regression analysis were utilized. The finding shows that transactional leadership style does have a significant impact on the SMEs performance and autocratic leadership style has a negative impact on SMEs performance. In conclusion, democratic leadership style has a significant positive impact on SMEs performance. It was recommended that the right leaders with high capability be identified at all levels of SMEs, especially in Abuja.

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Journal of Business & Tourism

We analyze four different leadership styles from multiple dimensions to find out the suitability of these styles for the leaders working in Pakistani small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Theoretically, it is an additional perspective in the debate on effectiveness of different leadership styles in different environments for different purposes. It starts with analyzing contemporary theories of leadership and their derivative styles. Next, it discusses the major aspects of organizational environment coming from the broader culture of a country. Subsequently, it tries to provide a more balanced view in the debate on cause and effect of leadership styles and their effectiveness in specific organizational culture. In the empirical analyses the study analyzes the productivity, acceptance and sustainable success of different leadership styles in the organizations working in Pakistan. The data is collected both from business leaders and their relevant followers. The findings of study explai...

Proceedings on Engineering Sciences, 2021

Quality of Work-life (QWL) has gained wide attention from various researchers in the recent decade. It is the means for attracting and retaining a talented workforce by providing a conducive and humanized working environment. The present study analyzes the level of QWL in manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) located in and around Bangalore city. Further, the research attempts to investigate the association between QWL with demographical characteristics. The data were collected using structured questionnaires consisting of general information and questions about nine QWL factors with 49 items. The structured questionnaire was administrated to 750 employees, and the responses were analyzed using statistical software. The research findings revealed that all the demographic factors were significantly associated with QWL.

JOSHUA, 2016

Abstract This research seeks to determine the effect of leadership Style on organizational performance in Small and Medium Scale enterprises in Makurdi metropolis of Benue State, Nigeria with reference to Water First Rehoboth Limited, Steam Fast Restaurant and Panet Technologies Limited. Data was collected from a population and sample of 70 staff of the organisations and analysed with Friedman’s Chi-Square statistics using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The results show that transformational leadership style exert a positive but insignificant effect on employee performance while transactional leadership style has a positive significant effect on employee performance. It is concluded that transactional leadership style is more appropriate in inducing performance in small scale enterprises in Makurdi metropolis than transformational leadership style. It is recommended that small scale enterprises should adopt transactional leadership style at the initial stage of entry into business but should strategise to transist to transformational leadership style as the business grow and mature.

2009

Leadership styles of owner-managers were explored in the context of a developingcountry in South Asia with a view to examining their impact on financial performanceof SMEs. It was justified that the study has both theoretical and contextualsignificance. Data were collected from 204 companies in Sri Lanka by adopting mixedmethodologies that consisted of both qualitative and qualitative approaches.Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficient were used in the analysis. The findingsrevealed that the existence of three main leadership styles in the sample, namely;entrepreneurial, managerial, and mix of both entrepreneurial and managerialleaderships. The analysis indicated that 60 percent of firms had increased financialperformance, while 35 percent firms had decreased financial performance. The impactanalysis showed that entrepreneurial leadership style is more effective than managerialleadership styles and the mixed style of leadership in terms of increasing financialperformance. Overall, the study contributes to the theory of leadership styles andperformance in the context of developing countries. It also has practical implicationsfor business leaders and owner managers of SMEs.

Pakistan Journal of Engineering, Technology & Science

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the status of Quality ofWork Life of employees working in SMEs and second to explore therelationship between Quality of Work Life and demographiccharacteristics of employees and Firms. The research is conductedamong 1092 employees and the results suggest that the status ofQuality of Work Life of employees is very less .No significant relationbetween gender and Age of employees and study also revealed thatExperience, nature of Job, educational level, designation and salaryhas an signification association between QWL. Study also conductedto find out the association between firms demographical factors andQWL of employees, it revealed that Age of the firm, Size of the firmand cost of the project has significant association between QWL ofemployees.

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 2013

Despite the vast quantity of studies in the domain of leadership, very little work has been done on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Taking into account the relevance of this research topic, this paper aims to identify and understand leadership styles in SMEs. To reach this goal, a mixed-method approach was applied in three Portuguese SMEs (multiple case studies). Data were obtained from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), from SMEs' collaborators and interviews with their owner-manager/leader. Descriptive and content analyses were used. The findings attested to the central role of leadership in SME management. Different levels of leadership results were identified in the SMEs selected. Thus, the findings give additional support to the argument that leadership plays an important role in management results in SMEs. The practical implications of findings are also discussed.

In Cameroon, SMEs contribute about 50% of the GDP and accounts for about 92% of businesses (INS, 2009) but about 80% of this SME's created in Cameroon die before their 5 th anniversary with one of the principal causes being the lack of corporate leadership. The main objectives of this research it to show the effects of leadership style on the performance of Cameroonian SMEs. The research follows a Hypothetico-deductive methodology through which primary data was collected through the Multi Factor Leadership Questionnaire which was administered on 114 workers form 38 SMEs in 05 major towns in the southwest region of Cameroon between the period of November 2015 to January 2016, the data was analysed using the Pearson correlation coefficient and the Ordinary Least Square Multiple Regression(OLS), the SPSS version 20 was used for regression. The Principal results showed that the Transformational Leadership style exerted a positive and significant effect on the performance of SMEs in Cameroon, while the Transactional leadership style exerted a positive and significant impact on performance, this results are in coherence with the results obtained by Bass and Avolio, 2004 in their work entitled " Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations ". This research will therefore propose that in order to achieve organizational performance, managers should use the Transformational alongside with the Transactional leadership style since a combination of the two leadership style will permit the enterprise to attain performance beyond expectations.

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation, 2019

Since leaders can have a strong influence on the employees’ behavior, various approaches have been designed to determine the most effective style of leadership. As a field of study, the review of past research reveals that investigating leadership styles has been mainly focused on large businesses. Despite the great importance of leadership to SMEs, not many studies attempted to explore the leadership style embraced by SMEs, especially within the Macedonian context. The purpose of this study is to explore the presence of different leadership styles (autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire) in Macedonian SME. Moreover, in view of the main research objective, several demographic variables were examined, such as gender, age and working experience as to their relevance for the dominant leadership style, with a special focus on managers of small and medium sized businesses from the textile industry. Using a Leadership Style Questionnaire, the research measured different leadership style...

2017

The mediating role of job satisfaction between transformational leadership style and the organizational commitment within the SMEs in Karachi is the aim of this study. The correlation between variables is explored through quantitative methods. Total 190 respondents participated from 49 SMEs in Karachi. The results showed that job satisfaction has significant mediating role between variables of interest. This study confirmed that there is a positive strong correlation between transformational leadership and organizational commitment. Employees having high job satisfaction showed higher organizational commitment. Females scored more in comparison to males in terms of overall organizational commitment. However, males have high affective and normative while females have high continuance commitment.

Journal of management and science, 2022

Employees have resigned from well-paid organization due to the leadership style of their managers. This study examined the effect of leadership style on employees' satisfaction in selected small and medium scale enterprises in Delta State, Nigeria. Sixty copies of questionnaires were distributed of which fifty-one were returned and used for this analysis. This survey instrument was adapted from both the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) which measures transactional and transformational leadership style and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) which measures employee satisfaction. The study used STATA 13.0 statistical package. The results showed a positive and statistically significant relationship between employees' satisfaction and leadership style when independent samples were treated separately (simple regression). However, when multiple regression models were applied, both results report positive relationship, but transactional leadership style now becomes statistically insignificant. It is recommended among other things that managing directors should select the right style of leadership that enhances their worker's productivity and motivation.

IBT Journal of Business Studies, 2019

Objectives; Leadership become one of the most important topic among behavioral scientist and management researchers. The current research study try to investigate the relationship between transactional, transformational styles of leadership in paying way for Quality Management (QM) Practices in Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa SME’s sector. For this purpose, data was collected from manufacturing sector through adapted version of questionnaires. In first stage CFA was conducted to remove item having lower loading. In the next stage through SEM analysis was performed. Results indicate that During CFA analysis most of the components of the adopted construct were removed due to poor fit model. As a result, the original concept of the adopted construct was renamed on the basis of retained factors. During SEM analysis the hypothetical relationship were partially supported, and results indicate that for the smooth functioning of manufacturing sector of SME’s it is strongly recommended to adopt the mod...