Leadership Styles in Vietnamese Small and Medium Enterprises

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.

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...

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...

2016

The manager’s leadership styles define the way a manager acts behaves and takes decisions in certain situations and has a direct influence upon the employees’ well-being. In a small and medium enterprise setting, unlike in a large enterprise, the employees are feeling the influence of the leadership style in a much more direct and personal way, due to the small number of hierarchical levels and the constant interaction between the owner/manager and the employees. The present paper focuses on analyzing how the employees of SMEs from Oltenia and Muntenia Regions of Romania perceive their superiors’ leadership styles. In order to meet this goal, we have used a 21 question survey, based on which we could determine the leadership style (Autocratic, Democratic or Laissez-faire) of the superior, as it is perceived by each respondent. The survey has been applied on a sample of cca. 300 employees from small and medium enterprises from Oltenia, and approximately 130 responses have been used i...

This study represents a comparative research of the particularities of leadership styles among the owners of small or medium enterprises from Romania and the Netherlands. The three styles used in the present research are autocratic, democratic, and Laissez-faire. The main research instrument of the study was the survey, based on which the researcher determined the dominant leadership style for each respondent. This survey has been applied on a sample of 50 small or medium business owners from Romania and 128 small or medium business owners from the Netherlands. According to the final results, the dominant leadership style in both cases has been the democratic one. Moreover, a series of factors such as the company's age and owner's sex which significantly influence the practiced style have identified.

Economies

Leadership has become a complex, difficult subject with various facets for organisations, as it involves challenges regarding the best style for leaders to adopt. This study aims to analyse how the different leadership styles, presented throughout the various stages of the entrepreneurial process (discovery, application, implementation, and growth), can influence this type of process in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) context. To this end, qualitative research of an exploratory nature was undertaken, based on four Portuguese SMEs (case studies) from different sectors. Data were collected from interviews with leaders and followers in the four SMEs selected, as well as through documentary analysis. From the content analysis, the empirical evidence obtained leads to the conclusion that there is not just one leadership style followed by the SMEs analysed in the different stages of the entrepreneurial process. However, the transactional style of leadership was identified in t...

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.

International Journal of Engineering and Management Research

The main objective of the study was to examine the influence of leadership styles on the performance of MSEs in Worabie town. The focus was on three major leadership styles (Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez-faire). The research design was descriptive and analytical type; the research employed both quantitative and qualitative data, which is a mixed approach. Out of 306 total populations, 173 respondents were selected using simple random sampling for questionnaire. The primary data was collected through unstructured interviews and structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using the descriptive statistics and the regression technique. The results of descriptive statistics showed that the practiced leadership style at the Worabie town by MSEs is mainly autocratic leadership. The result of the regression analysis indicated that democratic leadership style showed a positive and significant influence on MSEs’ performance since beta coefficient value of this style is 0.371 with sig...

PsycEXTRA Dataset

This research comprised of two phases. The first phase was designed to study the leadership of Thai SMEs entrepreneurs, and the second phase was to develop new leadership through training. In the first phase three sample sets were used. In the first sample set, the data were collected from 30 successful SMEs entrepreneurs using in-depth interview and critical incident technique (CIT). The data were analyzed to generate items of leadership scale for Thai SMEs entrepreneurs. The pilot 120-item leadership scale was tried out on the second sample set that consist of 544 SMEs entrepreneurs. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to explore the dimensions underlying the leadership scale. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used as a follow-up to determine the definite number of factors. Six factors resulting from CFA were 1) encouragement through inspirational motivation of subordinates, 2) consideration and well wishing towards others, 3) morality in business, 4) capability of strategic thinking, 5) encouragement of social consciousness, and 6) openness. The final 30-item leadership scale was validated with the third sample set that consisted of 1,064 SMEs entrepreneurs. The known-group technique was used to test the construct validity using the success of the entrepreneurs as the criterion. The results indicated that the leadership scores for all 6 factors from the highly successful SMEs entrepreneurs were statistically higher than the scores from the less successful SMEs entrepreneurs. In the second phase new direction for developing leadership of Thai SME entrepreneurs was proposed through the training course developed from Phase 1. The Training Workshop for Developing SME Entrepreneurs' Leadership was developed from theories, concepts, research findings, and various documents relevant to leadership development and designing of training course. After development, the training course was reviewed and quality was assessed by a team of experts. There were 3 stages in the training course; that was, assessment before training, leadership development by training, and evaluation after training. The course was organized into 9 modules. After the training, two meetings were held to monitor and evaluate the progress of leadership development plan, to let them share their experiences with each other, to advise them on how to solve the problems during implementing the plan, and to adapt their plan accordingly.

his study suggests that effective leadership style may not be dependent on whether an organization is for‐profit or not‐for‐profit. The findings of this study indicate that even in a not‐for‐profit context, effective leadership is defined not only by task and people orientations but also the interaction between them. Therefore, in developing the psychological profile of effective not‐for‐profit leaders, as is the case in the for‐profit sector, management researchers should explore both their task and people orientations.