TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE AND EMPLOYEES’ WORK PASSION: A STUDY OF SELECT OIL AND GAS COMPANIES IN NIGERIA.
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TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE AND EMPLOYEES’
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TABLE
OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 context
of the problem 1
1.2 statement
of problem 7
1.3 conceptual
framework 8
1.4 purpose
of study 9
1.5 research
questions 10
1.6 hypothesis 11
1.7 significance
of study 12
1.8 scope
of study 12
1.9 limitation
of the study 13
1.10 conceptual
definition of terms 14
1.11 organization of study 16
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction 20
2.1 transformational
leadership defined 20
2.2 employee
work passion defined 27
2.2.1 passion towards activities 29
2.2.1 passion for work 33
2.3 dimension
of transformation leadership 35
2.3.1 idealized influence 36
2.3.2 inspirational motivation 37
2.3.3 intellectual stimulation 38
2.3.4 individualized consideration 39
2.4 measures
of employee work passion 40
2.4.1 obsessive passion 41
2.4.2 harmonious passion 41
2.5 relationship
between transformational leadership style
and employee work
passion 45
2.6 the
moderating effect of corporate culture on the
relationship between
transformational leadership and employee work passion 54
2.7 Summary 56
CHAPTER
THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction 62
3.1 research
design 62
3.2 sampling
procedure/sample size determination 63
3.3 data
collection methods 66
3.4 operational
measures of the variables 66
3.4.1 independent variables: transformational
leadership 66
3.4.2 dependent variable: employee work passion 69
3.4.3 moderating variables: corporate culture 70
3.5 test of
validity and reliability 71
3.6 data
analysis techniques 73
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 CONTEXT OF PROBLEM
“When I stop working, the rest of my day is
posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m working”- Tennessee Williams.
Work
is probably the single most important activity in one’s life. We spend
considerable time is schooling and training so that we get the opportunity to
work someday. Once we embark in the work force, we typically devote more than
half of our waking time to work either directly on the job, or indirectly by
thinking or talking about job-related matters (Vllaerand and Houlfort, 2003).
Even
after retirement, people often continue to engage in activities related to
their former job. This is because work serves to define us. Because work is so
central to most of us, we are not only people who work in computers,
management, or sales, we are computer analysts, managers, or sales persons.
This self-definition serves an important intrapersonal function. While some
people may not care that much about work as they merely see it as labour,
others see it as part of who they are deep down, it becomes part of their
identity (Vallerand and Houlfort, 2003). They love their work and it has become
part of who they are. They can’t wait to get work in the morning and it seems
that the day doesn’t have enough hours to do the things they want to do at
work. They have become passionate about their work. Like expressed in the
opening quote, these people seem to derive a major sense of excitement and
pleasure from their work. They feel alive at work. Passion toward work,
therefore, may be expected to lead to adaptive outcomes.
Work
is an important part of lie if only because it monopolizes close to half of
one’s daily life, not including commuting time or the many years of training.
While some people see their job as a pay cheque or a stepping stone to a higher
position, others value their work to the point of considering it a vocation
(Wrzeshniewsk, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997). Indeed, work is so
important for someone people that it gives meaning to their existence
(Morin& Dassa, 2006,Wrzesniewski, 2003) and becomes part of their identity
(Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003). Yet, people who deeply value their work do
not necessarily engage in it similarly. The quality and quantity of work
involvement greatly vary across people and this has important consequences.
Nested in the general positive psychology approach (Seligman &
Csiksszenmihalyi, 2002), the motivational perspective of passion (Vallerand et
al., 2003; Vallerand, 2008) can shed light on the mechanisms through which
different of time and energy investment in various activities impact people’s
affect, cognition, and behaviours. In the work domain, the theory of passion
contributes to the general positive organizational scholarship (Cameron,
Dutton, & Quinn, 2003) approach, which aims at studying the “positive
outcomes, processes and attributes of organizations and their members”. So what
exactly is passionate employee? A passionate employee is focused, engaged, and
committed to consistently perform at his best. He feels strongly about the work
he does, knowing that he is creating value, and he has a strong emotional
connection with the organization he works for he feels a sense of pride and
commitment towards the organization. As a result, he delivers exceptional value
to his customers, both external and internal.
As
activities increasingly span departmental or functional boundaries, the need
for teamwork, shared responsibilities, and consultative activities is unusually
high. Employees may need to exhibit a high degree of behaviour not explicitly
in formal job descriptions. In addition, at the managerial levels, job
descriptions are not exhaustive and often managers are expected to engage in
organizational citizenship behavior (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Paine, and Bacharch,
2000). As it would be beneficial for an organization if explicit job functions
but beneficial to the organizations goal achievement, the next important
questions would be: How can organizations increase these behaviours by
eliciting passion in its employees? Transformational leaders motivate and
inspire their followers to go beyond the call of duty so that they are willing
to put in extra effort on the job, help their co-workers, and engage in other organizationally
beneficial activities (Bass, 1998). This paper will leadership in influencing
the emergence of passion at work in followers.
Is
passion needed for excellent performance? The questions of what predicts
outstanding performance at work remain timely and relevant. The term “passion
for work” emerged from qualitative research on entrepreneurs motivation, and
has been defined as a selfish, passionate love for the work (Shane et al.,
2003). Passion for work has been proposed as key to understanding
entrepreneurial behavior and performance. Passion is “the enthusiasm. Joy, and
even zeal that come from the energetic and unflagging. However, few attempts
have been made so far as to operationalize the construct, let alone relate it
to entrepreneurial behavior.
In
the current economic downturn, organizations are experiencing tremendous
challenges to maintain a competitive advantage on the global front. Change has
become a constant, as organizations need to reinvent themselves and become more
innovative to deal with more competitive pricing structures and branding
strategies to position themselves optimally in a cutthroat environment. Today
more than ever, the “people component”, and more specifically the ability to
attract and retain the “knowledge worker” (Bargaim, 2003), has become one of
the most important predictors of organizational success (Kahumuza and
Schlechater, 2008).
This
holds important implications for organizations that strive to be the best in
their markets and to maintain a competitive advantage. They need to outsmart
their competition in terms of attracting and retaining their pool of knowledge
talent. They need to find ways to understand and manage the psychological
mechanisms that do not only deliver excellent performance, but also prevent
their talent from nurturing intentions to quit and promoting employee passion.
One
of the attributes of transformational leadership according to (Zigarmi, Houson
and Witt, 2007) is its ability to transform employees to pursue organizational
goals over self-interest. “Transformational leaders encourage their employees
to do exceptional things. Leaders excite passion and help their employees look
beyond their own interest and look for the interest of the organization,
(ZIgarmi, Houson and Witt, 2007).
Research
evidence from authors such as Zabihi, Hashemzehi, Tabrizi (2012). Moghandam,
Moosvai, Dousti (2013), Krishan and Pooja (2008) have established that
Transformational leadership style brings about extra role performance from
employees in terms. Results of past researchers show that transformational
leadership has been consistently linked to followers’ higher level of
organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Bass, 1985; Organ, 1988; Podsakoff
et al, 1990; Howell and Avolio, 1993; Wang, law, Hackett, Wang, Chen, 2005;
Schlechter and Engelbrecht, 2006; Boerner, Eisenbeisis, Griesser, 2007) and OCB
can in some way be likened to employee passion in terms of extra role
performance.
There
are also past research evidence that have successfully established a positive
relationship between transformational leadership style and employee engagement
(Hayati, Charkhabi and Naami 2014); slanova, Lorente, Chambel and Martinez,
2011; Tims, Bakker, Xanthopoulou, 2011; Raja (2012). Looking at employee work
passion and judging from the similarities in behaviour exhibited with OCB and
employee work engagement in terms of the effects of Transformational Leadership
style in eliciting extra role performance and also considering the fact that
there has been little or no research in the past connecting transformational
leadership with employee work passion, has led to my interest in determining
the relationship between transformational leadership and employee work passion.
There
is paucity of materials on the relationship between the two concepts but I will
attempt to establish to correlation of the two. Mere looking at the definition
of transformational leadership it will be expected that it would have an effect
of the kind and level of employee work passion. We would be looking at
conceptualization of passion and show its applicability to the realm of work
and organizations. Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward an
activity that people like, that they find important, and in which they invest
time and energy. Two types of passion are proposed: obsessive and harmonious.
Obsessive passion refers to a controlled internalization of an activity in
one’s identity that creates an internal pressure to engage in the activity that
the person likes.
Harmonious
passion promotes healthy adaptation whereas obsessive passion thwarts it by
causing negative affect and rigid persistence. Results from a series of studies
are presented, including some conducted in the work domain.
Blanchard
(2008) defines employee passion as “the positive emotional state of mind
resulting from perceptions of worthwhile work, autonomy, collaboration, growth,
fairness, recognition, connectedness to leader, all of which lead to standards
of behavior that include discretionary effort, lower turnovers and increased
tenure.” From the definition above it can be seen that connectedness to leader
is just one of several factors that influence employee’s passion at work and by
the time we throw in perception into the equation which is a factor that is as
unique from one individual to another as finger prints, it becomes less than
straightforward in establishing the relationship between the two concepts.
Having
a solid relationship with one’s leader and colleagues that is based on
integrity and trust is a key component in creating employee passion. People
need leaders who share information and make an effort to build rapport. Leaders
who take interest in their employees and shares personal information are more likely
to establish and maintain connectedness with direct reports than those who do
not (Zigarmi, Houson and Witt, 2007).
Ayers,
K.E., & Cahill, F. (2012) in their paper, tested the idea that most
employees are passionate about what they do, but that many are not passionate
about their employer. They found that a large majority is passionate over all
either about the organization and or the job. But of these employees, only
roughly half are passionate about the organization. This gap the passion
deficit underlines the hidden emotional disconnect among otherwise engaged
employees of the employees the surveyed, 85% are passionate about the work they
do each day, but only 48% are passionate both about the job and the
organization. The gap between the 48% and the remaining 37% is significant. In
terms of their emotional connection to the organization, the 37% are closer to
totally disconnected employees than they are to the 48% who are passionate
about the job and the organization.
According
to Gary Hamel in his book The Future of Management, passion contributes more
towards value creation than any other human capability. Given the primary
purpose of your organization is to deliver value to your customers, the more
passionate your employees are the more value you will deliver. In order to
establish a customer focused culture, in which all employees act as veritable
ambassadors for the organization, it is essential to ensure that employees are
passionate about the organization as well as the job they do.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The
Oil and Gas industry has been embroiled in series of controversies from time
immemorial. There seems to be very low level of accountability and poor
performance of oil and gas assets especially state owned to say the least. The
sector is shrouded in secrecy and information gotten from any of the agencies
seems to be inconsistent. Many administrations have attempted to implement and
institutionalize best global practice but have been unsuccessful. Most recently
in the minds of most Nigerians is the fuel subsidy scandal. A lot of the
facilities in the sector are working low capacity utilization, at best we get
60% of installed capacity been utilized. This has led to incessant shortage of
petroleum products putting it mildly and massive importation to augment for the
shortfall.
All
these have prompted me to tilt more towards but not limited to studying select
Public sector oil and gas companies/agencies namely; IDSL, PHRC, NLNG AND DPR
in port Harcourt rivers state, attempting to establish if the workers are
passionate about the work, the level and type of passion that exist and to see
the effect of the leadership with emphasis on transformational leadership with
emphasis on transformational leadership style on the employees passion at work.
To this end, this research will apply the dimensions of transformational
leadership style to investigate its relationship with employee work passion.
1.3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
FIGURE 1.1: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK SHOWING THE
HYPOTHESIZED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
AND EMPLOYEE WORK PASSION. |
Source:
Conceptualized by the Researcher
The model above indicates how the
dimensions of our independent variables (transformational leadership) can affect
the measure of our dependent variable (employee work passion), holding the
moderating variable (culture of the organization) constant.
This model explains the intersection of
the dimensions of the predictor variable (transformational leadership) and
measures of the criterion variable (employee work passion). On the left hand
side of the model we have the predictor variable (transformational leadership).
The dimensions of this variable according to Bass and Avolio (1992) include:
idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, inspiration motivation,
individualize consideration. On the right side of the model we have measures of
criterion variable (employee work passion). The measures of this variable
according to Vallerand and Houlfort (2003) include: harmonious passion,
obsessive passion. Finally, in the center we have the moderating variable
(corporate culture). We are assuming that the relationship between the
independent variable and the dependent variable may be direct or moderated by
corporate culture.
1.4 PURPOSE OF STUDY
The
purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between Transformations
Leadership style and Employee work Passion. The main objective for this study
is to ascertain the Transformational Leadership style and employee work
passion. The specific objectives in this study include:
1. To
ascertain the relationship between idealized influenced and harmonious passion.
2. To
ascertain the relationship between idealized influence and obsessive passion.
3. To
find out the relationship between intellectual simulation and harmonious
passion.
4. To
find out the relationship between intellectual stimulation and obsessive
passion.
5. To
examine the relationship between inspirational motivation and harmonious
passion.
6. To
investigate the relationship between individualize consideration and obsessive
passion.
7. To
ascertain whether corporate culture will moderate the influence of
transformational leadership style on employee work passion.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The
main focus research question for this study is; what is the relationship
between transformational leadership style and employee work passion. More
specifically, this study seeks to address the following research questions:
a. What
is the relationship between idealized influence and harmonious passion.
b. what
is the relationship between idealized influence and obsessive passion.
c. what
is the influence of intellectual stimulation on harmonious passion.
d. what
is the influence of intellectual stimulation on obsessive passion.
e. what
is the relationship between inspirational motivation and harmonious passion.
f. what
is the relationship between inspirational motivation and obsessive passion.
g. what
is the influence of individualize consideration on harmonious passion.
h. what
is the influence of individualize consideration on obsessive passion will
corporate culture moderate the influence of transformational leadership style
on employee work passion.
1.6 HYPOTHESIS
H01:
There is no significant relationship between idealized influence and harmonious
passion.
H02:
There is no significant relationship between idealized influence and obsessive
passion.
H03:
There is no significant relationship between intellectual stimulation and
harmonious passion.
H04:
There is no significant relationship between intellectual stimulation and
obsessive passion.
H05:
There is no significant relationship between inspirational motivation and
harmonious passion.
H06:
There is no significant relationship between inspirational motivation and
obsessive passion.
H07:
There is no significant relationship between individualize consideration and
harmonious passion.
H08:
There is no significant relationship between individualize consideration and
obsessive passion.
H09:
Corporate culture will not moderate the relationship between transformational
leadership style on employee work passion.
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The
potential contribution of this study can be discussed from both theoretical and
practical perspectives. This study contributes to the theoretical advancement
in the field of research by introducing congruence between transformational
leadership style and employee work passion, and investigating the impact of
such congruence on employee behaviors and performance. This study provides
empirical tests of the relationship among transformational leadership and
employee work passion.
This
will enable workers look beyond their interest and look for the interest of the
organization thereby eliciting high performance from the employees. So from a
practical perspective, having established the correlation between the two
concepts, this research should assist managers decide on the leadership
approach that would be best suitable for exciting passion from their employees
and subsequently high performance.
Due
to paucity of research relating these two concepts together, this research will
help highlight the effectiveness of transformational leadership style in
eliciting passion form employees in organizations and in so doing add to the
body of knowledge with respect to these two concepts.
Most
importantly this research will help broaden my horizon by adding to my depth of
knowledge of management and behavioural science and this will further help me
manage my subordinates better in my place to work.
1.8 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Content
Scope
The
review of related literature for this study will be restricted to literature on
transformational leadership style and its dimensions, employees work passion
and its measures, as well as the moderating role of corporate culture in the
relationship between the independent and dependent variables.
Geographical Scope
This
study is restricted to the Oil and Gas industry in the Nigeria.
Study Unit Scope
The
study units of analysis will be the individual level of analysis. Thus, copies
of the questionnaire will be distributed to employees of select Oil and Gas
companies.
1.9 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The
study encountered several limitations.
Ø Difficulty
in gathering data due to general anxiety and fear of confidentiality expressed
by sample elements. It has been difficult to administer the questionnaire
through the human resource departments of the some agencies so as to make
responses more authentic, so the questionnaires were administer informally on a
man known man basis in those specific cases.
Ø Sensitivity
of sample elements; some of the respondents showed reluctance in divulging
information relating to their organization, hence, some respondents were unable
to complete the questionnaire correctly which rendered a few of them unusable.
Ø There
is paucity of materials on the topics being researched due to the fact that is
area have hardly been researched in this part of the world, hence more time is
needed in order to carry out a more comprehensive research in order to do
justice to this very rich topic.
Ø The
time frame within which the research was carried out was grossly inadequate.
For a more in depth research into this topic a longer time period would be
immensely beneficial to the researcher.
Nevertheless,
these limitations have not stultified my efforts in carry out the research that
I hope will contribute to the existing body of knowledge. More so, as well as
be mindful of the instructive observation, it is not always to conduct
investigation that is one hundred percent scientific. Thus we have made every effort
to maximize the use of research instruments at our disposal.
1.10 CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION OF TERMS
Employee Work passion is the positive emotional state of mind
resulting from perceptions of worthwhile work, autonomy, collaboration, growth,
fairness, recognition, connectedness to colleagues, and connectedness to
leader, all of which lead to standards of behaviour that include discretionary
effort, long term commitment to the organization, peak performance, low
turnover, and increased tenure with the organization.
Harmonious Passion
refers to an autonomous internalization that leads individuals to choose to
engage in the activity that they like.
Idealized Influence
is concerned with charismatic actions by the leader related to values, beliefs
and mission. In this component, it is believed that charismatic behaviour by
the leader fosters strong emotional bonds with followers based on faith, trust,
respect and pride. The behaviour of the leader becomes idealized and manifest
in collective values and actions within the organization, as the leader
provides a compelling vision, mission and high standards for emulation.
Individual Consideration
is where the leader recognizes the individual’s uniqueness and individual needs
and provides support, encouragement and leaders also link the individuals needs
to that of the organization to enable opportunities for growth and
self-actualization
Inspirational Motivation
involves the development and communication of an appealing vision that provides
shared and challenging goals, and arouses team spirit, enthusiasm and optimism
by modeling the behaviour that are achieve a challenging but achievable vision.
Intellectual Stimulation
involves behavour by the leader that encourages new ways of solving problems
and innovative ways of executing daily responsibilities by challenging the
beliefs and values of the followers, as well followers as that of their leaders
and the organization. The leader appeals to the followers logic sand analysis
and the followers are encouraged to take intellectual risks and challenge the
status quo.
Obsessive Passion
refers to a controlled internalization of an activity in one’s identity that
creates an internal pressure to engage in the activity that the person likes.
Transformational Leadership
is the leadership styles that inspires followers to transcend follower’s
self-interest for the good of the organization and are capable of having a
profound and extra ordinary on the followers concern.
1.11 ORGANIZATION OF STUDY
The
study will be presented in five chapters
The first chapter
introduces the study. It will highlight the context of the problem, statement
of the problem, conceptual framework, purpose of study, research questions,
significance of the study, scope of the study, the limitations of study and
operational of terms.
The second chapter
will focus on the review of related literature.
The
third chapter will deal with the research methodology and will highlight the
research design, population of study sample size and sampling technique, method
of data collection, data analysis technique, validity and reliability of
instrument, measurement of variables and instrument design and administration.
The fourth chapter
will focus on data presentation and discussion on findings.
The fifth chapter
will focus on the discussion of findings, conclusion, and recommendations as
well suggestions for further research.
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