Chapter 1. The Problem and Its Background
1.1 Introduction
According to Armstrong, (2000), leadership styles influence the level of motivation of an individual. However, throughout a lifetime, man’s motivation is influenced by changing ambitions and/or leadership style he works under or socializes with. Command-and-control leadership drains off ambition while worker responsibility increases ambition. This reflects that certain style of leadership could affect the job performance of an individual.It has been 30 years since Burns (1978) published his influential work introducing the concepts of transformational and transactional leadership. Whereas transformational leaders uplift the morale, motivation, and morals of their followers, transactional leaders cater to their followers’ immediate self-interests. The transformational leader emphasizes what you can do for your country; the transactional leader, on what your country can do for you. A considerable amount of empirical research has been completed since then, supporting the utility of the distinction. Changes in the marketplace and workforce over the two decades have resulted in the need for leaders to become more transformational and less transactional if they were to remain effective. Leaders were encouraged to empower their followers by developing them into high involvement individuals and teams focused on quality, service, cost-effectiveness, and quantity of output of production. Apparently, in the study conducted by Armstrong, (2000), he viewed that HRM can be considered as a strategic personnel management practices that emphasizing on acquisition, organization and motivation of human resources. In his paper, he emphasized that the role of HR in job performance linked to the position and the power with the sense of dissemination of learning through human resource conferences and projects.
For these reasons, the idea of investigating the impact of leader’s power to the job performance of an individual became the main core of this research. The research is based in Malaysia whereas several companies and managerial employees are considered.
1.2 Research Objectives
The general objective of the study is to evaluate and investigate the performance of employees in accordance to the current leadership styles of managers of the selected companies in Malaysia. This study attempts to review and analyse the type of leadership imposed by managers to their employees. In the recent studies of employee work performance, leadership type is the greatest source of the improvement of a business. Here, it exposes the positive as well as the negative treatment accorded to the employees as a result of an effective/ineffective job performance.
Likewise, it is essential to study the existing leadership practices and status of employee job performance. For this reason the following objectives are formulated:
1.3 Research Questions
With respect to the given objectives of the study, the following research queries are formulated:
1.4 Statement of the Problem
The problem can be placed within human resource management perspective as there maybe issues catering to research literature for instance, there might be lack of support into job performance impact and the problem that use of position and personnel power which can be acted upon as a positive factor by Malaysian managers and never been a negative factor as for example, the presence of too much leadership authority can affect job performance not just in the lower levels but also in the higher ones, affecting how these Malaysian HR managers perform well and effectively into the work setting and how they possess proper quorum towards other staff in the organization they belong. Another problem could be limited case situation towards HR perspectives in Malaysia context, as there can lack of supporting resources pertaining to use of position and personnel power towards recognizing in job performance factors and the presence of research barriers to research administration is possible. For this research, the independent variable would be the perception of respondents pertaining to leader’s power and for dependent variables, it would be the perception of respondents pertaining to job performances. In this way, the researcher can assess and evaluate the significant impact of leader’s power to job performance.
1.5 Significance of Research
The impeding significance of the research can be found at the ideal composition of research of how it can go or not go beyond the scope of research as the research findings could be at most useful in terms of instilling awareness to Malaysian managers, HR personnel and other involved parties that it is important to have right amount of job performance in human resource adhering to position and power of personnel and research is significant in providing ample basis towards theory and conceptual sense of HR ways, its management and application in Malaysia. The audience, the readers of this research will have the utility of driving in personal growth and simple ways of understanding job performance as found in HR positioning and personnel power in certain SMEs in Malaysia thus, there gains acceptance of valuable matters and allowing possibilities of accepting HRM research and development for Malaysia to use as reference tool.
This study is a significant attempt in promoting effective leadership and imposing appropriate leader’s power to the work practices of employees. This research is helpful to business practitioners for this serves as a guide for them in leading their employees for the success of the businesses, thus resulting to high job satisfaction among employee. Moreover, this research provides recommendations on how to value employees as they are taking a large part in the overall performance of the company.
1.6 Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework that will be used in the study is the Input-Process-Output Model. In the IPO model, a process is viewed as a series of boxes (processing elements) connected by inputs and outputs. As Harris & Taylor, (1997) emphasized, the material and information objects are flowing through a series of tasks or activities based on a set of rules or decision points. Flow charts and process diagrams are often used to represent the process (Harris & Taylor, 1997). What goes in is the input; what causes the change is the process; what comes out is the output (Armstrong, 2001). Figure 1 illustrates the basic IPO model:
Figure 1. IPO Model
The IPO model provides the general guide and structure for the direction of the study. Substituting the variables of this study on the IPO model, the researcher came up with the following:
Figure 2. Theoretical Framework
INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT
1.7 Scope of Study
The study intends to investigate the impact of leaders’ power to the job performance of employees in selected companies in Malaysia. For this study, primary researches are considered. Primary research are conducted using anonymous questionnaires that are sent to managerial level employees of Malaysian companies such as located in the Klang Valley of Malaysia as one of the developed place in Malaysia. Basically, the perception of these subjects is sought because of their knowledge and experiences in handling employees of their respective companies. Actually, a target of 100 subjects is considered through purposive sampling. Basically, the researcher considered this type of sampling because it allows the research to remove respondents who do not fit the requirements. With the 100 total samples, the researcher believed that it reflects to an accurate or near to accurate representation of the population whereas the results are expected to be more accurate and less time consuming and inexpensive. For further investigation, the researcher also conducted a focus group interview with some of managers and administrators numbering to 10 participants. The questionnaires are used to collect quantitative data and the interviews will be used to provide qualitative insights into the data collected. The data are analyzed and compiled for the statistical analysis such correlation and t-test analysis with the help of SPSS (Statistical Packages for Social Science).
1.8 Organization of Chapters
With respect to chapter organization, five chapters have been considered. The first chapter which is shown refers to the introduction chapter which illustrates the overview of the study. It also presented the significance, aims and objectives of the research. Moreover, the general ideas about the way that the study is structured are also presented. On the other hand, the second chapter presents a review and discussion on previous researchers about employee training. In the third chapter, the methods to be used for this study are shown. In the forth chapter, the results of the data gathered are analysed and presented. And finally, in the fifth chapter, the conclusions are formulated as well as recommendation and guidelines.
1.9 Conclusion
This study examines the leaders’ power relevance to job performance of employees. The 100 target samples of the study are from managerial level employees of Malaysian companies such as located in the Klang Valley of Malaysia as one of the developed place in Malaysia. This allows evaluation of the views of subjects pertaining to leader’s power and job performance. Comparison of these views may lead to the development of new theories that may contribute to human resource management research. In this chapter, the nature of problem is presented and discussed. The backgrounds of different variables related to the study were also featured. Here, the aims, objectives, problem statements and significance of the study were also explained.
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