UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN FACULTY OF ECONOMICS & BUSINESS
Priscilla A. Tyrol
Leadership in the Information
System Field: A Literature Review
Master Thesis
UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN FACULTY OF ECONOMICS & BUSINESS
Leadership in the Information System
Field: A Literature Review
Master Thesis Business Administration: Change Management
November, 2013
By:
Priscilla A. Tyrol
Grote Rozenstraat 2
9712TH Groningen
Tel 06 25363961
E-mail: tyrol.a.p@gmail.com
Student number: S2218003
Supervisors:
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Abstract
This study reviews the development of the empirical research of the leadership literature within the information system (IS) field and in addition addresses the state of the literature. A framework for organizing the literature was developed based on the input-process-output (IPO) model by Hackman & Morris (1978). A total of 87 empirical articles about leadership was collected, coded and systematically organized. A quantitative summary of these articles is presented and the findings which are categorized into issues pertaining to the dependent variable, mediator variable, moderator variable and, the independent variable are summarized and discussed. The framework also helped analyzed the research question “which aspects of leadership contribute to higher performance within the information system field?”. This review also provides some contribution to practice and theory. To conclude gaps in the leadership literature are identified and suggestions for further research are given.
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Preface
Dear reader,
With this thesis I will end my studies in Business Administration with a specialization in Change Management at the University of Groningen. First of all I would have to thank God for helping me finish my master’s thesis. Secondly my beloved parents for supporting me throughout my study years here in Holland.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr, Esryel for challenging me during the entire process of writing this thesis and for her advice and suggestions. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr. Rupert for her help and corrections during the final stages of my thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to thank all those people who in one way or another helped me, motivated and assisted me during the writing of my thesis and during my study here in Holland.
Yours Sincerely,
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Contents
1 Introduction ... 5
2 Literature review... 8
2.1 The information system field ... 8
2.2 Performance ... 9
2.3 Leadership ... 10
2.3.1 Development of the Leadership role ... 11
2.3.2 Executive Leadership roles ... 11
3 Methodology... 16
3.1 Literature search approach ... 16
3.2 Identifying relevant literature ... 16
3.3 Data analysis & Coding scheme ... 18
3.4 Research Model ... 19
4 Overview of the Synthesized leadership literature... 21
4.1 Level of analysis. ... 21
4.2 Research Design ... 21
4.3 Research methods ... 22
4.4 Journals ... 23
5 Findings of the Leadership literature review ... 24
5.1 Organizing the framework for the review ... 24
5.2 Independent variable ... 25
5.2.1 Non-executive leadership aspects. ... 25
5.2.2 Executive leadership. ... 44 5.3 Mediator ... 50 5.3.1 Non-Executive Mediator ... 50 5.3.2 Executive Mediators ... 59 5.4 Moderator ... 61 5.4.1 Non-Executive Moderators ... 61 5.4.2 Executives Moderators. ... 68 5.5 Dependent Variables ... 70 5.5.1 Customer Performance. ... 70 5.5.2 Financial Performance. ... 70
5.5.3 Human Resource Performance. ... 72
4 6 Discussion ... 84 6.1 Contribution to Theory ... 84 6.1.1 Independent variable ... 84 6.1.1.1 Non-executive leadership ... 85 6.1.1.2 Executive leadership ... 87 6.1.2 Mediator ... 87 6.1.2.1 Non-executive Mediator ... 88 6.1.2.2 Executive Mediator ... 89 6.1.3 Moderator... 89 6.1.3.1 Non-executive moderator ... 90 6.1.3.2 Executive moderator ... 90 6.1.4 Dependent variables ... 90 6.2 Contribution to Practice ... 90 7 Conclusion ... 96
7.1 Limitations and future directions ... 96
8 References ... 97
9 Appendices... 109
9.1 Appendix I – Executive Roles ... 109
9.2 Appendix II – List of Articles ... 111
9.3 Appendix V – List with the 78 articles ... 114
9.4 Appendix VI – Coding Schema ... 117 9.5 Appendix VII overview of coded articles according to the independent, moderator and mediator variable
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1 Introduction
Information technology (IT) and Information system (IS) are important to both private and public sectors, to individual, organizations, nations and transnational organizations (Baskerville & Myer, 2002). In the early 80’s it was predicted that from the perspective of customer value, manufacturing companies will become service companies and service companies will increasingly become information companies - all assisted and in fact driven by the potential of information technology and systems (IT/S) (Cecil , Hall & Hall, 1988).
The adoption and use of information technologies and systems (IT/S) by organizations have increased steadily, even dramatically, over the past three decades. Given the relative short span of the IS-field, the number of variety of applications and systems that have been deployed has been quite remarkable (Petter, DeLone & McLean, 2008). Today information systems are used in areas such as agriculture, manufacturing, services, education, medicine, defense and government (Baskerville & Myer, 2002). In addition organizations are increasingly depending on IT for the execution of a variety of operational, tactical, strategic processes (Lewis, Agarwal, Sambamurthy, 2003), to enhance their market services and to sharpen their competitiveness in order to survive and excel in the global market. Some companies even see IT as a means of increasing productivity (Elie-Dit-Cosaque, Pallud, Kalika, 2012).
The use of the information system also contributes to the improvement of organizational performance (Petter, DeLone & McLean, 2008). According to Von Urff Kaufeld, Chari & Freeme (2009), IT has successfully been used as a tool for improving organizational performance and for providing effective and innovative solutions to traditional business problems. Putting it the other way, improvement in individual, department and organization performance are all evidences which shows that the information system had a positive impact (Delone & Mclean, 1992;2003). The link between IS resources and performance has been investigated by a number of researchers. Mata, Fuerst & Barney (1995) identified five key IS drivers, that lead to sustained competitive advantage; customer switching costs, access to capital, proprietary technology, technical IT skills, and managerial IT skills. However, only the relationship between, proprietary technology, technical IT skills and, managerial IT skills with competitive advantage was supported. On the other hand, Power & Dent-Micallef (1997) identified three categories of information systems resources; human resources, business resources, and technology resources. In the study of U.S retail industry it showed that only the human resource in concert with IT contributed to improved performance (Wade & Hulland, 2004). Although various studies have indicated a positive relationship between IS and performance (Weber, 1988; Venkatesh 2000; Gill, 1996; Foster & Flynn (1984); Rule & Paul, 1984; Kaye & Sutton, 1985), there is still much work that needs to be done in assessing the impact of information system on organizational performance (Barkhi & Mao, 2010).
6 served only as a support function, it was acceptable for the information system leader to be a technical expert and competent manager. During the "information era" of 1990s, the executive and or leaders responsible for information systems throughout the corporation had to also have strong leadership skills, power, and business expertise (Applegate & Elam, 1992). During the 1980's many organizations discovered that information technology plays an critical role in gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. Classic cases of organizations that gained competitive advantage from using information system are; American airlines with its computerized reservation system, Merril Lynch with its cash management account and American hospital with its order entry system (Rackoff et al., 1985). Information systems help organizations in gaining competitive advantage by adding value to present products and or services (Wiseman & Macmillan, 1984). Due to the role of information system in organization the emphasis is increasingly on leadership within Information system field and organizational effectiveness. The growing importance of IT in organizations has created the expectation that the IS leader will become a powerful figure, occupying a high-level position within the company and exerting growing influence on the company's strategic direction through membership on the senior executive policy and strategy committee (Applegate & Elam, 1992; Cash, et al.,1992). According to Applegate & Elam, (1992) to get the most advantage from information systems it is necessary for the leader to be able to manage organizations in which information system is critical to strategy and also organizations in which information system is a critical component of the organizational and industry infrastructure. Thus, it can be concluded that, IS leadership is an important concern in deriving the IS value. However, given the importance of the IS leader, leadership research has received little attention in the information system field (Karahanna & Watson, 2006).
In general, it can be concluded that Information system and information technology are rapidly becoming pervasive through society. In addition, there is an increasing interest in the development, use and application of information technology and systems by many disciplines in the field. In recent years two major developments have been taking place in the information system field. The first is the IS field remarkable progress as a discipline in a relatively short time. Secondly, the steady shift within the IS from a techno-centric focus to a balanced view of technology, organizational, management and social focus (Baskerville & Myers, 2002) .
7 There is also a lack of comprehensive and integrative research on the aspects of leadership and its significance on firm performance. No literature could be found that synthesized the leadership factors which influenced firm performance within the information system field.
The main goal of this paper is address the problem mentioned above, as well as to offer new perspective and knowledge about this topic, to extend the information system field and to suggest future research directions. This paper will meet this goal by, systematically synthesizing existing leadership literature studies within the information system field and organizing these literature studies based on the input-process-output model by Hackman & Morris (1978). To synthesize the existing leadership studies within the information system field, a literature review will be carried out. In addition, a structured approach will be used to determine the relevant articles in the information system field. Synthesizing existing studies is also encouraged by Webster and Watson (2002). According to them the IS field will greatly benefit from an effective literature reviews, and it will strengthen the IS as a field of study.
Information system is a broad definition that refers to the development, use and application of information system by individuals, organizations and society (Zhang & Li, 2005). The IS field or environment is a reference discipline, that is, it has borrowed theories and models from other discipline and in addition adapted them to better suit IT-embedded phenomena, building thus a sizeable portfolio of theories, models and concepts(e.g., the technology acceptance model (TAM))(Nambisan, 2003). Furthermore, information system is also emerging as a reference discipline for others (Baskerville & Myers, 2002), meaning that, IS research published by IS journals is being cited by other disciplines. In addition, IS is also being cited by fields that previously served as an reference discipline for IS (e.g., computer science, management, and organization science) (Katerrattanakul, Han & Rea, 2006). Examples of information system used in organizations are; decision support systems, computer-mediated-mediated communication, e-commerce, knowledge management systems, as well as others (Petter, DeLone & McLean, 2008). In this paper, the terms IS and IT will be used interchangeably.
This study will look at the leadership literature within the information system field and will focus on how leadership contributes to higher performance within this field. Based on this topic the research question is formulated as follows:
“Which aspects of leadership contribute to higher performance within the information system field ?”
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2 Literature review
The main topic of this research paper is leadership and performance within the information system field. For this this paper, published empirical research literature about leadership within the information system field will be reviewed. In this section some background information is given about the information system field, followed by a definition of performance and its determinants and finally a description of leadership and its development over the years.
2.1 The information system field
Information System is an interdisciplinary, applied discipline (Baskerville & Myers, 2002). As such, it has drawn from many other disciplines to address issues that reflect the centrality of IT in varied socio-economic contexts. Culnan (1987) classified the IS reference discipline into three categories, namely; the related applied discipline (e.g., computer science, accounting, finance, management, and management science), the fundamental theory (e.g., system science) and, the underlying disciplines (e.g., political science, psychology, and sociology). According to Baskerville & Meyers (2002) talks have been made to add yet other disciplines to the list of reference discipline for the IS namely, architecture, economics and anthropology. The information system field has not only borrowed theories and models from other disciplines, but adapted them to better suit IT-embedded phenomena, thereby building a sizeable portfolio of adapted theories, models, and concepts (Nambisan, 2003).
The IS field is still a young field that has grown significantly and globally over the years, and one that has established stable institutional structures and core journals that compare favorably to the best in any field (Grover, Straub & Galluch, 2009). Information system is characterized by high levels of communication, where people work together toward building and disseminating IS knowledge. Its youth makes it highly susceptible to the opinions of its constituents and can create a contagion effect that can dramatically impact growth and prosperity in the field (Grover et al., 2009).
According to Baskerville & Myers (2002), information system field has much to offer researchers in many other disciplines. This is especially so, given that information technology and systems have become ubiquitous in the industrialized world. Information systems are important to both the private and public sectors, to individuals, organizations, nations, and transnational organizations. Information systems now pervade such diverse areas as agriculture manufacturing, services, education, medicine, defense, and government. At this juncture, where information technology is rapidly becoming pervasive throughout society, many fields have developed a research interest in information and communications technologies. Researchers working in many of these areas have realized that the phenomena of interest are now mediated by information technology.
9 theories, methods and research in other fields. However, information system does not have its own research tradition, the other fields does not borrow and learn from the theories of research in IS. The IS has few, if any referring discipline.
2.2 Performance
Technology is considered to have an impact on individual, group as well as on organizational performance. As mentioned before, various studies has identified a positive relationship between IS and performance (Weber, 1988; Venkatesh 2000; Gill, 1996; Foster & Flynn (1984); Rule & Paul, 1984; Kaye & Sutton, 1985). In addition, some studies confirmed that information systems improve performance outcomes (Chau, 1996).
Notable is that most literature does not distinguish among the several dimensions of performance. For this study was decided to use the four measure of performance mentioned in the study of Mithas, Ramasubbu & Sambamurthy (2011). They define performance as a multidimensional construct consisting of four elements; (1) customer-focused Performance; (2) financial performance, (3) human resource performance and (4) organizational Effectiveness. Table 2.1, defines each variable and provides examples of each performance variable. These four measures of performance are original originated from the Baldrige framework. This framework points to the interconnections between information and analysis, customer management, process management and performance management, in addition it acknowledges that the management of IT assets and information flow, is a critical enabler of organization success (Mithas et al., 2011). Over the past 70 years, the Baldrige framework has become a widely accepted model of performance excellence and is influential in determining performance improvement efforts in organizations throughout the world (Flynn & Saladin, 2001: 2006). It is built upon a set of interrelated core values and concepts that exemplify beliefs and behaviors found in high performing organizations (Flynn & Saladin, 2006).
Performance variables Definition Examples of measures
Customer performance The organizations key customers focused results
measures the levels and trends in; customer satisfaction, customer retention, positive referral, and product and service performance parameters that are important to customers
Financial performance The organizations key financial and market place performance
measures trends in return on investment, profitability, liquidity, market share/market position, and business growth, earnings per share, cash-to-cash cycle time
Human resources performance
The organizations key human resource results
Measures; employee satisfaction, employee well-being, employee development, job rotation, work layout, and organizational learning Organizational effectiveness The organizations key
performance results that contribute to the achievement of organizational effectiveness
Measures operational performance indicators of important design, production, delivery, and business and support processes, such as productivity, cycle time, and supplier performance. Also time to market, level of innovation, and production and supply chain flexibility. Decision making
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2.3 Leadership
Leadership is one of the most discussed and debated topics in the social sciences (Durue, Nahrgang, Wellman & Humphrey, 2011). In addition Leadership has been the topic of much discussion in both the practitioner and academic press. Robbins and Judges (2012), define leadership as someone who has the power to influence a group towards the achievement of a set of goals. For Huxham & Vangen (2000) leaders “make things happen”. According to Tichy (1997) leadership is about having smart ideas and getting them implemented. Like these definitions, there are multiple other definitions of leadership presented by various authors. Despite the thousand literatures on the topic, there is still no consensus on the definition of leadership. According to Karahanna & Watson (2006), there are as many definitions of leadership as individuals who try to define it.
Although there are different definitions of leadership, most authors agree that leadership is a process of social influence (Applegate & Elam, 1992). According to Bennis & Nanus (1985), one of the quality which a leader cannot lead without, is power. They define power as the Basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action which translates intention into reality. Furthermore, power can be realized through the development and communication of vision that has higher perceived value for others in the organization and second through the empowerment of others to initiate the actions needed to achieve that vision (Evans, 1970; House 1971). Kotter (1988; 1999) summarizes this concept by identifying two major tasks of a leader, namely; agenda setting and network building. Agenda setting is concerned with figuring out what to do despite uncertainty and an enormous amount of potentially relevant information, network building is concerned with getting things done through a large and diverse group of people despite having little direct control over most of them (Gottschalk, 2000).
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2.3.1 Development of the Leadership role
Although leadership in the information system field shares many similarities with leadership in many other functional areas there are differences in the idiosyncratic aspects of IS leadership. These idiosyncratic aspects of IS leader, stem from the nature of information systems and the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the organization (Karahanna & Watson, 2006). In the IS field, they primarily focus on IS leadership at the executive level, which Karahanna & Watson (2006) refer to as the IS strategic leadership. IS Strategic leadership is defined as leadership by executives who have overall responsibilities for the organization (Karahanna & Watson, 2006). Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are typically members of the upper echelons of the organization and are frequently members of the top management team. Therefor the term IS strategic leadership also describes leadership by executives in particular the CIO (Karahanna & Watson, 2006). In a study by Weiss & Adams (2011), they use the term IT leadership and define it as "those holding positions of CIO, CTO, VP of IT, Director of technology, IT senior supervisor and project team leaders, and the self-description of IT leader" (p.14). A more recent definition of IT leadership is found in the study of Von Urff Kaufeld, Chari & Freeme (2009), they define IT leadership as "the process followed by an organization's top IS executives to influence other people within and outside the IS department to attain the department and organizational goals" (p.119). From these definitions can be concluded that leadership within the IS field, refers to IS/IT leadership at the executive level, with the main focus on highest technology leader, the CIO.
(CIOs) are corporate executives who are particularly responsible and accountable for their firm’s IT management practices (Smaltz, Sambamurthy & Agarwal, 2006). With the adoption of the information system, CIO are becoming leaders of technical functions and need to have in-depth-understanding of technology and its capabilities. Furthermore they need to ensure seamless service delivery and operational stability, they need to be business partners who understand the business aspects of the organization, and they also need to have a holistic understanding that crosses functional boundaries (Karahanna & Watson, 2006). Weiss & Adams (2011) argues that the role of the IT leader, CIO in particular, is changing from being the chief technology mechanic to competencies focused on more on strategic business issues.
2.3.2 Executive Leadership roles
12 IT-based innovation, the most important CIO roles. While a more recent study by Gottshalk, Karlsen, Andersen (2002) identified the spokesperson role as highly important to CIOs. According to Smaltz et al., (2006) CIOs are expected to be effective spokespersons for the Information Systems (IS) Department as an internal service provider to the organization.
13 Figure 2.1. Mintzberg's leadership roles plotted on the competing values framework
14 Besides the executives roles identified by Minzberg (1971), Quinn (1984, 1988) and the six roles identified by Smaltz et al., (2006), Broadbent and Kitzis (2006) introduced a new category of executive roles. This category consists of two categories of CIO leadership, CIO demand-side leadership and CIO supply-side leadership. According to Chen, Preston & Xia (2010), Broadbent and Kitzis are the first ones to make this categorization. Demand-side leadership refers to the CIO's ability to lead the organization to explore new IT-driven business opportunities that will lead to innovations and business growth. The demand side is externally focused on partnering with business to innovate and change the business. Whereas the supply side is internally focused on managing the IT function to deliver cost-effective IT support. The demand-side leadership is similar to Mintzberg (1971) leader, liaison, spokesperson and entrepreneur role and similar to Smaltz et al., (2006) relationship architecture. The supply-side leadership is similar to Mintzberg's (1971) monitor and resource allocator role and similar to Smaltz et al., (2006) integrator. Table 2.2 provides a summary of the technology leader’s roles identified by Mintzberg (1971), Smaltz et al., (2006) and Broadbent & Kitzis (2006) and their similarities with each other.
Mintzberg (1971) vs. Smalt et al., 2006 vs. Broadbent & Kitzis (2006) leadership roles Mintzberg
(1971)
Interpersonal informational Decisional
Figurehead, Leader, Liaison Monitor,Disseminator, pokesperson Entrepreneur, Disturbance Handler,Resource Allocator, Negotiator Smaltz et al., (2006) strategist Relationship Architecture,
integrator IT educator Utility providor information steward Minztberg's entrepreneur role. Mintzberg’s liaison role Mintzberg's, leader, monitor and resource allocator role Minztberg's liaison role Mintzberg's monitor and resource allocator roles. Mintzberg's leader role Broadbent & Kitzis (2006)
CIO demand-side leadership CIO supply-side leadership Mintzberg (1971), leader, liaison, spokesperson and
entrepreneur
Mintzberg's (1971) monitor and resource allocator role
Smaltz et al., (2006) Relationship Architecture Smaltz et al., (2006) integrator
Table 2.2: Overview of similarities between leadership roles
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3
Methodology
This section describes the methodology that was used in this paper to identify and classify relevant work as a basis for a systematic review. As mentioned before, the goal of this research is to systematically collect and synthesize existing leadership literature within the information systems field and to learn how leadership can contribute to higher performance and innovation. To accomplish this goal, this literature review required; (1) a literature search approach, (2) criteria for identifying relevant articles, (3) coding scheme, (4) method of analysis and, (5) model development.
3.1 Literature search approach
To meet the research goal a literature review was conducted. In a literature review the data consists of findings from previous empirical studies. More specifically, Hart (1998, p.1) defines a literature review as “the use of ideas in the literature to justify the particular approach to the topic, the selection of methods, and demonstration that this research contributes something new”. According to Webster and Watson (2002, p.13) “an effective review creates a firm foundation for advancing knowledge it facilitates theory development, closes areas where a plethora of research exists, and uncovers areas where research is needed”. Combining these definitions’ can be concluded that an effective literature review has the following characteristics; (1) it provides a firm foundation to a research topic, (2) it provide a firm foundation to the selection of the research methodology and, (3) it contribute to something new to the overall body of knowledge and/or it advances the research field’s knowledge-base. Three basics types of literature reviews are identified; narrative reviews, qualitative systematic reviews and quantitative systematic reviews (Green, Johnson & Adams, 2006). The type of literature review used for this study is the qualitative systematic review. This type of literature review allows the researcher to develop criteria that determine if a research publication can be included or excluded in the final sample (Green, Johnson & Adams, 2006).
3.2 Identifying relevant literature
17 steps. In the first step, the researcher search systematically for articles relating to the research topic in leading journals, this step is then followed by a second and third step which is the application of the “Go backward” and the “Go forward” approach. The “Go backward” approach reviews the citation of the articles found in the first step, with the purpose to determine prior articles that should also be included in the review. The “Go forward” approach uses the Web of Science (the electronic version of the Social Sciences Citation Index) to identify articles citing the key articles identified in the previous two steps, with the purpose to determine which articles should be considered in the review.
For this research study, the structured approach identified by Webster and Watson (2002) was used for the gathering of relevant literature. The first step as mentioned above includes a systematic search for articles relating to the topic. The main topic of this study is leadership within IS and thus Leading journals of the IS world, was used as a starting point to find relevant articles. This first step was carried out by a prior research, from which a total of 1983 articles were found. The 1983 articles were selected from the “basket of 8 journals” database. “The basket of 8 journal” lists the top eight journals in the field of information technology; European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Information Systems Research, Journal of AIS, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of MIS, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, MIS Quarterly. From “the basket of 8 Journal”, articles containing the keywords leader and leadership and published with a 10 year range were considered. From a total of 1983 collected articles, 75 articles were found to be relevant (see appendix II for the list with the 75 articles). These 75 articles were made available to me by my supervisor and were used as the starting point, which is step 1 of the structured approach. In addition, these 75 articles were also the starting point for carrying out the “go backward” and the “go forward” approach.
To make sure that these 75 articles were a good source for conducting the “Go Backward” and “Go forward” approach, a small pilot project using the “Go backward” approach was carried out. For this small pilot project, 5 randomly selected articles from the total of 75 articles were used. In addition 5 keywords were formulated (leader, leadership, manager, project manager and CIO) and used to review the references of these articles and to determine whether the 75 articles will provide relevant articles. From these 5 randomly selected articles, a total of 44 articles were found to be relevant (leader or leadership-18; Manager or Projectmanager-11; CIO-2). By running this pilot project, was thus concluded that these 75 articles were a good source and that they would deliver relevant articles when apply both the “Go backward” and “Go forward” approach.
18 cited by the 75 articles. For this approach the main resource used was the Web of Knowledge1 (see appendix III for information on Web of Knowledge). For those articles that could not be found in the Web of Knowledge search engine, which was a total of 4 out of the 75 articles, the search engine Business Source Premier was used.
The first step in conducting the “GO forward” approach was to search for the 75 articles. The second step was finding relevant articles that have been cited by the 75 articles. Once each of these articles were found in the web of knowledge database, The search query for the cited articles (search within results) was set on leader, leadership, CIO, CEO and management. To ensure that all relevant literature is accumulated, articles from all years was considered for this study. Furthermore only scholarly peer-reviewed journals and articles were included. Periodicals, book chapters, book review, editorial notes, short notes, and brief research updates were omitted from this research.
During the first round of data collecting, after setting the search key for the five different terms, the cited articles containing the five terms (leader, leadership, CIO, CEO and management) in either their “title”, “keywords” or “keyword plus” was considered. Articles that had these terms only in the abstract were not considered (appendix IV provides an overview of the step carried out when searching on the web of knowledge). After collecting all the articles from the first round and deleting the articles that were present more than once, a total of 781 articles were collected. For the second round a more thorough analysis was carried out. The 781 articles from the first round, included relevant as wells as irrelevant articles. The Irrelevant articles were those articles related to ecology, market, price leadership, a specific country and or organization and were thus excluded. For those articles for which the relevancy was a little ambiguous a quick scan was done through the abstract and the first and last few paragraphs of the introduction and discussion section to determine whether the article should be included or not. Furthermore, Literature reviews were excluded, because these papers already represented a composite of multiple studies. After eliminating the irrelevant articles the data sample yielded a total of 78 articles. These 78 articles were used for this research study (see appendix V for the list with the 78 articles)
3.3 Data analysis & Coding scheme
In a literature review, it is required for the data from primary sources to be ordered, coded categorize and summarized into a unified and integrate conclusion about the research problem (Cooper, 1998). In addition the goal is to provide a thorough and unbiased interpretation of primary sources and to provide an innovative synthesis of the evidence (Whittemore & Knafl, 2005).
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19 After identify the relevant articles, Each article was coded according to several dimension of the coding scheme (see Appendix VI for a presentation of the coding scheme). This coding scheme consisted of two major categories and several sub categories; “General information about research method” and “the variables” found in the articles. The general information about research method, was divided into the following sub categories; publication year, journal type, research method (e.g., theoretical, empirical), research design (e.g., qualitative, quantitative), level of analysis (e.g., individual, group/team, organizational, inter-organizational). The variables category was divided into the following subcategories; independent variables (the “cause”), dependent variables (the “effect” of interest), mediators (direct effect) and moderator (indirect effect). The Independent variables are variables that account for, or explain the phenomenon of interest in research studies (Mumford, 2001). From the empirical articles collected, the independent variable was a leadership variable, such as; leadership characteristic, leadership role, or leadership skill, leadership behavior. The dependent variables are those variables that dependent on, or are affected by the independent variables (Mumford, 2001). The dependent variables recorded, were variables related to performance. These were grouped into the four elements of performance; customer performance, financial performance, human resource performance and organizational effectiveness. The mediator variable, explains the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable, while the moderator variable influences the strength of the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable (Mumford, 2001). The independent variable, dependent variable, mediator and moderator, were spotted in the hypotheses and or the conceptual model of the articles. In each empirical article at least one independent and one dependent variable was found (appendix VII provide an overview of the coded articles, based on the dependent, dependent, moderator and mediator variable).
3.4 Research Model
After collecting, selecting and coding of the relevant literatures, the leadership literature was systematically synthesized. To synthesize the literature means that the review weaves the streams of research together to focus on core issues rather than simply reporting previous literature (Torraco, 2005), with the purpose to produce “ a new model, conceptual framework or other unique conception informed by the author’s knowledge of the topic” (Torraco, 2005, p362). There are several ways to synthesize literature review. The most common forms of synthesis include; a research agenda, taxonomy, conceptual framework and meta-theory (Torraco, 2005, p362). For this study a conceptual framework was developed based on the input-process-input (IPO) model from Hackman & Morris (1978). This framework was solely used to categorize and organize leadership variables that effect performance within the IS field.
20 the interaction process, it is possible to develop an understanding of input-output relationship in any performance setting (Hackman & Morris, 1978). This model is thus suitable for this research study, because according to Hackman & Morris (1978) performance is best explained as a series of related I-P-O episodes.
Figure 3.1: Input-Process-Output Model (Hackman & Morris, 1978)
This model was adapted to include the moderator variable. Which as mentioned above, influences the strength of the relationship between the input and output variable (Mumford, 2001).
Figure 3.2: Input-Process-Output Model (Hackman & Morris, 1978) adapted
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4 Overview of the Synthesized leadership literature
This section, present an overview of the quantitative analysis of the research publications on leadership development. This analysis is based on 78 empirical journals, published between 1990 and 2013.
4.1 Level of analysis.
Leadership can be studied at different level of analysis. The level of analysis refers to the level at which the data is collected and analyzed. The collected journals were categorized into four different levels of analysis, namely; individual, group, organizational and inter-organizational level. From table 4.1 can be observed that the level of analysis of the collected literature is mostly divided between analysis at the inter-organizational, group and individual level, which makes up 87.18% of the studies in the sample. Although a preference is shown for research at the inter-organizational level of analysis, which makes up 35.90% of the studies in the sample. Approximately 7.69% of the sample data integrated both the individual and the group level of analysis. The lowest percentage was found for studies carried out at the organizational level, which makes up 5.13% of the sample data.
4.2 Research Design
Both the quantitative and qualitative research design was observed in the sample data. However the quantitative design was the most common, making up 75.64% of all the papers in the sample. Quantitative design was mostly identified with journals that conducted analysis at the group level, which makes up 28.21% of all the papers in the sample, followed by analysis carried out at the inter-organizational level (24.36%) and the individual level (15.38%). 19.23% of the sample study is based on the qualitative research design. Studies that combined both the quantitative and qualitative method showed the lowest percentage, making up 5,13% of the total collected sample. This percentage is divided between studies at the individual and studies at inter-organizational level.
Table 4.1: overview of level of analysis per publication year
Research Method Level of Analysis
Total Individual Group Ind. & Groups Organizational Inter-org.
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4.3 Research methods
From table 4.2 can be observed that a variety of research methods was identified, however the survey method was the most common, making up 47.44% of the total collected sample data. The survey method was typically performed at the inter-organizational level, which makes up 21.79% of the studies in the sample, followed by studies performed at the individual level (11.54%) and group level (8.97%) and with studies at the individual & group level (3.85%) and organizational level (1.28%) showing the lowest percentages in this category. The experiment method was the next most common choice of research method of the sample data, making up 17.95% of our sample. The experiment method were typically performed at the group level, which makes up 15.38% of studies in the sample, with a very small sample of the experiment method executed at the individual level (2.56%). The other three research methods that also ranked high in comparison to the research methods that made up more than 5% of the samples, were the case study method (12.82%), multi-method (5.13%), and the explorative method (5.13%). The multi-method studies, were most likely to incorporate a combination of case studies, interviews, survey and explorative research. The multi-method samples were typically performed at the inter-organizational level, which makes up 3.85% of the sample data.
Table 4.2: Research Methods and level of analysis
Research Method Level of analysis
Total Individual Groups/Team Ind. & Groups Organizational Inter-org.
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4.4 Journals
The leadership literature for this study was draw from a variety of journals. The sample data consisted out of a total of 41 different journals. Table 4.3 shows the journals that appeared more than three times in the sample study. The journal of management information system (JMIS) (12.82%) and the MIS QUARTERLY (7.69%) were the most common journals in the sample data and thus are considered the most popular journals in the sample. Followed by the European journal of Information system (EJIS) and the journal of strategic information system (JSIS), both covering 5.70% of our sample data. The other 35 journals appeared once, twice or three times in the sample. These 35 journals made up, 56.41% of the sample data.
Table 4.3: overview of journal per publication
From figure 4.1. Can be observed that more than 50 percent, 81,69% to be exact, of our sample data, consist out of journals published between the 2002 and 2013. From this data can thus be concluded that most articles used for the developing of the framework (figure 5.1) are based on recent studies.
Figure 4.1: Amount of Journals in the sample data published between 1990-2013
Journal Year of Publication Total %
199.. 200.. 201.. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 EJIS 1 2 1 1 5 6.41% JMIS 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 10 12.82% MISQ 1 1 2 2 6 7.69% GOM 1 1 2 4 5.13% JSIS 1 1 1 1 1 5 6.41 IFS 2 1 1 4 5.13% Other J. 1 2 1 2 2 2 3 1 1 3 3 5 8 6 2 2 44 56.41% Total 2 2 1 1 3 2 3 2 4 5 5 2 1 4 5 6 13 11 4 2 78 100%
EJIS:
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS GOM: GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT24
5 Findings of the Leadership literature review
This section presents an overview of the findings of the research literature, drawn from the published papers. In the first section a description is provided about how the framework in figure 5.1 was developed, followed by a detailed review of the findings of the literature.
5.1 Organizing the framework for the review
After coding the sample data, the framework in figure 3.2 was further developed into sub-categories. Figure 5.1 show the result of the synthesized literature of leadership, which was categorized into four major variables; the dependent variables, moderator, mediator and the independent variables.
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5.2 Independent variable
The independent variables represent the characteristics of a leader. The Independent variables that have been investigated by the previous leadership research papers and collected in the sample data are grouped into two main categories:(1) non-executive leadership aspects and, (2) executive leadership aspects. This section will synthesize the literature studies found in the sample data of each of these leadership categories.
5.2.1 Non-executive leadership aspects.
The non-executive variables of leadership refer to the leadership role displayed by individuals in non-executive functions. Non-executive functions include for-example the leadership role performed at the middle and low level management, within departments, functions, or any type of group setting. The non-executive leadership aspects are further divided into the following categories; leadership traits, leadership skill, leadership roles, leadership style and other. The section below will elaborate more on each of these categories.
5.2.1.1 Leadership traits
Zaccaro, Kemp & Bader (2004), define leadership traits as "relatively stable and coherent integrations of personal characteristics that foster a consistent pattern of leadership performance across a variety of group and organizational situations" (p.104). These personal characteristics include, cognitive abilities, personality, temperament, motives, skills and expertise. Based on the collected sample data the following traits were identified; Integrity, Commitment, Responsibility, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Positivity, Communication transparency and Knowledge. Table 5.1 provides an overview of these leadership trait found in the collected sample data.
26 hold on to ethical standards and puts project success before self. Remarkable is that in the study of Napier et a., (2009), Personal integrity only accounted for less than 5% of the personal constructs identified. With various scandals in the corporate world, they identified integrity is an important trait to have as a leader.
Commitment. Sarker and Lee (1999) examined the influence of commitment on process and outcome . The results showed that, to have a successful outcome, members of the top management team must be committed and to show commitment one must be "visibly involved in the project" p97. According to Parolia, Goodman, Li & Jiang (2007) commitment of leaders are necessary in order to achieve organizational goals and learning. Learning is achieve when leaders seek feedback, are open to critics, admit their mistakes and empower employees to make decision and take risks. In addition a positive relationship was found between the commitment of leaders and project performance. The results of this study showed that leadership commitment enhance project performance.
Responsibility. According to the study by Smits, McLean & Tanner (1993) individuals who are capable of providing leadership consider themselves to be high achievers and a person with a high need for achievement takes responsibility for finding solution to problems. Individuals with self-responsibility becomes more "behaviorally involved in the job" (Smits et al. 1993, p.116). The result showed that felt responsibility fit nicely with a person that is a high achiever and that a high achiever should be therefore considered by IS/IT managers who wants to integrate and retain high achievers IS/IT professionals in their organization(Smits et al., (1993). The importance of responsibility is also seen in the study by Napier et al., (2009). They state that, project leaders must be able to identify and analyze the root cause of problems and be able to take responsibility when problems occurs.
Conscientiousness. Conscientious is mentioned as one of the big five personality factors in the study of Cogliser, Gardner, Gavin & Broberg (2012). An individual with this characteristics exhibit; caution, self-discipline, hard work and a strong sense of direction. The study showed that there is a positive relationship between conscientiousness and task-related behaviors of a leader. Examples of task-related behaviors are, providing direction and setting of goals for team members. Task-related behaviors in turn was positively related to team performance.
27 Participation. Participation is defined as “the degree to which the team leader invites members’ active involvement in the decision making process” (Sarin & McDermott, 2003; p.712). Participation encourages the flow of new idea, collaboration within the team and it also promotes problem solving with groups. In the study of Sarin & McDermott (2003), team leader participation behavior was positively related to learning and knowledge application in New Product Development (NPD) teams.
Positivity. Leader positivity refers to the leader's positive psychological state of developments, which is characterized by; "(1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks;(2) making a positive reference (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when affected by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success” (Norman, Avolio, Luthans, 2010; p. 351). Leader positivity consist thus out of four leadership components; hope, resiliency, optimism and efficacy. Norman et al., (2007) hypothesized that the level of leader's positivity is positively related to followers perceived trust in leader and followers overall rating of leader's effectiveness. The result showed support for this hypothesis and concluded that leaders who display high level of positivity are seen as being more trustworthy and effective leaders by their followers. The relationship between the Leader's positivity and followers perceived trust and leader effectiveness, was also significant for low levels of leader's positivity. In addition support was shown for all the four components of leader's positivity.
Sense-making. The study of Thomas & Bostrom (2010) examined the importance for leaders to be able to sense the need for technology adoptation in virtual teams. In addition they identified triggers that leaders should watch for. Their developed model showed that leaders focus on five triggers; (1) external constraint, (2) internal constraint, (3) information and communication technology (ICT) inadequacy, (4) ICT knowledge, skills, and abilities inadequacy and, 5) trust and relationship inadequacies.
Independent variable - Non-Executive leadership
leadership trait Author Level of analysis
Integrity (2) Parry & Proctor-Thomson (2002) Inter-organizational
Napier, Keil and Tan (2009). Individual
Committed (2) Parolia, Goodman, Li & Jiang (2007) Inter-organizational
Sarker & Lee (1999) Organizational
Responsibility (2) Smits, McLean & Tanner (1993) Individual
Napier, Keil & Tan (200) Individual
Conscientiousness (1) Cogliser, Gardner, Gavin & Broberg (2012) Group & individual Agreeableness (1) Cogliser, Gardner, Gavin & Broberg (2012) Group & individual
Participation (1) Sarin, & McDermott (2003) Inter-organizational
Positivity (1) Norman, Avolio, Luthans (2010) Inter-organizational
Sense-making (1) Thomas & Bostrom (2010) Inter-organizatioal
Total Number of Articles 12
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5.2.1.2 Leadership Skill
A skill is identified as a behavior that can be taught or learned over time when given the proper mentoring or with proper foundation (Napier et al., 2009). Different skills were identified in the literatures found. These different skills were categorized into two main groups, interpersonal skill and analytical skill. Table 5.2, provides an overview of the literature studies that covered the leadership skill and the level of analysis at which these studies were carried out.
Interpersonal skill. According to Smits et al., (1993) interpersonal skills are becoming requisite skills to exhibit as an IT/IS professional. Interpersonal skill refers to the leaders’ ability to, motivate, empower, articulate his/her visions and preference, communicate to others, handle negotiations and conflicts (Chen & Wu., 2011). In the study of Chen & Wu (2011) these interpersonal skills are identified as being positive related with IT management activity effectiveness. Effectiveness is achieved because, these interpersonal skill will enable IT leaders to better understand the business priorities, identify opportunities, maximize the business value for IT competence, promote IT-based innovation and, they will be in a better position to align IT with key business processes. IT management effectiveness in turn was positively related to performance (Chen & Wu., 2011). The section below elaborates a little more on the following interpersonal skills; motivation, empower, visionary, communication, relationship building, high achievers and knowledge.
Motivation. The study of Chen & Wu (2011) identifies the leaders’ ability to motivate others as an interpersonal
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Empower. Empower or empowerment is defined as "the act of giving people the opportunity to make workplace
decisions by expanding their autonomy in decision making" (Nauman, Khan & Ehsan, 2010; p.640). Most studies in the sample data, examined empowerment at the team level. According to Nauman et al., (2010), team empowerment is an important factor in all kinds of team, including, management teams, virtual team and project teams. One of the most important factors that contribute to empowerment of followers or team-members is their relationship with the leader. Nauman et al., (2010) examined empowerment in the project management environment. The results showed empowerment to be significantly related with concern for task and concern for people in a project environment. Moreover, empowered employees enhance organizational effectiveness and customer satisfaction, since empowered employees lead to team members making fewer mistakes. Parolia et al., (2007) also examined team empowerment in the project management context. They considered team empowerment to be a critical for team learning. Empowerment of the team members will stimulate a culture of learning and experimenting, which will positively influence team members, resulting in enhanced project performance. Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk & Gibson (2004) examined the relationship between team empowerment and team performance. Team performance was measured by process improvement and customer satisfaction. In their study they defined team empowerment as "increased task motivation that is due to team members' collective, positive assessments of their organizational tasks (kirkmen et al., 2004; p.176). They identified four dimensions of team empowerment; potency, meaningfulness, autonomy and impact. These four dimension combined create the overall construct of team empowerment. The result showed team empowerment to be positively significantly related to both, process improvement and customer satisfaction. Their results suggest that in order to enhance process improvement and customer satisfaction leaders need to increase team empowerment.
Empowerment is also considered to be one of the most important factors for knowledge management (Kuo, Lai, & Lee, 2011). According to Kuo et al., (2011) empowered leadership leads to task autonomy, it also affect knowledge sharing and team efficacy. During the implementation of IS, leaders will encourage members to be more willing to use Knowledge management systems through its effect on task-technology-fit.
Visionary. A vision provides answer to the following questions; "who we are", "what we do" and "how we do it"
30 leader to share the vision. The champion, shares the vision in their own department, division, bureau, unit, group and they tell succes stories. These result concluded that the collective efforts of a numbers of leaders, is essential when dealing with interdependent tasks and new requirements in management practices. The importance for a leader to be able to develop, communicate and share a vision was also mentioned in the study of Napier et al., (2009) and Parolia et al., (2007). Napier et al. (2009), states that one of the factors for achieving project success is the ability of the project leader develop and communicate a clear vision. Parolia et al., (2007), states that leaders needs to define a clear mission with objective to avoid and or reduce uncertainty, which will result in improved project performance. Parolia et a., (2007) defined mission and objective as, the degree to which employees have a clear vision and understand how they can contribute to the success and achievement. While it is important for the leaders to be visionary and able to develop, communicate and share the vision, a clear vision will also help the organization gain competitive advantage (Chen & Wu (2011)
Coordinating. Northouse (2012) describes coordinating as a management skill that is necessary in order to get the
job done. The ability of a leader to coordinate was examined in the study by Zhang & Fearman (2007). In their study they focused on the coordination of knowledge in a knowledge sharing environment. Knowledge coordination task involves "the sharing of knowledge regarding system requirements, what knowledge is needed, how the knowledge can be acquired and stored, and how it is applied and evaluated both in the current and future term" (Zhang & Fearman p. 482) They results showed the coordinating activities of three leadership roles, the project leader, upper management and champion. The coordinating activities of the project leader is, provide technical expertise, negotiate with vendor, ensure adherence to the vison and objective and coordinate diverse groups expectations and requirement. While the upper management, is assigned with the coordinating task to bring the community together and foster trust an d norms that encourages knowledge sharing. The champion is assigned with filling in the knowledge gaps by codifying practices and providing information and
system requirements. The final conclusion showed that the collective efforts of leaders when dealing with interdependent task and new requirement, especially the coordination of knowledge is essential during information systems and changes in management practices.
Communication. Communication skill is also identified as an interpersonal skill. Communication is more broadly
31 responsive. In the study of Holsapple & Joshi (2000), the leaders’ ability to listen is mentioned very briefly as a leadership skill that influences the success of knowledge management initiatives. Norman, Avolio & Luthans (2010), on the other hand examined the importance of communication transparency with leader effectiveness and followers perceived trust in their leaders. They identified communication transparency as "message sending and receiving behaviors of superiors, subordinates, and peers with regard to task, personal, and innovative topics" (Norman et al., 20110, p. 352). Communication transparency involves both leader and his/her follower and how they exchange information with each other. The results indicated a positive relationship between high and low level of communication transparency with leader's effectiveness and perceived trust by their followers. Sarker, Ahuja, Sarker & Kirkeby (2011), also considers communication as having important implication on performance outcomes. Their results showed a positive relationship between communication and trust. Communication forms the basis for expressing and inferring trust behaviors among team members. Trust in turn had a significant effect on performance. Their result showed thus the mediating role of trust on the relationship between communication and individual performance, which indicates the indirect effect of communication on performance through trust. In the study by Kuruppuarachchi (2009), communication was also mentioned as an important factor in maximizing performance. High-level of communication is necessary if the work of team is to be considered effectively. The need for communication is also seen as an important characteristic of the top management during the business process reengineering (Sarker & Lee, 1999). Based on their case study they concluded that the top management leadership "must formulate and communicate the vision for the reengineered organization, and through their transformative leadership, create a sense of mission among organizational members" (p.97). The study by Matsuoa, Wong, Lai, (2008), identified communication with customers as a subcategory of customer relationship skill. The other subcategories included, Building relationships with customers, Understanding customers’ problems and Trouble-shooting. In their study both the IT consultants and the IT project manager identified customer relationship skill, as an skill that is needed in order to get the job done. However, each group place the emphasize on different levels of the customer relationship skills, subcategories; IT project managers focus on acquiring skills for communicating with customers and trouble-shooting and, IT consultants put their efforts in building relationships with customers and understanding their customer’s problems (Matsuo et al., 2008).
Relationship building. Pauleen (2003) identified relationship building as an important leadership skill, especially in
32 trust. At the team level, it will lead to higher task performance, increased team effectiveness, better information and knowledge exchange, enhanced creativity and motivation, better decision making and fewer problem losses. At the organizational level it will lead to better performing teams and increase organizational trust among employees. Relationship building is also identified as an important interpersonal skills during all kinds of projects. The main responsibility of the project managers is to meet and or exceed the stakeholders need. Thus the manager must be able to identify, understand and manage relationship between various project stakeholders (Jiang, Klein & Discenza, 2002). Relationship building is also important for IT professionals. IT professional interact with different clients on a daily basis and sometimes it is necessary to visits their clients in order to understand their needs and to test and implement solutions (Matsuo, Wong & Lai, 2008). It is for this reason that Matsuo et al., (2008) concluded that IT professional play an external role as the client relationship builder.
High achievers. High achievers refers to those individuals who aspires to finish difficult tasks, they maintain high
standards and are willing to work towards distant goals, they enjoy and respond positively to competition and are willing to do their utmost to achieve excellence (Smits, Mclean & Tanner, 1993). According to Smits et al. (1993) the need for achievement is a skill that can be learned when "opportunities for competing against standards of excellence become associated with positive outcomes" p.105. Smits et al., (1993) studied three groups of achievers, the high, medium and low achievers. The result showed that high achievers in comparison to the low achievers are more punctual, intelligent, educated, industrious, organized, insightful, independent and are considered to have the capacity to provide leadership to others. In addition, high achievers go for creative and challenging work, that provide a sense of accomplishment, autonomy and feedback.
Knowledge. Bassellier, Reich & Benbasat (2001) identified knowledge as one of the IT skills needed to improve the
33 process reengineering (BPR) (Sarker & Lee, 1999). According to Sarker & Lee (1999), IT is considered to be one of the most important enablers of BRP, it enables more effective and efficient business process and is therefore important for leaders to exhibit IT knowledge.
Analytical skill. The term Analytical skill was found in the study of Dries & Pepermans (2012). They explained that, leaders that exhibit analytic skills highlights conation (head) and extra personal (context) characteristics. In addition Dries & Perperman (2012) identifies four characteristics of the analytical skilled leader; Intellectual curiosity, insight, foresight, Decision making, problem solving and planning & controlling.
Intellectual curiosity. Dries & Peperman (2011) refer to this characteristic as a leader who is open to feedback,
provide new impulses and as someone who possess certain amount of social intelligence. The results of the study by Dries & Perperman (2011) showed that intellectual curiosity is not only related to the intelligence of the leader, but it also includes the leaders’ ability to transform information into action. As the amount of and handling of information becomes more complex at the higher organizational level, leaders need to be able to deal with this complexity and still be able to execute their job. Dries & Peperman (2011) states that “Being able to deal with increasing complexities is commonly acknowledged as a crucial indicator of leadership potential” p.374.
Insight. A leader with insight is defined as, a leader who has a broad insight in the business and organization (Dries
& Peperman, 2011) and who has the ability to "integrate diverse abilities and opportunities to respond to changes effectively and efficiently" (Shang, Wu & Yao, 2010., P.519). Insight is also identified as a capability needed for continuous innovation (Shang et al., 2010).
Foresight. Foresight is defined as a leader’s ability to identify future issues, to integrate all the information
available and make decision in advance whenever this is possible (Shang et al., 2010). Leaders that exhibit this skill explore new markets, they detect chances in the business environment, respond flexibly, and design competitive actions. Similar to a leader exhibiting the insight skill, foresight is identified as the ability of the leader to guide and manage internal resources to achieve innovation (Shang et al., 2010; P. 519). Shang et al., (2010), suggests that a combination of leader's foresight to capture opportunities and insight to guide and manage internal resources are needed to achieve innovation.
Decision making. Decision making is a leader that exhibits the characteristic of being decisive, assertive and being
