How Leadership Style Impacts The Employees - Essay Example

CHAPTER THREE. METHODOLOGY The major focus of this study is to discuss the transformational leadership and their impact on the employee turnover in the retail sector. This study will examine the transformational leadership style of managers and the anticipated turnover of their retail subordinates. Chapter 3 will state the research question as well as the independent and dependent variables. Also, this chapter will identify the hypotheses, survey instruments, population and sample, limitations of this study as well as the ethical concerns. There are many variables that can influence turnover within a retail environment, however the specifics of this study will center on how the characteristics of retail managers influences turnover. The study will measure quantifiably by use of assessment tools. The research question is: Is there a relationship between transformation leadership characteristics of retail managers and the anticipated turnover of retail employees? The characteristics of the transformational leadership style will examine: 1. Is there a relationship between idealized influence leadership behavior of retail managers and the anticipated turnover of retail employees? 2. Is there a relationship between inspirational leadership of retail managers and the anticipated turnover of retail employees? 3. Is there a relationship between intellectual stimulation of retail managers and the anticipated turnover of retail employees? 4. Is there a relationship between individualized consideration of retail managers and the anticipated turnover of retail employees Definition of Dependent Variable Anticipated turnover: The certainty is anticipated that an individual will leave their job in the organization. Definition of Independent Variables Transformational Leadership: Transformational leaders are able to inspire followers to by granting individualized attention to their followers, considering their needs and abilities, playing an especially important role in the followers” growth and development (Robbins & Judge, 2005; Zacharatos, Barling, & Kelloway, 2000). Idealized influence: A form of leadership behavior that results in leaders becoming role models for their followers. The leaders are admired, respected and trusted. Followers identify with the leaders and wish to emulate them (Bass & Avolio, 1993) In idealized influence, behaviour of the leaders is very influential and it makes the followers to walk on the path chosen by the leaders. Thus the leaders are followed willingly by the people. Inspirational motivation: Leadership behaviors that motivate and inspire followers in their work by providing a challenging work environment. Leaders provoke followers to imagine an attractive future for themselves (Bass & Avolio, 1993) Intellectual stimulation: Strategy the results in followers becoming more innovative and creative within an organization. (Bass & Avolio, 1993) The characteristic of Intellectual Stimulation in the leaders exposes his or her ability to stimulate the intellectual capacity of the people. Those who are really genius and their intellectuality and knowledge is definitely a blessing for the attainment of the organizational goals then the leaders motivate such people to use their intellectual potentials for the growth of the organization. Individualized consideration: Individualized consideration is also one of the characteristics of the transformational leaders. It is the leadership strategy that empathizes an individual employee’s needs. It concentrates on individual’s achievement by positioning them as mentors and coaches to help them realize their potential. The leaders here are always thinking themselves committed to pay attention on the requirements of each individual under his influence. The leaders thus take honest efforts to solve the problems of each person and thus create the feeling of belongingness among the employees. It also makes every employee that he or she is the special person for the leader. Research Design A correlation design will be used for this study. A correlation analysis is a statistical modus operandi that assesses the association between two sets of variables. The association between variables can be linear or nonlinear. The correlation design was chosen because transformational leadership characters will be examined as degrees of relationship to turnover intentions. The study’s dependent variable is the intention of the employees to leave the organization, or to work in the organization with satisfaction. This dependent variable is measured by the anticipated turnover scale. The independent variables consist of five characteristics of transformational leadership, one overall score measuring transformational leadership and sub-scores measuring the four attributes, which are idealized influence, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation. Inspirational motivation: A regional survey will be used to collect information through a self-administered questionnaire Hypotheses In any research paper hypotheses play major role and they keep the research process on the right track. They gave the proper and specific direction to the research process. Hypothesis is a mere prediction which are based on scientific findings It provides the healthy debate where the researcher can freely articulate their most exciting ideas. In this research paper we have we have basically anticipated two major hypotheses and the second hypothesis has four sub hypothesis Hypothesis 1: There will be a significant relationship between transformational leadership characteristics and anticipated turnover of retail sales employees. Hypothesis 2: The transformational leadership characteristics subscales individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, and inspirational motivation and idealized influence will significantly predict the anticipated turnover or retail sales employees. Hypothesis 2a. There will be a significant relationship between individualized consideration and the anticipated turnover of retail sales employees. Hypothesis 2 b. There will be a significant relationship between intellectual stimulation and the anticipated turnover of retail sales employees. Hypothesis 2 c. There will be a significant relationship between inspirational motivation and the anticipated turnover of retail sales employees. Hypothesis 2 d. There will be a significant relationship between idealized influence and the anticipated turnover of retail sales employees. Data Distribution: Population and Sample Generally there are two types of methodologies used for the survey. One is pen paper survey and another is internet survey. In this research the primary methodology which is used for the survey and that is Internet. The choice of methodology should be based on what is best for the respondents -- best in terms of convenience, ease of use, and trust in the method. There is little difference in price between either method until the sample size numbers in the thousands, in which case Internet is more cost effective. If all employees or substantially all employees have access to the Internet from work, The target sample will consist of retail sales representatives. The selected organization is a division within at fortune 500 company. The division’s core business is retail operations. The population surveyed will be four hundred and fifty employees all found with the Midwestern united states spanning throughout a 13 state geographic area. The entire population reported to the same Sales Director for the past two years. The surveys will be distributed by means of the corporate e-mail service. Internet is our recommended methodology. It generally results in a higher response rate and is faster than paper-and-pencil. It also give a bit more control in terms of how the questions are presented and gives the ability to require that certain questions must be answered. We have a secure server, so there is no issue with regard to confidentiality of sending results when an Internet survey is done with us. The e-mail consisted of an informational letter that included a letter of consent. The e-mail message will include a website link that forwarded the participants to the online survey administered through a database. The participants will be given one week to complete the surveys. There will be no compensation or other incentives offered to completion of the survey. The employee’s information is confidential and the employee’s name is not required to complete the survey. The e-mail distribution will be a blind e-mail message, meaning that no specific names are be to included in the recipient line of the e-mail. Data Collection Instrumentation/ Measures The collection method used will be from existing instrumentation, which measures leadership styles and employee turnover. Added demographic questions are to be included to aid in better data analysis. The questionnaire will consist of three parts: 1. Demographic questions that included work setting, employee tenure, age, gender and education. 2. The MLQ5X (Bass, 1990) assessment measured the employees” rating of their manager. MLO5X is the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. It is a small but comprehensive survey 45items which measures a full range of leadership style. The MLQ 5x has strong validity and reliability which has been used extensively in research as well as commercial applications worldwide. It has proven to be a strong predictor of leader performance at different organizational levels and in different national cultures. 3. Jackofsky and Locum’s (1987) turnover scales will measure employee turnover. According to the three major types we can categorized the questions in a table which is given below. Question No. Question Type Summary of the Questions 1 Demographic Name 2 Demographic Employee Code 3 Demographic Age 4 Demographic Gender 5 Demographic Education 6 Demographic Total Experience Data Analysis The survey’s dependent variable is the self-perceived retail employee has anticipated turnover, will be measured by Jackofsky and Slocums (1987) turnover scale. The independent variables will be a total score and subscales which included idealized influence, inspirational leadership, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration will be mean scores of the MLQ-5X. The analysis will include central tendencies, mean and mode. The researcher will use t-tests to test each hypothesis to discover the degree of association between variables. Validity and Reliability Research will be conducted using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire designed by Bass (1985) is more commonly referred to as the MLQ or MLQ 5X depending on version used, to measure leadership types. The questionnaire recognizes characteristics of transformational leadership and assesses how they are perceived by subordinates, managers or co-workers, this dependent on what sample the survey is distributed for evaluation. Davies (2001) identifies the major advantage of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire is that “validly and reliably measures managerial behaviors that are related to performance and that it has been dependently shown to measure behavioral factors of idealized influence, inspirational leadership, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration that correlate with both follower and organizational measures of performance.” The other method of data collection will be from use of the Scale of Turnover Intention developed by Jackofsky and Slocum (1987). The scale is used to measure anticipated turnover by using a scale of four items rated on a five-point Likert scale. Data obtained from the scale will provide an overall turnover intention score. The scale is: 1-Strongly Disagree 2-Disagree 3-Neither Agree or Disagree 4-Agree 5-Strongly Agree Ethical Considerations Before doing the research it is very necessary to take into consideration the consent of the people to whom the researcher is involving. All types of research doesn’t need permission especially those data which is available publicly. While conducting the research here the care is taken that nobody could get harm physically and mentally. To address consent and confidentiality of the respondents, the surveys will include a cover letter and letter of consent. The information contained in the e-mail and survey will include the researcher’s contact information and school contact information. All information collected through the survey is to be confidential and the participants will not be required to use their name when filling out the questionnaire, only demographic information will be requested. The survey is voluntary to complete. The survey results will be consolidated and recorded using an automated data collection warehouse, where the encrypted data will be stored. The study will be reviewed and approved by International Board of Review before beginning. The data which will be collected for the research is taken from the authentic sources and while analyzing the data, no biased attitude is there. Everything is investigated and propounded is authentic and true and prior experiment is done before propounding it Results: Response Rate Read More