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The report describes about The impact of leadership styles on the employees of oil and gas industry in Kuwait

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The impact of leadership styles on the employees of oil and gas industry in Kuwait

Introduction

This research is based on different leadership styles and its impact on the employees of the oil and gas industry of Kuwait. There are many researches which related leadership behaviors, attitudes and styles of directing the firm to achieve its objectives. The researches have also been done on the leadership and employees relationship in different industry. This research will test the issue in the oil and gas industry of Kuwait. The secondary research will lay down the basis according to the research questions structured by the researcher and the formulated hypothesis will be tested by primary data collection from different sources by the researcher. The linkage will be made to test the dependence of different variables on each other and different analytical tools will be used for better understanding of the concept in a specific research area.

2.0 Recipient of the Research

There are many recipients of this research because of the importance of oil industry and in specific to Kuwait whose economy is based on this industry. Moreover, the research’s significant emphasis on leadership style and its impact on the employees in the industry outlines the recipients of this research. First of all, tutor and university are the major recipient of this research. Along with these recipients, there are some who are also the stakeholders of this research and the benefits can be taken. The government of Kuwait, leaders of oil companies, employees of oil companies, policy makers and researchers for future projects. The intense impact of the industry on the economy of the country makes the vast scope of its receipt as well. The government and regulators can work with the companies to adopt better styles and address the problems discussed in research to bring betterment in the industry which can put positive effects on the economy as well.

3.0 Suitability of Researcher for the Research

The suitability of this research to the researcher is significant because of the background of the researcher. The researcher has an academic background from the business and the relevance of oil industry to the economy of the country makes it more suitable. In addition to that, researcher is a Gulf resident which makes Kuwait industry relevant. The economy and human resource management are two important subjects of business studies and this project is related to the human resource management of the Kuwait’s oil industry which makes it suitable for the collecting on ground evidences regarding the research area. The literature review will be collected from different authenticated sources like academic journals, articles books and etc., and will be used as grounds for collecting data from the physical market of Kuwait. The accessibility to the market makes it suitable for researcher to carry out the research on this topic.

4.0 Literature Review

The leadership can be defined as the interaction between leaders and subordinates where leaders influence the behavior and attitudes of subordinated which helps in achieving organizational objectives (Reid, 2016). There have been different studies on the leadership styles and their role in the performance of the employees in an organization (Asrar ul Haq & Kuchinke, 2016). The leadership styles are changing according to the growing world and the requirements of different industries around the world (Galperin & Alamuri, 2017). There are two major styles of leadership which are being used by different leaders around the globe to direct and assist subordinates in order to achieve the objectives set by the organizations Transactional and transformational styles with different traits are commonly used in the organizations around the world (Bass & Stogdill, 1990). The leadership has changed the conventional hierarchy system in the organizations to bring more autonomy to goal setting and evaluation of outcomes by the employees at different levels of hierarchy (Elangovan & Xie, 2000).

The primary trait of a transformational leaders is to have positive expectations from the subordinates (Ogbonnaya & Nielsen, 2016). Those type of leaders are enthusiastic by nature and capable of motivating the team members to deliver the potential towards achieving the set targets. Such leaders have belief in the team that the team is talented for the task and can match the expectations set by the upper management of the company (Dong et al 2016). Another trait of such type of leaders that the attachment to the team member at personal and professional level. The leaders are kind hearted and appreciate the efforts done by each member (Brodbeck, Frese & Javidan, 2002). The transformational leaders direct the appraisal in the performance of the employees because it motivates the employees which brings creativity to the tasks done by the team. The relaxed minds allow employees to think differently and with freedom which brings creativity. It benefits the employees and ultimately the benefits are transferred to the organization as well (Gong et al 2009). Mittal & Dhar, (2015) investigated different organizations and concluded that the companies with the transformational leadership style have got competitive advantage in the market and that is majorly because of the motivated employees working in the organization.

Transactional leadership is another type which is consistent in achieving the goals and objectives set by the organization and policy makers. This type of leaders is concerned about the completion of tasks by all means whether its reward or punishment (Tremblay et al 2013). There are times when the goals are transferred from the top management to the team leaders which is translated by leaders to the teams with the subjectivity of reward and punishment (Podsakoff, et al 2006). This leadership style is an epitome of one way directions because the team members can give feedback about the effective communication of policies. The researches have shown that there are organizations who have benefitted from such leadership style because leadership gets able to keep the processes on track inside the organization (Vera & Crossan, 2004).

The oil and gas industry around the world is contributing one third to the total energy needs. Kuwait is one of the major exporters of oil in Gulf whose economy is contributed majorly by the sector. 94% of the export revenues and income are generated for the country with the export oil around the world (The World Fact book, 2016). This industry needs to be properly managed because different projects are part of the industry which requires leadership traits to direct the policies for implementation and effective project management (Dulewicz and Hugs, 2005). This research will collect the data from the oil and gas industry of Kuwait to analyze the leadership styles and effect on the employee’s performance.

5.0 Research Methodology

5.1 Research Aim

The aim of this research is to analyze the impact of leadership styles on the employees of oil and gas sector of Kuwait.

There are some objectives set by the researcher to achieve the aim or core purpose of this research project.

5.2 Research Objectives

                To investigate different leadership styles and impact on the organizations

                To investigate the impact of identified leadership styles on different industries of Kuwait

                To analyze the impact of leadership styles on the employees of oil and Gas Industry in Kuwait.

                To investigate the relationship between leaders and employees of oil and gas industry of Kuwait.

                To investigate the factors related to leadership style which affects the motivation level of the employees in the oil and gas industry of Kuwait.

                To investigate the leadership styles and self-esteem of the employees.

                To recommend suitable measure which can be taken by leaders and management in the industry to get better results from the employees.

5.3 Research Questions

The research questions are made by the researcher, in order to achieve the objectives, set in the above section.

Research Question 1: What are the factors which affect the performance of the employees in different industries?

Research Question 2: How the leaders affect the productivity of their employees?

Research Questions 3: Did the impact of leadership styles on employee’s performance, left any impact on the performance of the companies operating in the oil and gas sector of Kuwait.

Research Question 4: Did companies in oil and gas industry of Kuwait showed any significant difference in employee’s performance due to a specific leadership style?

The above four questions are designed to address the main aim of the research. The questions are interlinked to each other because the questions are mobbing from general to specific which cover the leadership styles and its impact on the employees of different sector. It leads to the oil and gas industry of Kuwait. The major use of these questions is to formulate the hypothesis which will be tested by adopting a proper methodology on the basis of the data collected.

5.4 Research Hypothesis

The few variable have been identified which will be tested with affirmative a negative hypothesis to know the relation and interdependence on each other.

Hypothesis 1o: There is an impact of leadership style on the employees.

Hypothesis 1a: There is no impact of leadership style on the employees.

Hypothesis 2o: There is an impact of leadership style in context to employee’s motivation level.

Hypothesis 2a: There is no impact of leadership style in context to employee’s motivation level.

Hypothesis 3o: There is a direct impact of leadership styles on the productivity of the employees in the oil and gas industry of Kuwait.

Hypothesis 3a: There is no direct impact of leadership styles on the productivity of the employees in the oil and gas industry of Kuwait.

There are three hypothesis created above to analyze the dependence of each variable on the other variables. The relationship will be made on the basis of the literature review collected from the different sources who have already work on this research are, and it will analyze with the help of data collection in to the market of Kuwait.

6.0 Research Methodology

The research methodology is a process to use different methods and techniques for the analysis of data on the basis of some rationale used by the researcher (Saunders et. Al. 2007). There are two methods which can be used to analyze the data collected with the help analytical tools used by the researcher. The methods chosen are on the basis of research topic and area. The nature of the data collected will also be considered while selecting the research methodology.

6.1 Quantitative Research

Saunders et. al. (2007) defined Quantitative research s follows.

“Qualitative research method is primarily used as a synonym for any data collection techniques such as interview or any data analysis procedure such as categorizing data, that generates or use non numerical data

This method is scientific in nature and can be used for the analysis of the numerical data collected by the researcher. The numerical data is analyzed by depicting the results in the form of graphs, charts and trend analysis. The research method is objective in nature and the data collected in also objective which can be analyzed with the help of some statistical tools (Creswell, 2003).

6.2 Qualitative Research

Saunders et. al. (2007) also defined this type of research which is discussed below.

“Qualitative research method is primarily used as a synonym for any data collection techniques such as interview or any data analysis procedure such as categorizing data, that generates or use non numerical data”

This method is subjective in nature and gathers the data which is also subjective in nature. The beliefs, values and perceptions are analyzed with the help this type of research method. There is supporter of this research who argues that the researcher gets freedom in collecting this type of data which allows the respondents to respond about their ideas accordingly.

6.3 Selected Research Methodology

There are many researches done for the application of both methodologies in different researches. The methodology used to carry out this research is mixed methodology. The combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology will be used to handle the data collected in both contexts (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009). The quantitative methodology will address the issue of numerical change in the performance of the company due to the employee’s low motivation levels and low self-esteems which could be due to leadership styles. The beliefs, values, perceptions of leaders and employees will be analyzed according to the qualitative methodology. There are researches in the favor of mixed methodology because quantitative and qualitative methodology are not mutually exclusive to each other. Both methods can compensate the shortcoming of each other by bringing objectivity and subjectivity in the data collected and its analysis.

6.4 Ethical Issues:

The ethical consideration is one of the major factors which needs to be considered while carrying out any research. Mostly, ethical issues arise during the secondary data collection while using different data collection methods. The primary research also faces the issue like plagiarism and presenting the right data. In this research, proper referencing will be used for the sources included in this study while keeping the true sense of the data. The secondary research will also be protected from any ethical issue by keeping the privacy and confidentiality of the respondents because the employees or leaders in the industry may get hesitant while talking about the issue. Moreover, the consent will be taken from each respondent about including the data collected from their responses.

7.0 Population and Sample

The population of this research is the employees and leaders of oil and gas companies in Kuwait. The different tiers of management will also be included as a population with secondary focus in this research because they are also leaders and subordinates at the same time. So, the managers can also relate to the research area.

7.1 Sampling:

There are different types of sampling techniques which can be used to collect data. The random sampling technique is used in this research because of the certain reasons. As the sample size is big and there can be many respondents to the questions asked, so every respondent will get equal chance to respond about their perception. Moreover, different tiers of management will also be included in sample size among leaders and employees of the oil and gas development company.

8.0 Data Collection, Editing and Coding

The researcher has used two methods to collect data from the sample of 40-50 respondents. The semi structured interviews and questionnaires are two different methods of data collection which can address the research problem and cover different aspects of the research area.

8.1 Semi Structured Interviews

There are different types of respondents included in this research from different background, so interview questions need to be asked according to the related area of the respondents (Welman et al 2005). Semi structured interviews will be used because it allows researcher to change questions according to the dynamics of the respondents. The leaders and top level management of oil and gas companies in Kuwait, will be targeted by semi structured interviews.

8.2 Questionnaire

This is another method of data collection from different respondents. Mostly the employees of the companies will be catered by this data collection method. A questionnaire of 10 questions will be structured with the help of Likert Scale to know the perception of the respondents regarding different leadership styles and their impact on the employees of oil and gas industry of Kuwait.

8.3 Techniques:

There will be two techniques used to analyze the data collected. Because the data will be consisting of both qualitative and quantitative data, so one technique for each method will be used.

8.4 Deductive Approach for Qualitative data.

This research is a systematic procedure of moving from general to specific. The data is deduced from the theory developed at the first stage of the research. (Gill and Johnson 2002). The population will be selected from Oil and gas industry of Kuwait which will be backed by the literature review done by the company. The general theory will be made on the leadership styles and employee’s performance which will get specific to the research area of this paper.

8.5 ANOVA for Quantitative data:

ANOVA is a statistical tool which measures the variance in the dependence of different variables on each other (Pierce et al 2004). It identifies if there is any significant difference in the means of the results collected by conducting this survey. Moreover, charts and graphical representation will be used to support the analysis and trend analysis will be done according to the requirements of the data available.

9.0 Time, Cost and Project Management

9.1 Time/ Gantt Chart:

The Gantt chart is a good illustration of dividing the available time of total research into different segments according to the needs of each segment (Clark, 1925). This project is based on six months of research to do analysis of both primary and secondary research. There are different chapters of this research and most time taking chapter is the literature review which will be continued throughout six months of study. The literature review will be continued because updated and newer data is required always to support the research in a better way. The research methodology will also take ample time to be completed and data will be collected and analyzed in three months. These chapters will work simultaneously and literature review will be updating according to the requirement of all the segments. Moreover, the chart in appendix shows depicts the time division of each chapter.

9.2 Cost

There is some cost associated with every research and the major cost incurs for this research will be related to printing of questionnaire, traveling to interview different respondents and sometimes secondary research requires the subscriptions to academic sources and purchase of physical books.

9.3 New and Relevant Research

The research is quite significant because of the importance of research are in the economy of the Kuwait and being a major oil supplier, to the economy of the world as well. The research is new because there is not much research done about the leadership styles in the sector and findings and analysis part of this project is newer and relevant information to the economy of Kuwait. The research is relevant because leadership styles always affect the performance of the employees, so this research is used for the testing of that relationship in specific industry of oil and gas in Kuwait.

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