Directive Leadership Style and Performance of Manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES) in Nairobi County, Kenya
Keywords:
directive leadership, organizational performance, small and medium enterprises, Nairobi County, KenyaAbstract
This study sought to examine the influence of directive leadership style on organizational performance of manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nairobi County, Kenya. Positivism research philosophy and descriptive correlational research design were adopted. The target population consisted of managers/owners from 425 SMEs listed members of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers in Nairobi Region. Stratified random sampling technique was then used to draw a sample size of 369 managers/owners from the total population. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires. Binary Logistic Regression (Cox and Snell R squared) revealed that 13.7 % of the probability of organizational performance was explained by directive leadership style. The parameter estimates results indicated that directive leadership style positively and significantly predicted organizational performance, β= 3.435, p = .000, p < 0.05. Based on these results the null hypothesis that “directive leadership style does not influence organizational performance in manufacturing SMEs in Nairobi” was rejected. The study concluded that directive leadership style significantly influenced organizational performance in manufacturing SMEs in Nairobi County. The findings provide new insights for owners/managers of manufacturing SMEs on use of directive leadership style to influence performance in their organizations. However, given the differences in capacity and demographics in various counties, the study recommends a similar study to be conducted with focus on Kenya at large using a longitudinal approach and other data analysis methods to provide new understanding of the SME sector as a whole.
References
Achua, C. F., & Lussier, R. N., (2013). Effective leadership. South-Western Cengage Learning.
Akhtar, S., & Zia-ur-Rehman, M. (2017). Impact of managerial coaching behavior on job performance: analyzing the role of organization commitment and role clarity. Journal of Managerial Sciences, 11(3), 298-318.
Amankwah-Amoah, J., Khan, Z., & Wood, G. (2020). COVID-19 and business failures: The paradoxes of experience, scale, and scope for theory and practice. European Management Journal.
Baron, J., & Spulber, D. F. (2018). Technology standards and standard setting organizations: Introduction to the Searle Center Database. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 27(3), 462-503.
Bickle, J. T. (2017). Developing remote training consultants as leaders—Dialogic/network application of path‐goal leadership theory in leadership development. Performance Improvement, 56(9), 32-39.
Calza, E., Goedhuys, M., & Trifković, N. (2019). Drivers of productivity in Vietnamese SMEs: The role of management standards and innovation. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 28(1), 23-44.
Chen, B. T. (2017). Service innovation performance in the hospitality industry: The role of organizational training, personal-job fit and work schedule flexibility. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 26(5), 474-488.
Dokony, H. A. I., Singh, J. S. K., & Arumugam, D. T. (2020). The influence of leadership behaviors based on the Path-Goal theory towards employees’ satisfaction in a developing nation. A study in the telecommunication sector in n’Djamena, Chad. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, 24(2).
House, R. J. (1971). A path goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative science quarterly, 321-339.
House, R.J., & Mitchell, T.R. (1974). Path-goal theory of leadership. Contemporary Business, 3, Fall, 81-98.
Jiang, H., Chen, Y., Sun, P., & Yang, J. (2017). The relationship between authoritarian leadership and employees’ deviant workplace behaviors: The mediating effects of psychological contract violation and organizational cynicism. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 732.
Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2001). Transforming the balanced scorecard from performance measurement to strategic management: Part II. Accounting horizons, 15(2), 147-160.
Kasimu, P. (2016). The influence of employee perception of the leader’s path-goal leadership behaviors on organizational commitment: a case study of East African Breweries Limited (EABL) (Doctoral dissertation, United States International University-Africa).
Katialem, I. R., Muhanji, S., & Otuya, R. (2018). Entrepreneurial orientation and small and medium enterprises growth: Empirical evidence from SME’s in the manufacturing sector of Nairobi County, Kenya. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Project Management, 3(2), 38-53.
Kaur, S., Bagga, P., Hans, R., & Kaur, H. (2019). Quality of Service (QoS) aware workflow scheduling (WFS) in cloud computing: A systematic review. Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, 44(4), 2867-2897.
Lal ‘Arya, M. (2017). A Study of relationship between leadership styles of principal and teacher effectiveness.
Latham, G. P. (2018). Becoming the evidence-based manager: How to put the science of management to work for you. Hachette UK.
Martin, H. D. (2018). Demystifying the link between institutional theory and stakeholder theory in sustainability reporting. Economics, Management and Sustainability, 3(2), 6-19.
Mersha, D., & Ayenew, Z. (2018). Determinants of Access to Finance of Smallholder Farmers. Journal of Business and economics, 1(1), 129-131.
Mkheimer, I. (2018). The impact of leadership styles on business success: A Case Study on SMEs in Amman. Arabian Journal of Business Management Review, 8(343), 2.
Mutonyi, N., K’Aol, G., & Ouma, C. (2021). Influence of supportive leadership style on the innovative behavior of senior managers in the manufacturing sector in Kenya. The University Journal, 3(1).
Mwaisaka, D. M., K’Aol, G., & Ouma, C. (2019). Influence of participative leadership style on employee job satisfaction in commercial banks in Kenya. European Journal of Business and Strategic Management, 4(3), 23-45.
Northouse, P. G. (2017). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.
OECD (2020, 2 March) “Global economy faces gravest threat since the crisis as coronavirus spreads”. Retrieved from: http://www.oecd.org/economy/global-economy-faces-gravest-threatsince-the-crisis-as-coronavirus-spreads.htm. [Accessed: 30 September 2022].
Raju, K. K., & Banerjee, S. (2017). A study on job description and its effect on employee performance: case of some selected manufacturing organizations in the city of pune, India. Int. J. Latest Tech. Eng. Manag. Appl. Sci. (IJLTEMAS), 6(2), 2278-2540.
Rana, R., K'Aol, G., & Kirubi, M. (2019). Influence of directive and achievement oriented path-goal leadership styles on employee performance of coffee trading companies in Kenya. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), 8(6), 137-147.
Razak, A., Sarpan, S., & Ramlan, R. (2018). Effect of leadership style, motivation and work discipline on employee performance in PT. ABC Makassar. International Review of Management and Marketing, 8(6), 67.
Saleem, A., Aslam, S., Yin, H. B., & Rao, C. (2020). Principal Leadership Styles and Teacher Job Performance: Viewpoint of Middle Management. Sustainability, 12(8), 3390.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2016). Research methods for business students, (no. Book, Whole). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
Sawaeana, F. A. A., & Alib, K. A. M. (2020). The impact of entrepreneurial leadership and learning orientation on organizational performance of SMEs: The mediating role of innovation capacity. Management Science Letters, 10(2), 369–380.
Siddique, C. M., Siddique, H. F., & Siddique, S. U. (2020). Linking authoritarian leadership to employee organizational embeddedness, LMX and performance in a high-power distance culture: a mediation-moderated analysis. Journal of Strategy and Management.
Spulber, D. F. (2019). Standard setting organizations and standard essential patents: Voting and markets. The Economic Journal, 129(619), 1477-1509.
Theurer, C. P., Tumasjan, A., & Welpe, I. M. (2018). Contextual work design and employee innovative work behavior: When does autonomy matter?. PloS one, 13(10), e0204089.
Van der Hoek, M., Groeneveld, S., & Kuipers, B. (2018). Goal setting in teams: Goal clarity and team performance in the public sector. Review of public personnel administration, 38(4), 472-493.
Wandiri, L., Nyangau, S., & Ochieng, D. E. (2020). Effect of financial development initiatives on growth of small and medium manufacturing enterprises in Nairobi County, Kenya. African Development Finance Journal, 4(2), 62-78.
Wang, H., & Guan, B. (2018). The positive effect of authoritarian leadership on employee performance: The moderating role of power distance. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 357.
Zoo, H., de Vries, H. J., & Lee, H. (2017). Interplay of innovation and standardization: Exploring the relevance in developing countries. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 118, 334-348.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2023 Lucy Atieno Ochieng, Jeremiah Koshal, Scott Bellows
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
