Exploring Leadership and its Influence on Employee Motivation and Employee Engagement

 Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter briefs the readers regarding the introduction of the research topic: Exploring Leadership and its Influence on Employee Motivation and Employee Engagement. It gives the background of the study and why the researcher has undertaken this paper. It also presents the aims and objectives of the study and develops a hypothesis that is to be tested. It also presents the research questions and the structure of the dissertation.

1.1 Introduction of Employee Engagement

Human resources are the most challenging and difficult resource that the company has to maintain. Be it any sector, manufacturing, information technology, hospitality, retail, education or any other, human resource is a necessity in every organization and in every sector. Where in the past, employees were disrespected and treated as unequal; today they are being given increased importance (Shuck and Herd, 2012). Just like the companies care out their customers, they also care about their employees, especially when it is a retail or hospitality sector. In fact there are a few organizations that stress more on their employees rather than the other stakeholders. This transformation from being a worker to being an important asset of the company has occurred in the recent years when globalisation took over the world. Due to globalisation, the companies are open to large base of employees. This has given employees certain advantages to bargain over various things. Therefore employees have become an important part of the company, as employee turnover is a huge shortcoming for the companies (Vogelgesang, Leroy and Avolio, 2013).

In the information technology sector, the growth in career is slow and since it is a technology oriented market, human resources are required but majority of the parts are done by the advanced technology. Employees that are not at higher levels with major decision-making powers are usually demotivated because of their slow and monotonous jobs. Motivation is one of the many factors that result in employee turnover. There are some companies where the treatment with the employees is demotivating, a few organizations indulge in unfair practices or low wages resulting in low motivation and some companies the tasks they are allotted are not motivating enough (Van Dierendonck, Stam, Boersma, De Windt and Alkema, 2014). In every aspect motivation needs to be there for the employee to perform better and make sure that they are internally motivated to give performance for the betterment of the company. Motivation has various roles to play not only in maintaining a professional stance but also for the personal life. Motivation as defined is the drive to achieve a desired goal with the help of internal or external factors. Various theories have been presented in order to understand the different factors that result in motivation. These theories are Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory, which is the main theory on which the entire organizations are based. Apart from this, it is Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, Theory of X and Y and many others that have a significant importance to the management in understanding the various factors that can help in the motivation of the employees (Robbins, Judge, Millett and Boyle, 2013). Employee motivation is important for the companies to move forward in their operations with full effectiveness. Though employee motivation can be taken care of with the help of external and internal incentives but the most important necessity for the company to motivate the employee base is effective leadership. Usually companies give more importance to managers, but in the current competitive periods, the most important necessity for employee motivation is leadership.

Leadership is the most highly valued and essential aspect in the globalising world. The success and failure of the companies is highly dependent upon the leadership. An effective leader is able to make sure that the company performs its best and enables it to lead the market with innovation and market leadership (Graves, Sarkis and Zhu, 2013). Leadership is a concept that is opposite to management. Unlike management, leadership is helpful in maintaining the participation of the employees and with unit cohesion they are able to achieve the already established objectives and goals of the company. Leadership is also a process wherein the main focus of the leader is to achieve goals by influencing its team to perform their best and use the resources optimally. An effective leader would always be able to influence their team members and other workers in the company for the realising the company’s goals in the best manner. As said earlier, managers and leaders are two different people. A manager can be a leader but a leader cannot be a manager.It is the managers who develop the consistency and order within the company whereas it is the leaders who are responsible for motivating the employees and bringing changes in the organization (Wang and Hsieh, 2013). A leader can maintain an effective relationship between the subordinates and leaders provides the leaders appreciate the members, who are offering their maximum contribution, talent and energy to achieve organizational objectives and goals. There are different styles of leadership varying from authoritative to participative. Each leadership style has it sown advantageous and disadvantageous influence on the employees of the company. Moreover, various leadership theories have been presented that would help in studying the influence of leadership on employee motivation and engagement within the company. In this research paper, the researcher has undertaken a quantitative study to identify the manner in which leadership has influenced employee motivation and employee engagement in the organization IBM. In this paper, the focus will be given to the exploration of transactional leadership transformational leadership and theory of leadership exchange (Neubert, Wu and Roberts, 2013).

1.2 Background of the Study

Employee engagement and motivation has always been a concern for every organization. Motivation is the drive that allows the individuals to take certain steps for achieving certain goals. Motivated employees allow the company to achieve their targeted objectives and goals with full efficiency and optional use of resources. Employee engagement is regarded as a concept where the company’s management is able to bring together the employees to achieve a specific goal. Employees can be brought together only if they are motivated to work in a team and understand its importance (Hunter et al., 2013). In order to motivate the employees and make sure they engage in corporate practices, the company would require a strong leader. A leadership skill is necessary since the leaders have the competency and skills to motivate the team to perform better. It is very challenging for the company to motivate and engage their employees in unit cohesion because of various individual and professional differences. These differences and certain management decisions result in resistance on the part of the employees and hence needs a leader for bringing them together. A leader’s role is not to manage the team and authorise them but participate with them in their work and motivate them at each level for enhanced performance (Leroy, Anseel, Gardner and Sels, 2015).

The research paper focuses on the influence of leadership on employee motivation and employee engagement in IBM. An American multinational technology as well as consulting company having its headquarters in New York, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) operates in the industry of information and communication technology. The organization is responsible for manufacturing as well as marketing computer middleware, hardware and software and also provides hosting, infrastructure and consulting services in fields varying from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. Since its introduction in the market, the company has constantly evolved. In the last decade, the company has gradually shifted its business portfolio by withdrawing from the commoditizing markets like hard disk drives, personal computers and DRAMS. Instead the company is focusing on more profitable and higher value markets like data analytics, business intelligence, security, business continuity, cloud computing, green solutions and virtualisation. This allows the company to achieve a higher profit margin and higher quality revenue stream.

IBM is continuously acquiring various companies and expanding its business. It acquired Kenexa in 2012, SPSS in 2009 and Price Water Cooper’s consulting business in 2002. Apart from this, the company is also duplicating more organizations like printer manufacturer Lexmark and selling more product lines such as x86 server businesses and personal computer businesses to Lenovo. In the year 2014, the company announced that it would offload its IBM Micro Electronics semiconductor production to the GlobalFoundaries that is a market leader in manufacturing of advanced technology, mentioning that the semiconductor production is a capital-intensive business that is challenging to operate unless the company has economies of scale. In 2015, the company acquired Merge Healthcare Inc.

Though the company though that merging and selling off would be profitable for the company. However it did not take into consideration the effect on its employees. With mergers and acquisitions and selling off the businesses, it is the employees that are affected the most. Such decisions usually demotivate the employees and threaten their job security. Hence, there are chances of high employee turnover in the company (Liu, Lia and Loi, 2012).

The economic crisis of 2008 is the main reason from declining growth. Due to the downturn of the economy, every sector is going through its ill effects. Therefore every sector requires proper management of the pressure of the intense competition in the Indian economy, where the firms are facing intense competition and are being affected by it. Since IBM is a multinational company operating in various countries, it faces a lot of troubles regarding employee motivation and engagement (Wong and Laschinger, 2013). The company is acquiring other companies irrespective of considering the effect on the employees. Hence results from high employee turnover and this in turn results in reduced performance.

In order to effectively achieve the objectives and goals of the company, there is a requirement for enhanced commitments on the part of the employees towards its company in order to adjust in the globalising world where mergers and acquisitions are a common form of expansion into international market. Now days, though customer service and product innovation is a way to achieve competitive advantage but the companies are increasingly focusing on the human resources (Yidong and Xinxin, 2013). Since the labour market is becoming extremely competitive, the company IBM needs to make sure they retain their highly valued employees in spite of the mergers and acquisitions. Since information and technology sector is facing intense and fast growing competition due to rapid advancement of latest technologies, the organizations have to maintain their competitive advantage in the company with the help of innovative technology. For product innovativeness, employees are essential company assets and with their contribution within the company, the company will be able to achieve competitive advantage (Clarke, 2013). This is the main reason why organizations like IBM has to prepare themselves and formulate effective and strong strategies of human resource management and business management. They require a motivate workforce that engages in all the operational activities under the influence of an effective leader. Therefore, the paper undertakes the study to identify the manner in which leadership has an impact on employee motivation and employee engagement (Afles, Shantz, Truss and Soane, 2013).

1.3 Research Aims and Objectives

1.3.1 Research Aim

The following is the research aim of that the researcher wants to achieve: “to explore that transformational leadership; transactional leadership and participative leadership are able to achieve higher level motivation, job satisfaction and innovation of employees within IBM Company”.

 

1.3.2 Research Objectives

On the basis of the research aim, the following objectives were formed:

1. To analyze and explore the impact of factors on employee’s motivation, satisfaction of job and innovation.
2. To investigate the relationship between transformational style of leadership and employee’s motivation, satisfaction level of job and innovation.
3. To investigate the relationship between transactional style of leadership and employee’s motivation, satisfaction level of job and innovation.
4. To investigate the relationship between participative style of leadership and employee’s motivation, satisfaction level of job and innovation.

1.4 Research Hypothesis

Since this is a descriptive research with quantitative study analysis, the following hypothesis is aimed to be tested for acceptance and negation:

H1: There is a significant influence of leadership on employee motivation and engagement.

1.5 Research Questions

The following are the questions that the researcher intends to answer with the help of the research study:

1. What is most appropriate model of leadership style for the purpose to motivate the subordinates?
2. What is most appropriate model of leadership style for the purpose to enhance level of job satisfaction of the subordinates?
3. What is most appropriate model of leadership style for the purpose to enhance level of innovation of the subordinates?

1.6 Rationale of the Study

The idea of leadership can be divided into various forms of leadership in horizontal manner and leadership in vertical manner. The actions and nature of the leader are explained using the vertical theory without the need to analyze the action of the team members or employees under the leader. Transactional, transformational and participative style of leadership is categorized within the theory of vertical leadership. These two theories are the most pertinent theories to experimentation theories (Fernet, Austin, Trepanier and Dussault, 2013). Therefore the paper takes into consideration these two theories since it best explains the level of satisfaction of job, motivation and performance of the companies. The study also outlines a comparative analysis of horizontal and vertical leadership with the most appropriate leadership style that will motivate the employees to perform better, improve their satisfaction level as well as give an opportunity for innovation and use of creativity.

This dissertation has been undertaken to give an insight to the management of IBM regarding how important leadership is for influencing the motivation and job satisfaction of the employees as well as employee engagement in the company. It gives the management an insight whether the employees of the company are influenced by the leadership style of the company or there are still any improvements required. This will allow the company to make sure they amend their style of leadership for enhanced employee motivation, job satisfaction and employee engagement for better organizational performance at IBM and to sustain the intense competition in the market.

 

1.6 Outline of the Dissertation

This dissertation is divided into five parts. The first chapter briefs the readers regarding the introduction of the research topic: Exploring Leadership and its Influence on Employee Motivation and Employee Engagement. It gives the background of the study and why the researcher has undertaken this paper. It also presents the aims and objectives of the study and develops a hypothesis that is to be tested. It also presents the research questions and the structure of the dissertation.

The second chapter focuses on critically reviewing the literature that is present in published forms in various journals, magazines, articles, periodicals and online sources on the related research topic. It reviews how transformational, transactional and participative leadership are influencing the motivation of the employees. It explains the theories of leadership as well as motivation and develops a link between the two regarding the influence of one on the other.

The third chapter explicates the research methodology used to carry out the study. The researcher chose to adopt a descriptive research design under the positivist philosophy. The research uses a deductive approach to test the hypothesis formed. With the help of a structured questionnaire with closed-ended questions, the researcher aims to study the influence of leadership style used at IBM on its employees and how they are motivated and engaged in the company practices.

The fourth chapter analyses the data collected through the adopted instruments. This analysis is taken care of with the help of SPSS and the findings are presented in the form of discussion. The fifth chapter presents a conclusion of the entire study and presents the recommendations to the IBM managers for using effective leadership to motivate the employees and engage in the corporate activities.

 

Chapter 2: Literature Review

This chapter focuses on critically reviewing the literature that is present in published forms in various journals, magazines, articles, periodicals and online sources on the related research topic. It reviews how transformational, transactional and participative leadership are influencing the motivation of the employees. It explains the theories of leadership as well as motivation and develops a link between the two regarding the influence of one on the other.

Introduction

Managers and organizations are becoming aware of the fact that there would always be complex and rapid changes. This new wave of the uncertainty in the future connected with the demands for augmented participation at various levels of the company has intensely changed the outlook towards leadership, particularly in relation to the respective roles that the leaders and the followers play in the company. Majority of the leadership theories relies upon the comparative significance that is assigned to the leader against the follower in the accomplishment of the objectives. However one thing that has an impact on this is the behavior and attitude of the employees. Even though there are several factors that affect the behaviour and attitude of the employees, the studies conducted so far implies that the attitudes of the employees are mostly influenced by the leadership style. In order to understand the effectiveness of leadership, researchers have investigated two main leadership theories. There is a lot of contrast among transformational leadership that has been regarded as a dominant approach in comparison to transactional leadership. Both transactional and transformational leaders are those who are active and energetically participate in solving and preventing the issues from taking place. Various studies have compared these two leadership styles to participative leadership thatis the descriptive of a participative leader.

Leadership theory advocates a positive association between the transactional and transformational leadership and other concepts like job involvement, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction, employee motivation and employee engagement. However the cumulative facts present in various studies allows one to expect that transformational leadership will have a positive and stronger relationship with these concepts. The MLQ ratings do not take into consideration some theoretically pertinent results like entire job satisfaction or organizational commitment. Even though there is an expectation for the individuals that the subordinates of transformational leaders would be more satisfied and motivated with their jobs as well as committed to the companies, except with a few exceptions. Various researches have indicated that transformational leadership in comparison to transactional an participative leadership would result in increased level of commitment, motivation, satisfaction, cohesion, performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, effectiveness of leader and satisfaction with the leader.

Even though the job involvement, employee engagement, employee motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment represent separate concepts, studies have indicated that these business-related elements would probably impact each other due to the presence and absence of each other. As an optimistic emotional state that reflects on an emotional response to the satisfaction and motivation of job and a cognitive belief state that reflects an individual’s psychological identification with the company, researchers have demonstrated that these two attitudes towards a particular job are separate from each other as well as from organizational commitment that concentrates on the identification of the individual with the company as a whole. A study was conducted that presented the findings that indicated that the staff nurses are more motivated and satisfied with the leaders that follow transformational theory and that their extent of satisfaction enhances as the leader deploys a participative style. In addition to this, there are studies that have observed transformational leadership style to be positively interlinked with the manner in which effective subordinates view leaders, the amount of effort they will put in the company for the leader, the satisfaction with the leader and the performance of the subordinates as the leader rates.

2.1 Transformational Leadership

Leaders with transformational leadership style are known to be responsible for motivating and driving the employees to perform beyond the customary expectations. The transformational or participative leader elicits this level of performance by appealing to the higher order needs as well as moral values of its team following him, yielding more commitment and passion of the team members for the values and mission of the company, instigating faith and pride in the employees, communication of personal respect, facilitation of creative and innovative thinking, stimulating the employees intellectually and inspiring them to voluntarily accept the difficult objectives and mission as well as vision of the future. Therefore the leader identifies the future of the company and pulls instead of pushing, thus motivating the employees to deploy the energies and commitment towards the company and its objectives.

Transformational leadership theorists question the result of behavior of a transformational leader is the emotional connection with the leader and the motivational and emotional arousal of the employees. The extent to which the leader is considered to be transformational is based upon the effect he or she has on the employees, where these employees under the leaders feel respect and trust towards them and thus are motivated to enhance their performance to an unexpected level.

Researches conducted till now shows that transformational leadership behaviour is prevalent in all the management levels and in various organizational environment. Therefore this leadership style is not limited to the world-class leaders or the executives. In a study that assessed the relation between the personality of the leader and the behaviour of the transformational leader, it is observed that when transactional leadership is controlled then transformational leadership behaviour significantly predicts the employee satisfaction with the leader, the organizational commitment of the employees, work motivation as well as the supervisory ratings of the effectiveness of the leader. However there was no relationship between the job satisfaction and the employees.

In the literature collected, it is evident that there are four dimensions that underlie the transformational leadership concept. These are charismatic leadership, inspirational leadership, individualized consideration and intellectual simulation. Idealized influence or charismatic leadership is the one where the leader instigates faith and pride in the employees and offers a sense of mission and vision, obtains the trust and respect of the employees and establishes high standards for imitation. Inspirational leadership on the other hand is the one where the leader inspires the employees to accept the challenging objectives and offers meaning for engaging the employees in the shared goals and drives the team spirit through optimism and enthusiasm. Individualized consideration is the one where the leader acknowledges the individual distinctiveness, relates the present needs of the people to the needs of the company and offers mentoring, coaching and opportunities for growth. On the other hand intellectual simulation is the one where the leader encourages the employees to approach the issues, problems and challenges in a new way and to think creatively regarding the new ways in which one can conduct their daily responsibilities

2.2 Transactional Leadership

Where transformation leadership style help in motivating the employees to enhance their performance beyond the expected levels, transactional leadership style is the one that is dependent upon the conventional and bureaucratic authority and the legitimacy where the employees receive definite valued results when they act as per the wishes of the leaders. The association is dependent upon a series of exchanges or understood bargains between the employees and the leader, elucidating role expectations, task oriented and assignment objectives.

Transactional leaders therefore concentrate their energies and commitment on the completion of the task and compliance and based upon the rewards and punishments of the company to influence the performance of the employees. The diminuendos of a quid pro quo controls the transactional exchange whereby the leader has to clarify the requirements of the task and the rewards and incentives for the obedience. The transactional leadership theory relies upon the concept that when the organizational setting and the job does not motivate, satisfy or direct the employees then the transactional leader has to depend upon his or her behaviour to recompense for the shortage. The leader explains what he or she is anticipating from the employees in relation to the suitable canons of performance and the rewards the employees will get in return. Transactional and transformational leadership theories therefore differ from each other in relation to the process through which the leaders are able to motivate the employees and the types of objectives and goals set.

Studies carried out on the transactional leadership shows that there are three aspects that underline the concept of transactional leadership style. These are the contingent reward or cavalries, active management by exception and passive management by exception. The contingent rewards or cavalries is the one where the leader uses promises, rewards, and praise to motivate the employees in order to assist them in achieving the enhanced performance levels the are contracted by both the parties. Active management by exception is the one where the leader monitors the performance of the employees andtakes corrective action in forecasting of issues or occurrence of regularities. Passive management by exception lastly is the one where the leader waits passively for the mistake to take place or things to be deviated from the established plan prior to taking any corrective action with reprimand or negative feedback.

It is indicated that by comparing transformational and transactional leadership style, it does not mean that these two models are not related to each other. In fact, various studies have indicated that even though these two are separate concepts of leadership, they are interlinked. This means that a leader can be transformational as well as transactional. It is however argued that that the transformational leadership is established on transactional leadership and not the other way round. Transformational leadership is therefore perceived as a leeway of the transactional leadership style. Transformational and transactional leaders are described in this way because at the defining moment the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of the employees resemble that of transactional leader or transformational leader. Various researches have an opinion that even though transformational leadership style may be effectual in the times that are changing, the transaction process of elucidating definite expectations for a reward is an important element of the entire range of effective leadership.

2.3 Laissez Faire Leadership

Transformational and transactional leadership are two active leadership forms and are usually compared to an inactive laissez faire leadership style. Since no attempt has been made by the leader following laissez faire leadership style to motivate the employees or to satisfy or acknowledge their needs, researchers have stated that this style of leadership is suggestive of lack of leadership. The leader following this style avoids any kind of decision-making, the facility of rewards and incentives and the facility of offering negative or positive feedback to the employees.

It has been argued by various researchers that passive management by exception is not similar to laissez faire leadership style. The status is protected and appreciated in passive management by exception but is ignored in the laissez faire leadership style wherein the leader specifically avoids any kind of supervisory responsibilities or decision making abilities.

2.4 Leadership Theories for Employee Motivation

Leadership styles, theories and types can have a strong impact on the motivation of the employees. However it is difficult to identify which will have the most impact on the motivation of the employees. There are various possibilities that you can choose from and simultaneously the management will have to decide whether to have a leadership that syncs with the personality or leave the comfort zone.

Employees are always motivated to operate in an environment that has a positive workplace culture. Leaders that are fair but stern and bold are expected and followed in comparison to the ones that are authoritative and dictators. When the company considers a leadership theory, they have personnel preferences. They choose the leadership style that suits their organization the best whereas some may consider styles that are outside the comfort zone. Eventually, the best leadership theory is to select the one that will comprise of the combination of the two different leadership styles.

2.4.1 Trait Theory

Trait theory is regarded as the individuals who have natural leadership attributes. The concentration then shifts to the discovery of the traits by studying the efficient leaders. The assumption here is that if other individuals have the same traits then they can also be regarded as great leaders. Various researchers have recognized critical skills and traits for successful leaders. Trait theory allows the leader to motivate the employees to a certain level but since they are rigid there are chances that the employees resist their leadership.

2.4.2 Behavioral Theory

Behavioral leadership theory follows the concept that the leaders can be made instead of being born naturally. Among all the leadership theories, this one is the easiest to develop. The process of using this leadership theory is to evaluate the successful leaders. This study is in relation to what the successful leaders have in them that have made them so efficient.

2.4.3 Participative Leadership Theory

The leadership theory that allows one to involve other individuals in the process of decision-making is considered to be participative leadership theory. This type of leadership theory allows the employees to be less competitive and hence engages them in teamwork for achieving joint goals. When the team is responsible to make decisions then the level of commitment to one another increases and so does their commitment to the decision.

The process where the company uses participative leadership requires the leader to involve the employees of the company who are directly in the project. The difference is that the leaders is not dictating the orders and decisions but taking it mutually with the team.

2.4.4 Situational Leadership

Another leadership theory that has an impact on the motivation and engagement of the employees is situational leadership. This leadership theory is self-explanatory. These leaders would adapt to the situation they are in and accordingly take decisions that are in favor of the company or the situation. This leadership style requires an understanding of various different leadership theories. Understanding several leadership theories will enable the leaders to be prepared for any problematic issue that may occur in the company. Situational leadership theory is regarded as the style that is used daily within the company.

These theories can be effectively used for motivation of the employees as well as employee engagement. Though there are various other ways to motivate the employees however, leadership styles are the most important factor.  When evaluating the relationship between the various leadership styles and commitment of the employees as well as the engagement and attitude behaviour, it is essential for the leader to understand the concepts of the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour and job involvement.

2.5 Various concepts influenced by leadership styles

Organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment and job involvement are the different constructs that are influenced by transformational and transactional leadership styles.

2.5.1 Organizational commitment

It is indicated that various but separate theoretical foundations have been considered to define concepts related to commitment with various measuring instruments as a result. In spite of the inadequacy of consensus on the theoretical and conceptual development of this concept, the construct of organizational commitment has attracted significant interest in order to understand as well as clarify the stability and intensity of the dedication of the employee towards the company. Various researchers have differentiated between three approaches to investigate the organizational commitment. These are behavioural, attitudinal and motivational perspective. Even though various researches have observed emotional commitment as an attitude whereas continuance commitment as a behaviour, there were a few theorists who considered that the cost included in leaving the company may be considered as a psychological state and hence consider continuance commitment as an element of attitudinal commitment.

Organizational commitment comprises of a three-dimensional concept. The emotional element of organizational commitment indicates the emotional attachment of the employee towards the identification with or involvement in the company. The second element of continuance is the commitment that is relied upon the costs that the employees links with leaving the company. Lastly the normative element is referred to the feeling of obligation of the employees to stay within the company.

Various researches have supported the uniqueness and independence of these three aspects and offers evidence that they also have distinct antecedents. In addition to this, there have been researches that have supported two separate dimensions of protraction commitment where one is relied upon the personal sacrifices that are included in leaving the company and the second is relied upon the restricted employment opportunities.

Even though organizational commitment describes three different concepts, a common underlying factor of each of these concepts is the psychological attachment of the employee with the company and therefore this psychological commitment is the one that defines the organizational commitment. The three concepts vary in terms of the association between the organization and the company. Employees that have a strong emotionalattachment would stay within the company because they wish to stay. On the other hand those employees who have strong continuance commitment would stay because they have to whereas those who have strong normative commitment stay because they feel they might have to. Literature indicates that those employees who are highly committed are more motivated and satisfied with their work, are more motivated, performs at various levels that exceed the expectations and experience increased levels of job involvement. Majority of the these researches have relied upon the self report of the employees towards the measures of commitment. In order to identify the managerial perceptions of the commitment of the employees, researches have shown that organizational citizenship behaviour is an extrapolative of the emotional commitment of rated by the manager and that side bets such as tenure and age as extrapolative of the continuance commitment rated by the manager. Researches have indicated that the employees tend to experience various different commitments to the values and objectives of multiple groups. It also indicates that where two employees are committed to the company, the concentration of the two commitments may be completely different.

The employees are therefore committed in changing degrees to the top management, peers, immediate supervisors, unions, customers, occupation, career or profession. The difference between the various commitment focuses may thus only be used as theoretical interest if the similar theoretical base is used for operationalizing the separate applications. Studies were undertaken where the researchers assessed the association between the occupational commitment and the work-and-person related elements. The results of this study indicates that occupational commitment is optimistically related to the commitment towards the company as well as concepts focused on job like job satisfaction and job involvement.

2.5.2Job Satisfaction

Considering as an attitude, satisfaction of job will be widely researched and in various studies it has been considered as an independent as well as dependent element. Job satisfaction has been defined as the degree to which the employees prefer and like their tasks and work. Investigating satisfaction of job, a difference is commonly made between the international feeling of liking the job of an individual in general and a constellation of attitudes regarding various aspects of the job where the people indicate their satisfaction with the different parts of their job like promotion, pay, work, co-workers and supervisors.

Even though the researches conducted till date have concentrated on the impact of satisfaction of job on the absenteeism, commitment and turnover, the outcomes of these studies have showed that the employees would probably experience job satisfaction when they are able to deploy their competencies and knowledge on their job and carry out enriched tasks, the company adopts a participative approach towards decision-making, supervisors act considerately towards the employees, employees positive experience towards employee management relations, the company acknowledges and rewards employee talents, instigates the principles and values that are held by the employees and listen to the employees. In addition to this, some researchers have understood that intrinsic  motivationhas an optimistic impact on the satisfaction of the job and so is the case with the role so supervisor of the subordinates. .

A constant debate in job satisfaction presented in the literature is the effect of dispositional and situational mechanisms on the formation of attitude. For instance, the dispositional mechanism of positive and negative emotional attachment was related to the international job satisfaction. On the other hand, it is also observed that both dispositional and situational mechanisms concluded that one could perceive job satisfaction as the product of situation based experiences as well as person based tendencies.

2.5.3 Job involvement

For a long time now, job involvement is a type of work related attitude that has gained adequate focus. However the concept has not changed in an evolutionary and logical fashion, which results in various theoretical conceptualizations of the concept with a huge assortment of measuring instruments as a result. Even though there appears to be inadequate of consensus on the meaning of involvement of job, it is defined that job involvement is the degree to which an employees is cognitively pensive with, engaged in and concerned with the present job of the employee. This attitudinal concept is often compared and perceived as a polar opposite of estrangement where the alienation refers to the state of independence and separation from the work and self-environment. Estrangement is said to be exist when an employee experiences meaninglessness, powerlessness, isolation, normlessness and self-estrangement.

In addition to research studies demonstrating job involvement as a one dimensional concept related with the psychological identification of the employees, it was also found that two separate concepts are essential and necessary to experience job involvement. The role of job involvement refers the extent to which one is involved in the particular activities that make up the job of an employee and the environment for job involvement is referred to as the situation where the employee finds the current work environment engaging.

Involvement id a particular job is different from that of the work in general. The former is related with the current ability of the job to satisfy the current essential needs of the employees whereas the latter is related with the centrality of the work in the life of an employee. The degree at which an employee experiences job involvement is based upon the saliency of extrinsic as well as intrinsic needs and the perception that the employees hold regarding the current ability of the job to satisfy their needs. The extent to which the job situation is important to the employee and satisfies the salient needs of the employees is separate but linked to other types of work related commitment, perceptions of the supervisor, standard definitions of job satisfaction, work commitment, intrinsic motivation, participative decision making and job characteristics like job challenge and skill variety.  This indicated that the employees involved in their jobs are probably going to be satisfied with and therefore will be more committed to their work and the company. However it was noted that job involvement might have a different meaning for eight to four factory workers than for professionals who are required to work from home and have the task to plan and organize the details of their jobs. Various researches have also indicated that job performance can be highly predicted with the help of extent of job involvement for the employees who are committed to the an outside profession in comparison to he ones that are committed to the organization which they are employed. This suggests that the job involvement is especially essential for the knowledge employees who are cosmopolitan and those who have internalized the professional values.

2.6 Summary

Taking into consideration the findings in the literature, it is suggested that employee behavior and attitude is highly influenced by the style ofleadership. This study aims at identifying the impact of transactional and transformational leadership style on employee motivation and employee engagement that are affected by the constructs like organizational commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviour. It also studies that there are increased level of correlation between the transformational leadership style and emotional commitment, job satisfaction, normative commitment, job involvement and organizational citizenship behaviour.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

This chapter identifies the various research methodologies that have been adopted by the researcher for conducting the concerned research study on the various leadership styles and their influence on the employee motivation and employee engagement. It clearly underlines the objectives of the research and the suitable methodology that has been adopted to accomplish those objectives. This study aims at accomplishing those objectives, which are already mentioned in the Chapter 1 of the research study. The objective is to identify the impact of transformational and transactional leadership style on the employee motivation and employee engagement within the IBM organization. This comprises of an intensive study on the perceptions of the employees towards the different leadership styles employed at IBM organization and how it motivated them to be more engaged within the work. A descriptive approach was adopted for this research study. Questionnaires acted as the source of the primary data collection whereas journals, articles and various such trustworthy resources were utilised for secondary data collection.

3.1 Research Design

The research design undertaken by the researcher for conducting this research study can be identified as descriptive research design. The descriptive research design is also known as statistical research design which elucidates the information and nature of the population that is the subject of this research study. Basic questions like how, when, how, where, what etc. are answered by this research design. Hence, these methodologies were found to be apposite by the researcher to bring out this research study. The reason behind this approach of descriptive research design is that that it facilitates quantitative data about the views of the IBM employees towards the effectiveness of transactional and transformational leadership style on employee motivation and engagement with the help of structured questionnaires.

3.2 Research Approach

Inductive and deductive are the two categories of research approach. Inductive research approach is moreover concerned with the transmission of precise example to the general theory or any basic underlying principle whereas deductive research approach is about the transmission of the approach from general or basic theory to the precise and exact examples. When one is about to conduct a descriptive research, deductive research approach is most suitable while in the case of exploratory research, inductive research approach is most appropriate, though no particular research approach can be adopted on the basis of the undertaken research design.

A deductive research approach is adopted in this research study. In it, a specific theory or hypothesis is developed first which is then analysed completely to decide whether to accept or reject that theory. Various theories or hypothesis generated for this research study are as follows:

H01: Absence of important relationship between Employee Commitment and Transformational style of leadership.

H11: Presence of important relationship between Employee Commitment and Transformational style of leadership.

H02: Absence of important relationship between Employee Commitment and Transactional style of leadership.

H12: Presence of important relationship between Employee Commitment and Transactional style of leadership.

H03: Absence of important relationship between Employee Commitment and Laissez faire style of leadership.

H13: Presence of important relationship between Employee Commitment and Laissez faire style of leadership.

H04: Absence of important relationship between Employee Motivation and Transformational style of leadership.

H14: Presence of important relationship between Employee Motivation and Transformational style of leadership.

H05: Absence of important relationship between Employee Motivation and Transactional style of leadership.

H15: Presence of important relationship between Employee Motivation and Transactional style of leadership.

HO6: Absence of important relationship between Employee Motivation and Laissez faire style of leadership.

H16: Presence of important relationship between Employee Motivation and Laissez faire style of leadership.

3.3 Research Instrumentation

Agglomeration of various tools and instruments required for carrying out any research study is known as Research Instrumentation. Interviews, group discussions, observation, etc. are important for qualitative study while in the case of quantitative study, well defined and structured questionnaires are important. Quantitative research instruments have been utilised by the researcher for this research study. The pilot study was conducted by researcher with the help of the structured questionnaire that catered to the perceptions of the employees towards the transformational and transactional leadership styles employed at IBM organization and its impact on employee motivation and engagement.

3.4 Data Collection

Data Collection has been categorised into two types, i.e., Primary and Secondary. To get a detailed analysis of this research study, both types of data sample were collected by the researcher.

Primary Data Collection

Primary data consists of information obtained through various techniques for the interviewees. Primary data is again categorised into qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative primary data is the data obtained through various mathematical and statistical calculations while quantitative data is obtained from the questionnaires with the help of interview round and explanatory questions. The primary information for this research study has been obtained by utilising the well defined questionnaires to have a detailed analysis of the influence of transactional and transformational leadership styles on the employee motivation and employee engagement within the IBM organization.

Secondary Data Collection

Secondary data indicates those data sources which have been studied or published by other scholars in newspapers, journals, magazines, articles, blogs, periodicals, online portals, websites, etc. These resources have information in abundance about the research topic. This is the reason why researcher went for this data collection method. Specific keywords utilised for this research work were leadership styles, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, employee motivation, need theory, employee engagement, job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment. To ensure the authenticity of the secondary sources, various precautions were undertaken like accurate details of authors, publication date, consistency and integrity of the source, depth of the study, content of the research paper in terms of the topic of research study etc. The details of secondary sources have been provided in the Chapter 2 in the form of literature review while they are discussed and critically reviewed in Chapter 4.

3.5 Sampling Technique

Sampling technique is utilised for identifying the people on whom the research is planned to be carried out. Sampling technique is also of two types, i.e., random sampling collection and non-random sampling collection. The type undertaken by the researcher for this research study is the stratified random sampling collection which incorporates various methods like bunch sampling, simple and sober sampling, methodical sampling, multi structured sampling, stratified sampling etc. Among all these techniques, stratified random sampling method has been undertaken by the researcher for this research study because of its simplicity and purity. It is the most favourite approach of every researcher for conducting any research and the collection of related data when huge population is to be considered for the research sampling.

For the research topic on the influence of transactional and transformational leadership styles on the employee motivation and employee engagement within the IBM organization, the sample chosen for the questionnaire study is 50 employees from IBM organization. These employees will be distributed the questionnaires online and it is assumed that all the respondents have participated in the study.

3.6 Data Analysis

Diverse approaches have been made by the researcher for the analysis of data samplings. The quantitative data that was collected with the help of detailed questionnaires will be analysed with the help of SPSS, formulas of statistics, paired tests for comparative study, T-tests, cross tabulation etc. Mathematical graphs and discourse analysis are used for evaluating the secondary data described in literature review. These graphs indicate the influence of leadership styles on employee motivation and engagement in IBM organization.

3.7 Ethical Considerations

Any research study is incomplete without considering the ethical situation of the research. The absence of this part of dissertation results in the rejection of entire research paper. To make sure that the ethnicity and the accuracy of the research is maintained, various ethical measures are mentioned here after that should be considered by every researcher while carrying out his research.

• The respondents should be devoid of any unjust practise.
• The wishes and views of respondents must be respected and appreciated by the researcher.
• Employees of the IBM organization must be referred to before dealing with the respondents for research study.
• The privacy rights of respondents must not be harmed or violated.
• The information obtained through rounds of questionnaires and respondents must not be leaked out in any case. There confidentiality must be the top priority of the researcher.
• The name of the respondents must not come in the research study due to safety issues.
• While summarising the purpose of study, researcher should avoid hyperbole explanations or exaggerated demonstrations.
• The financial sources that assisted research must be explained clearly.
• Honesty and transparency must be maintained throughout the entire research process.
• Primary data should be analysed effectively to avoid any sort of deception or misleads.

For ensuring the ethnicity of the research report, following measures need to be elucidated by the researcher:

• The participation of respondents is voluntary and no sort of undue pressure should be applied on them to participate or manipulate their vision or experience about the concerned situation.
• Any sort of abusive or offensive language should be avoided during the research process to maintain the dignity of both sides.
• Confidentiality should be the top priority. Information about the respondents must not leak out to rival members at any cost, to ensure the ethnicity and privacy rights of the respondents.
• Due credit must be given to the scholar whose work had supported in the smooth conductance of the research study. Referencing of these scholars should be done at the end of the research study.
• Extreme level of impartiality should be maintained during the analysis of the data obtained through various qualitative and quantitative methods.

3.8 Limitations to the Methodology

In spite of the various ethical measures adopted for the research study, some undue limitations or hindrances to the smooth conductance of the research study are an indispensable aspect of any mammoth task. Few limitations that any researcher must tackle effectively during his research study are as follows:

• Improvement upon the aims and objectives of the study

Research study is a much elaborated process. The aim of the research paper should be narrowed down to few points that can be referred to from time to time to understand the real focus of the under taken research study. The aim of this research paper is to determine the influence of transactional and transformational leadership styles on the employee motivation and employee engagement within the IBM organization. The research objective of this paper can be shortened to few points such as employee motivation, employee engagement, transformational leadership and transactional leadership. This will help make real time analysis.

• Various procedures for data collection

The researcher for data collection through primary and secondary resources has made an amalgamated approach. Respondents of IBM organization can provide discriminatory information. In an attempt to tone down this problem, researcher must carry out a short and crisp interview with to the point answer type questions.

• Degree of discussions

The researcher of this research study is a novel researcher, i.e., new to such proceedings, therefore, an immature outlook or perception can be adopted by the researcher that may deteriorate the quality of the data analysis discussion. The researcher may not be able to comprehend the depth of the situation at various points of discussion. Hence, researcher must utilise effective data analysis tools like SPSS while discussing quantitative data, Semantic analysis for the qualitative data and Discourse analysis for the discussion of secondary data.

3.9 Conclusion

In the content of this chapter, various research methodologies have been discussed that are useful for the smooth and effective completion of any research task through various data collection, data analysis and data recommendation methods. Different techniques are also reflected upon that are essential for the sample collection from large number of population. They will be discussed in detail in the future chapters. Various ethical considerations are also reflected upon which the researcher needs to comprehend and different limitations to the smooth conductance of research study are also analysed which research needs to alleviate. The chapter mentioned here after will provide result of the discussions done in this chapter.

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Findings

In this chapter, the researcher analyses the collected data with the help of SPSS tool and various statistical functions. The information is gathered using questionnaire and these responses are analyzed with quantifiable tools. On the basis of the analysis, the findings will be presented.

4.1 Data Analysis

1. Age of the respondents

Asking the participants to choose the category for his or her age range assessed this variable. The categories were 20 to 29 years, 30 to 39 years, 40 to 49 years and 50 years and above.

		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	21-30	12	24.0	24.0	24.0
	31-40	21	42.0	42.0	66.0
	41-50	14	28.0	28.0	94.0
	> 50	3	6.0	6.0	100.0
	Total	50	100.0	100.0

 

The above table indicates that majority of the IBM employees belong to the age group of 31 to 40 years i.e. 42 per cent whereas the lowest in in the above 50 years age group with 6 per cent. It also reveals that between 21 to 30 years, there are 24 per cent of the respondents whereas between 41 to 49 years of age there are 28 per cent of the respondents.

2. Level of Education

The respondents were asked to select the category of their level of education. The following is the analysis

Education		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	BSc / BE / BCom / BA	12	24.0	24.0	24.0
	MA / MCom / MSc / ME / MCA	16	32.0	32.0	56.0
	Master Degree / MBA / MMS	22	44.0	44.0	100.0
	Total	50	100.0	100.0

 

From the table, it is evident that majority of the employees of IBM possess a masters degree, MBA or MMS i.e. 44 per cent of the respondents chose this category. Apart from this, 32 per cent of the employees possessed a MA/MCom/MSc/ME or MCA degree and 24 per cent had undergraduate degrees.

Testing of the Hypothesis:

1. Reliability Statistics – Employee Commitment and Leadership Style

Reliability Statistics for Leadership Styles

Cronbach’s Alpha	Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items	N of Items
.865	.890	28

 

Reliability Statistics for Employee Commitment

Cronbach’s Alpha	Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items	N of Items
.710	.805	16

 

Reliability of all the above scales turned out to be very good according to the set measures. When compared to the previous studies done in the areas of leadership, the reliability scales were strong and therefore the researcher carried forward with the study.

Correlation of Transformational, Transactional and Laissez faire styles with Employee Commitment

Correlations (Pearson’s R)

		Employee commitment Total score (1-7)	Transformational style (0-4)	Transactional style (0-4)	Laissez Faires style (0-4)
Employee commitment total score (0-7)	Pearson correlation	1	.480	.395	.398
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.000	.005	.004
	N	50	50	50	50
Transformational Style (0-4	Pearson correlation	.480	1	.845	.732
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000		.000	.000
	N	50	50	50	50
Transactional style (0-4)	Pearson correlation	.395	.845	1	.496
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.005	.000		.000
	N	50	50	50	50
Laissez faire style (0-4)	Pearson correlation	.398	.732	.496	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.004	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50	50

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

Group Statistics

	Gender	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean
Employee commitment total score (15-105)	Male	40	77.31	3.5	.578
	Female	10	74.0	6.5	2.2
Leadership style total score (-=116)	Male	40	80.39	10.5	1.6
	Female	10	77.5	11.19	3.6

 

Independent Samples Test

	T-test for Equality of Means
	T	Df	Sig. (2-tailed)
Employee Commitment Total Score (15-105)	2.3	9.1	.041
Leadership style total score (0-116)	.950	48	.348
Work Motivation total score(10-70)	.420	48	.675

 

Hypothesis 1: Positive impact of transformational style of leadership on organizational commitment of employees

Taking into consideration the Pearson’s correlation table, it is evident that there is a strong positive relationship between the organizational commitment of the employees and transformational leadership style at a significant level. Since these results were consistent with the established hypothesis, therefore the researcher went forward to accept the hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2: Positive impact of transactional leadership style on the organizational commitment of the employees

From the Pearson’s correlation table, it is evident that the relationship between transactional leadership style and organizational commitment of employees is positive at a significant level. Since it was consistent with the hypothesis, the results were accepted and hence the hypothesis was supported.

Hypothesis 3: Positive impact of laissez-faire leadership style on the organizational commitment of the employees

From the results of the Pearson’s correlation analysis, it was evident that there was a negative impact of Laissez-Faire leadership style on the organizational commitment of the employees and is not significant. The lower correlation value demonstrates a weak relationship between the two. Since it was not consistent with the hypothesis, therefore the hypothesis was negated.

Majority of the respondents i.e. 82 per cent of them are males and the results show that there is a noteworthydifference in the employee commitment between females and males. Approximately 44 per cent of these respondents are management degree holders whereas 32 per cent have master’s degree and the rest with graduates in IT.

According to the analysis, there is a positive correlation between employee commitment and transformational leadership style since the score is .480. On the other hand, the correlation between the transactional leadership style as well as employee commitment is also positive with the score as .395. The respondents do not greatly differentiate between the transformational styles of leadership but when considering transactional leadership style there was a different pattern. This style of leadership is less associated with each other that mean that the transformational leadership style is more effective in comparison to transactional leadership when brining the component of commitment in the employees.

The following are the three factors that were considered – active management by exception, contingent reward and passive management by exception.

Laissez faire style of leadership however shows a negative correlation with motivation. This indicates that the employees are not satisfied with this style of leadership. All the correlations carried out shows highly significant scores with strong reliability scores. The outcomes and implications of this analysis offered recommendation to enhance the supervisor’s leadership skills for brining improvement in the commitment of the IBM employees towards the company.

2. Reliability Statistics of Leadership styles and Work Motivation

Reliability Statistics for Work Motivation Scale

Cronbach’s Alpha	Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items	N of Items
.835	.835	10

 

 

Reliability Statistics for Leadership Styles

Cronbach’s Alpha	Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items	N of Items
.860	.891	29

 

Correlations (Pearson’s R)

		Employee commitment Total score (1-7)	Work Motivation Total Score (1-7)	Transformational style (0-4)	Transactional style (0-4)	Laissez Faires style (0-4)
Work Motivation	Pearson correlation	.278	1	.601	.328	.584
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.051		.000	.020	.000
	N	50	50	50	50	50
Transformational Style (0-4	Pearson correlation	.480	.601	1	.840	-.730
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000	.000		.000	.000
	N	50	50	50	50	50
Transactional style (0-4)	Pearson correlation	.395	.328	.840	1	-.496
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.005	.020	.000		.000
	N	50	50	50	50	50
Laissez faire style (0-4)	Pearson correlation	-.390	-.584	-.731	-.496	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.004	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50	50	50

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Hypothesis 4: Positive relationship between transformational leadership style and motivation of employees

From the above table, it is evident that the Pearson’s correlation showed that there was a strong positive relationship between transformational style of leadership and the motivation of the employees at a significant level. These outcomes are consistent with the established hypothesis and therefore the study confirms the strong relationship between the leadership style and employee motivation.

Hypothesis 5: Positive relationship between transactional leadership style and motivation of employees

As indicated in the above tables regarding the correlation between transactional leadership style and employee motivation, the analysis indicated that there is a positive relationship between the two at a significant level. Since the outcome is consistent with the hypothesis, therefore it was accepted that transactional leadership style has a positive influence on employee motivation.

Hypothesis 4: Positive relationship between laissez-faire leadership style and motivation of employees

The results of Pearson’s correlation indicate that laissez-faire leadership style shows a weak correlation and hence has a negative impact on the motivation of the employees and this is not significant statistically. Hence, the hypothesis is negated since it is not in consistent with it.

3. Inter correlations among the leadership styles and work motivation as well as employee commitment measure

		Employee Commitment Total Score (1-7)	Work Motivation Total Score (1-7)
Trust building	Pearson correlation	.310	.540
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Integrity	Pearson correlation	.300	.650
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Inspiration to others	Pearson correlation	.330	.610
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Encourages innovation	Pearson correlation	.410	.562
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Thinking	Pearson correlation	.265	.420
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Coaches employees	Pearson correlation	.270	.500
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Rewards	Pearson correlation	.120	.190
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Achievements	Pearson correlation	.230	.310
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Contingent rewards	Pearson correlation	.350	.410
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Monitors mistakes	Pearson correlation	.410	.450
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Avoids involvement	Pearson correlation	-.170	-.450
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50

 

		Transformational style	Transactional style	Laissez fiare style
Trust building	Pearson correlation	.910	.730	-.560
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Integrity	Pearson correlation	.820	.560	-.575
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Inspiration to others	Pearson correlation	.910	.750	-.545
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Encourages innovation	Pearson correlation	.830	.780	-.430
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Thinking	Pearson correlation	.920	.800	-.630
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Coaches employees	Pearson correlation	.940	.812	-.620
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Rewards	Pearson correlation	.570	.750	-.230
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Achievements	Pearson correlation	.780	.830	-.485
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Contingent rewards	Pearson correlation	.720	.840	-.330
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Monitors mistakes	Pearson correlation	.630	.810	-.310
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50
Avoids involvement	Pearson correlation	-.620	-.450	1.000
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000	.000
	N	50	50	50

 

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed)

		Employee commitment total score (1-7)	Work motivation total score (1-7)
Transformational style	Pearson correlation	.340	.600
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Transactional style	Pearson correlation	.370	.450
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.000	.000
	N	50	50
Laissez faire style	Pearson correlation	-.170	-.500
	Sig. (1-tailed)	.001	.000
	N	50	50

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed)

From the above correlation analysis, among all the subscales and organizational commitment as well as work motivation, the followings outcomes are presented. It might be expected that the correlations offer support for validity of the measures of organizational commitment, work motivation, transformational leadership style, transactional leadership style and laissez-faire leadership style.

Transactional leadership as well as transformational leadership are correlated positively as well as significantly with organizational commitment and work motivation whereas these two constructs are negatively and insignificantly correlated with laissez-faire leadership style.

It is evident from the above analysis that the correlation between transformational and transactional scale in high as well as significant at .01 degree. This result was consistent with the prior studies. Previous researches have shown a high and positive correlation between transformational as well as transactional leadership. This occurs due to three reasons. Firstly, both the transformational and transactional leadership style represent positive and active forms of leadership. Secondly, leaders have shown to be both transformational and transactional. Lastly, the consistent honoring of the transactional agreements helps in establishing trust, perception of consistency and dependability among the leaders and employees that are each the underlying factors for transformational leadership.

4.2 Findings of the study

The following is the findings obtained from the analysis of the data gathered:

4.2.1 Leadership Style and Organizational Commitment and Engagement

The results of the data analysis show that the hypothesis were supported and resulted into their acceptance. A significant encouraging linear association was found between the employee commitment towards the IBM organization and the practice of transformational leadership. This shows that the employees at IBM are committed to their organization when they are under the guidance of the transformational leadership. In addition to this, there was also a significant and positive correlations between the IBM employees’ organizational commitment and transactional leadership style. However, the results also showed a significant negative relationship between the IBM employees’ commitment towards the company and the influence of laissez faire leadership style. These findings are supported by other literature studies. In the previous studies, it has been indicated that transactional as well as transformational leadership styles helps in enhancing the degree of commitment of the employees towards their organizations. The influence of both the leadership styles on the commitment towards the organization were consistent with the augmentation theory of leadership that postulates that successful and effective leaders are both transactional and transformational. The results of the data findings showed that transformation style of leadership has a higher influence on the commitment of IBM employees towards the company in comparison to the transactional style of leadership. This can be because of two factors. Firstly, the transformational leadership style concentrates on the human side of the employees and secondly this leadership element may be more in performance among the corporate sector. in relation to this, it was stated that when transformational leadership style is enacted, the employees of the company no longer look for only self-interest but seek for interests that are beneficial to the entire organization.

4.2.2 Leadership Styles and Work Motivation

From the analysis of the information related to work motivation and leadership styles, it was observed that it is the transformational leadership style that has a significant impact on the motivation of the employees. Though there is a positive relationship between the transactional style of leadership and motivation of employees, however it is the transformational leadership style that has proven to be more effective in motivating the employees of the IBM Company. The employees of IBM however consider laissez-faire leadership style to be negatively related to employee motivation.

From the previous studies, it is evident that there is a strong and positive relationship between the employee motivation and contingent reward however management by exception and employee motivation has a negative relationship. There is also a significant negative relationship between the employee motivation and laissez-faire style of leadership. A research conducted on “ “Motivation and Transactional, Charismatic, and Transformational Leadership” analyzed that transformational leadership style i.e. management by exception (active), contingent reward and management by exception (passive) shows a positive and significant association with internal motivation of the employees. On the other hand, association of transactional style of leadership and its elements like management by exception (active), contingent reward and management by exception (passive) has a positive and significant relationship with external motivation of the employees. A study carried out on ‟ Leadership Behaviors Associated with Followers” showed that there is a negative relationship between laissez-faire style of leadership and employee motivation. These previous studies are corroborated by the studies conducted on the employees of IBM and has resulted in positive impact of transformational leadership on internal motivation, positive relationship of transactional leadership on external motivation and negative relationship between motivation and laissez faire leadership.

In general, the employees of IBM are motivated by social rewards, compensation, and self-actualization and enhanced working conditions. It is very important for the leader of IBM Company to communicate his or her vision to the employees on a constant basis in order to make sure that there is no doubt regarding the direction in which the team is moving.

Previous studies as well as the present study shows that if the leaders want to be successful in the present rapidly changing business environment, it is recommended that they follow a transformational style of leadership instead of laissez-faire or transactional style of leadership. This is because transformational leadership style enhances the motivation of the employees efficiently and consistently that will help in generating enhanced quality performance on the part of the employees and hence increase the performance of the business.

The leaders should not follow laissez-faire style of leadership and should give time on coaching, concentrating on the needs and abilities of the employees, help them develop and groom their skills and talent and offer a supportive working environment.  This would allow the company to achieve increased performance standards within the company. They should also improve their knowledge regarding the manner in which their leading style would influence their employees. The leaders should consider the best and most appropriate leadership style that would be in sync with the goals of the company and the desires and needs of the employees. In order to make sure that the employees performance their best, the leaders should act in an ethical role model and should be accepted as ethically and morally right. Another issues that this study raises it that the leaders need to encourage their employees to push their competencies and bar to the highest and unprecedented levels and challenge themselves with tasks and roles that would utilize their full capability, creativity and talent. This would bring in sync the employees to the vision of the company and make them eager and confident to perform the assignment activities.

Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations

The following chapter presents the conclusion of the entire study and the manner in which the research objectives have been achieved. On the basis of the conclusions, the researcher presents certain recommendations and future research that could be taken.

5.1 Conclusion

In order for the IBM Company to progress and achieve success, it is very important for them to understand the factors that have an impact on the organizational behaviour and the psyche of the employees. This particular research was undertaken to determine certain critical factors of the performance of the employees. These factors are the manner in which various leadership styles have an impact on the employee motivation as well as employee engagement and commitment. The literature review indicated that both these factors were important elements for the success of the company, irrespective of the organization being public or private. With motivation, employees will be highly committed to their company and help them move towards their vision. Instead of being competitive among themselves, motivated employees would make the company compete effectively in the industry. However motivation and engagement is only possible if there is effective leadership style followed within the company. The company follows different leadership styles – transactional, transformational and laissez-faire leadership style and therefore these leadership styles are studies to find out their impact on the motivation and engagement as well as commitment among the employees. The following are the conclusions of the study:

The findings of the study revealed that transformational and transactional style of leaderships would have a positive influence on the employee commitment. In addition to this, the findings also revealed that the employees would not be committed towards the company if the leaders follow a laissez-faire leadership style. Therefore in regards to organizational commitment, these outcomes offer support for the multicultural applicability of the augmentation theory of leadership of Bass that postulates that leaders who are successful are both transactional and transformational. It was stated that the model of transactional and transformational leadership might have the requirement for adjustment as well as fine tuning as they move across the cultures. In addition to this, consistent with the augmentation theory of leadership that concentrated on the successful leaders being more transformational in nature, the findings of the research study shows that the employees of IBM expect their leaders to be more transactional in nature when handling the employees and confirmed that the employees of the transformational leaders were more committed to the company than those under the influence of transactional leaders.

The outcome of the study showed that majority of the employees of IBM was found to be committed to the company, implying that the company follows a transformational leadership style. Majority of the IBM employees observed that their leaders exhibit transactional and transformational attributes however expect their supervisors to whom they report on daily basis to exhibit more transformational leadership attributes and follow a contingent reward system as well as active management by exception when comparing to transactional leadership style. Employees of IBM did not accept passive management by exception.In consistency with the previous research studies, the demographic variable of education, age, monthly income and marital status had a significant positive influence on the commitment of the IBM employees. The results indicates that the experience in the company, the internal promotion and occupational status are also positively influencing the employee commitment however the statistical results are not significant. The results also portray that male as well as female employees are positively related to the commitment of the employees however their statistical findings have no significant difference. From the study conducted as well as previous researchers, it can be concluded that transformational and transactional leadership styles are mostly preferred by the employees to enhance their motivation and engage them towards being committed to the company.

5.2 Recommendations

The outcomes of this research summarized the effective strategies of enhancing the leadership capabilities that would positively affect the employee and supervisor relationship. It is believed that this research study would have an added to the previous studies on the leadership styles of the supervisors in the company, especially in IT company environment since there were very less studies done on these environment. Previous studies have incessantly reported that it is transformational leadership that is more effective, innovative, productive and satisfactory to the employees since both the supervisors and the employees work towards the benefit of the company that is propelled by values and shared vision along with mutual respect and trust. There is also a facet of pseudo- transformational style of leadership enacted by the supervisors who would like to take power and position in the company even at the expense of the achievements of their employees. However this study does not take into consideration the presence of any such employer who practices such false transformational leadership style.

When summarizing, as per the outcomes of the present study, the company IBM in the research study should pay more focus on the enhancement of the management of the supervisors and the skills of leadership along with the monitoring of the association between the employees and the supervisors. A few of these strategies as well as managerial plans require the development in IBM so as to enhance the effectiveness of the company further.

The characteristics of leaders that follow transformational leadership style comprises of increasing motivation and confidence, channelizing the performance of the employees for accomplishing the goals of the company, sharing the benefits and beliefs and being open and transparent with the feedback and suggestions of the employees. The supervisors, particularly the ones that are in the senior leadership roles, should possess their own development and vision plans for the members of the team, organizations and working groups. They should be responsible for motivating and encouraging the employees to challenge themselves, explore the untapped capabilities and move out of their comfort zones. Leaders need to be good coaches and show the employees the direction they need to follow and set an example for them. Emotional intelligence and empathy also lay the basis for a successful and effective leader- employee relationship. By being the change agents as well as the visionaries along with having the potential to handle the ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty, they exercise a significant amount of voluntary control on the performance of their employees.

There are certain situations where the leaders following transactional leadership style are also effectively enhancing the performance of the employees. This leadership allows the leader to have a positive and moderate relation with the commitment of the employee towards the company and positive relation with the connection with the supervisor as well as internalization of the values of the supervisor. In order to be more effective, they should clarify the expectations they have from the employees and provide rewards as well as recognition when the objectives are attained. The passive supervisors or avoidance leadership style results in decreasing the commitment of the employees and therefore they should be avoided at any cost. When the company faces a crisis situation, the supervisors should try to interfere and get into the mode of problem-solving as soon as possible. Styles of leadership that encourage employee commitment are important for the organizations to implement the strategies of the business successfully, realizes the objectives and the goals of the company, optimize the human capital and gain competitive advantage in the industry.

The companies can develop some training programs in order to develop the leadership skills of the managers who are responsible for a huge span of control. Senior leaders can also hone their skills with the mentoring programs and sessions by executive coaches. Trainers and professionals can use the outcomes of the present study to develop certain leadership development training interventions that are based upon the individual and organizational needs. The company culture should be such the employees are motivated to participate in the decision making activities, strategic thinking activities and futuristic planning. The recognition and reward system as well as the human resource policies should be geared towards the development of a more positive working environment hence enhancing the productivity of the company. Such an empowering setup would automatically help in the retention of the employees. It is demonstrated that the leadership style is the only predictor of the retention of the employees and explains huge variance in the turnover.

5.3 Scope for Future Studies

This research study was restricted to level of fulltime permanent employees of operations and support function in IBM Company who are exposed to the management researches and studies similar to it. The evidence was confirmed that the fundamental processes that could influence their perception towards motivation and commitment equally affect the employees who have gained a lot of experience in the company. This study can be extended to the department of employees that do not form the management category. These employees can be present at the ground level where they could judge the styles of leadership of the supervisors who manages them. The study could also be extended to other IT companies since these companies have an international presence.  Future studies could concentrate on all the companies being in the same IT sector so that some of the sectoral dissimilarities and similarities can be emerged.

The difference in the outcomes can be explored depending upon the various geographical areas. This would shed some light on the influence of culture on the individuals and the manner in which cultural factors can impact the relationship between the employee performance and leadership styles and the manner in which leadership development can be incorporated with commitment of the employees in multicultural companies with diversified social and cultural background. It could help in improving the productivity of the companies as well as motivate the employees to perform beyond their expectations to take the company to a new level and achieve competitive advantage. However, the problem of managing the cultural diversity within the workplace has taken the central significance. The outcomes of the present study were a little deviating from that of the previous researchers because there are certain previous studies that were conducted under the western cultural background and not in the context of IBM.

The leaders or supervisors in organizations should be more aware of cultural differences than in the past and should know more about other cultures and their nuances. Data could be collected from both sides under western culture and Asian culture, which would help realize the differences between employees’ perceptions on leadership. The influences of personality and gender on the perception of the behavior of leadership were not taken into consideration in the research study. However they would have an impact on the relationship between the employee loyalty and leadership style. Investigating the influence of the differences in gender on these elements might offer extra information for the leaders to alter their leadership behaviors in the working environment and process in order to meet the requirement of various demographic groups. Therefore it is recommended to investigate the influence and impact of the demographic differences on the outlook of leadership behaviours so as to establish leadership training programs.

The tool used for the measurement of the leadership styles was Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The future research could pay attention to whether this tool would be applicable on both individualistic nations as well as collectivistic nations. In addition to this, the MLQ would comprise of rater form as well as leader form. This way the perception on styles as well as behaviours of leadership could be gathered from both sides of employees and leaders. In this case, the leadership styles of the supervisors could be more subjective in nature.

The present study examined the manner in which the leadership style of the supervisor has an influence on the employee motivation as well as employee engagement and commitment. The ground level employee commitment as well as motivation are characterized to the leadership style of the supervisor however there are still a few other factors that would have an impact on the motivation, engagement and commitment of the employees. Future research could pay attention to these other factors that might have an effect on the loyalty level of the employees as well as their retention within the company. As per the motivation and hygiene theory of Herzberg, factors that would result in the dissatisfaction of the employees comprise of company policy, supervision, working environment, rewards and relationship with the colleagues and peer groups. On the other hand, factors that result in the motivation of the employees comprise of his or her personal growth and development, recognition, achievement and responsibility. Supervision or leadership style of the supervisor is just one of the few reasons that would have an impact on the commitment, motivation and engagement of the employees within the company. Therefore, future research could focus on this field as well.

A more detailed and comprehensive research study can be carried out on the findings that are relied upon the differences between the private and public sector. The outcomes of the study would prepare the leadership of the organization to identify the various styles that could be adopted based upon the nature of the business. This is done so that the employees are increasingly motivated and committed and therefore would have better engagement within the organization and would also like to connect emotionally with the company they work in. adoption of the most suitable style of leadership will help the leaders to induce trust as well as loyalty for the company among the employees. This in turn would allow the companies to handle the problems of employee retention in a better manner in the rapidly growing corporate world.