Innovation Management Assignment On Literature Review

Question

Task: The assessment task is to write a 2000-word literature review on the following topic-

The relationship between leadership and organisational performance

Students could narrow down the scope of the literature review on to specific aspects of leadership such as types, styles, etc and its inter-relationships with specific facets of organisational performance such as financial performance, innovation performance, sustainability and responsibility, and so on. Another way to narrow down the scope of the review is to focus on a particular industry and evaluate the relationship between leadership and organisational performance in that industry.

The literature review must critically evaluate and synthesise the current state of knowledge on the given topic. Therefore, it is recommended that only articles published in the last 5 to 7 years be reviewed for this assessment as it will provide an overview of the contemporary debates on the topic. It is also recommended to use articles published in the top-ranked academic and practitioner journals given in Table 1.

Visit the links below for detailed information on literature review and critical writing –
https://skillshub.northampton.ac.uk/literature-reviews/
https://skillshub.northampton.ac.uk/critical-thinking/

Answer

Abstract: The aim of the paper on innovation management assignment is to analyze the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation performance in the business. Leadership is seems to have a direct influence on the attitude and behavior of the employees and the level of communication between groups in the organization. Strategic leadership explored in the innovation management assignment is seen to have direct impact and be supportive towards organizational innovations. Innovation in the organization are initiated and achieved through effective leadership style and pattern. Transformational leadership is considered as one of the important and desired leadership concept for effective business outcomes that generate innovation. However, there are challenges in regards to impact of such leadership such as conflict, over-dependence and others discussed in the present context of innovation management assignment.

Introduction: Leadership forms an integral part of innovation management because it seems to play a decisive role in the organization and help enhance organizational creativity and driving innovative projects. The words of Dunne et al., (2016) with regards to the case scenario of innovation management assignment illustrates that corporate leaders act like key drivers to bring change and promote innovativeness in the organization. Therefore, leadership, which has been viewed as the behavior of managers towards the operations and goals of the organization, plays an important role towards creativity. Study of Gupta and Singh, (2013), has stated that there are various aspects of relationship between leadership and innovation management. Therefore studying innovation with leadership becomes a crucial aspect of management studies. However, different leadership styles have different impacts on employee involvement and in turn on innovation management.

The project on innovation management assignment examines the current state of knowledge on the relationship between transformational leadership style and innovation performance of business by reviewing past works of literature.

Discussion
Leadership and Innovation: According to the opinion of Gupta and Singh, (2013) considered in the innovation management assignment leadership is seemed to have a direct influence on the attitude and behavior of the employees and the level of communication between groups in the organization. Therefore, leadership is defined as a process of social influence in which a person engages with others in a group to accomplish common task. This is accomplished by four dimensions of leadership such as people, means, effects and goals. This has also been stated by the study of Boie et al., (2015) that different leaders express different specific behaviors depending on leadership styles. The behaviors that leaders show is reflected on the behavior of the employees and in turn is seen to have an effect on the innovative goals they serve. However, Zhang et al., (2015) stated in the innovation management assignment that the role of leaders is not limited to behavioral impact and achievement of goals and expands to other areas as well such as developing team dynamics and actions among the employees. Leadership is a wide concept that impacts each and every aspects of the business along with innovation management and impact the overall performance of the organization.

Eisenbeiß and Boerner, (2013) has pointed out that strategic leadership is seen to have direct impact and be supportive towards organizational innovations. Innovation in the organization are initiated and achieved through effective leadership style and pattern. This means that leaders impact the level of creativity in the organization by providing them effective guidance on planning, new product knowledge, effective decision making process and others. This is because the role of leaders in an organization is said to guide the employees through number of factors such as skills, knowledge, information and behavior that drives collective efforts. This results in unique applications to develop new product and service development ideas. However, Arif and Akram, (2018) argued that innovations are typically complex process and involves various activities and factors that determines its success. It is not only the leadership and their role that is a sufficient factor for innovative performance of a business. There are different stages of innovation and process of ideation and implementation. Only leadership and its behavior is not sufficient in delivering effective and successful innovation in an organization.

The innovation management assignment examines the readings of Newma et al., (2018) that has stated in the findings of innovation management assignment that one factor that acts like an important source of innovation in an organization is research and development and this helps the organization to deploy innovativeness. Research and development help in coming up with different and unique implementers of ideas in a business. Therefore, leaders act as implementers in initiating research and development so that continuous innovation can be bought into business. However, Gupta and Singh, (2013) argued that there are little to no evidence on the importance of leaders in research and development activities and this reduces the analysis on the extent to which leaders can play a role in innovation.

Transformational Leadership and Innovation: According to Eisenbeiß and Boerner, (2013), transformational leadership is considered as one of the important and desired leadership concept for effective business outcomes. It is a type of leadership that is seen to have extensive team levels in an organization. This is because transformational leaders are seen to act as a mediator to develop trust among team members and better collaborations. Therefore, with better collaboration transformational leaders is able to develop successful innovation with improve trust related environment between the managers and the employees. This is because with better trust and communication the team members are able to come up with unique and innovative ideas by relying on each other’s abilities. Zhang et al., (2015) in the paper utilized herein innovation management assignment has also pointed out that transformational leadership style is one of the inspirational ways through which a leader motivate or use their motivation thinking ability to deliver efficient and innovative performance. However, Arif and Akram, (2018) argued that innovation in organization is not limited to transformational leadership style and expands to servant leadership as well. This means that servant leadership also impacts learning process in the organization and learning is an important tool for enhancing organizational innovation. The reason outlined in the innovation management assignment is that both these leadership comes under ethical leadership style and can be used in place of others where the leader works together with the subordinates to promote intellectual stimulation through continuous inspiration. Both these leadership style needs to be implemented together in certain places because servant leadership pays attention on delivering service to the followers, while transformational leadership focus on engaging with the followers. Thus, together these two attributes of both leadership helps in enhancing innovation in business.

Newman et al., (2018) pays light on the considerable empirical work to show the relationship between transformational leadership and team creativity. There are different dimensions of transformational leadership that help in delivering different outcomes such as inspirational motivation, charisma, individual consideration and intellectual stimulation. This shows that each of these dimensions gives an inspirational motive to the employees to work that lead to innovative team outcome. Gupta and Singh, (2013) has further pointed out that transformational leaders are more responsive towards followers needs and use a mix of emotions in their communication to pursue different business objectives. With good communication such leaders are able to develop group innovativeness and effectiveness. Therefore, it is seen in this section of innovation management assignment that intergroup or intragroup coordination has both been found to spur creativity where managers are required to develop both internal and external communication. However, Nguyen et al., (2017) argued that coordination is not a sufficient condition for innovativeness and it requires straight forward direction and understanding of cultural norms and business ideas in a group. Moreover, a leader should also be able to identify the desired needs of the subordinates to design their roles and responsibilities in task efficiently so that innovative ideas can be developed. This requires implementation of transactional leaders in place along with characteristics of transformational behaviors because such leader’s help in keeping things on track in the implementation phase after the simulation of new ideas have been developed. This shows that developing a new idea or innovation is not a sufficient factor and needs increased analysis to keep a continuous innovative behavior.

Dunne et al., (2016) sees the major objective behind transformational leaders is to transform the organization and such transformation is often connected with innovation and change. Such transformation can be bought by leaders showing either transformational or ethical leadership style irrespective of gender. Leaders whether they are male or female enhances learning in their environment through transformational leadership style and promote innovativeness. This is because innovation is developed through mediating effects of organizational learning. Therefore, findings of Lin et al., (2016) shows that even with maximum male participants transformational leadership was considered as an important source for creativity and improved organizational performance. However, Choudhary et al., (2013) has presented a different view showing differences in the leadership pattern among male and female employees and increase in the participation of women as a reason behind rising business innovativeness. Female and male differ in their leadership style where women leaders show a much interactive and collaborative style, whereas male leaders are found to be high on command and control behavior. This means that women are successful in leadership styles, as they show transformational leadership. Thus, rise in women participation in leadership results in better innovation in organization, as they exhibit relation orientation. This shows that gender differences are also related to transformational leadership behavior to some extent and this has an impact on innovative potential of the organization.

Braun et al., (2013) suggest that innovation is an important part of small businesses and leaders are an important factor that facilitates innovation. Inspirational leaders show positive emotions and they are responsible for stimulating innovation by encouraging creativity in their environment. This is because positive emotions impacts cognitive capacity to process information and use it to better ideas and flexibility. Therefore it has been seen in the innovation management assignment that entrepreneur’s with positive attitude and emotions is directly related with creativity. Such leaders cultivate positive behavior among the subordinates and this mechanism of emotional contagion is important to be applied in small businesses. Studies have shown that communication of the leaders based on emptions is one of the most effective ways to translate knowledge of human capital into creativity. However ?ukowski, (2017) has criticized the points mentioned in the innovation management assignment that transformational leadership is a dynamic process that can sometimes be conducive to conflicts of interest among the team members. Conflict can occur in different stages of team work while coordinating with team members and leaders. This is because in collaborative negotiation that takes place in transformational leadership it is seen that there are various differences of ideas between team members. This makes it difficult to come up with mutual beneficial outcomes and an innovative solution for the business. Conflict also reduces the effectiveness of team outcomes and proves to be highly risky and disruptive in nature (?ukowski, 2017). There are also chances of employee burnout in such circumstances when the ideas of one are used by a leader and ideas of other team members are not.

?ukowski, (2017) has pointed out transformational leaders to be linked with charisma and this generates pride and respect between the leaders and their subordinates. Moreover, such leadership help in making their followers self-sufficient in decision making and motivate them to take new decisions and learning. Therefore, such leaders are known to stimulate intelligence and learning that help employees to be innovative in their approach while problem solving. The words of Eisenbeiß and Boerner, (2013) explored in the innovation management assignment put forward a different view stating that transformational leaders promotes creativity, however, at the same time they also increases dependency of the followers that reduces creativity in the long run. This indirect effect reduces the positive influence of transformational leaders and impacts innovative organizational management.

Transformational leaders are hired with the intension of bringing change in the organization ad meet its change management goals. This means that change and transformation is highly linked with such leadership behavior. Studies have shown that transformational leaders focus on bringing new changes and ideas continuously into business with collaboration and the intension of bringing transformation in the business environment. However, transformational behavior has been criticized by ?ukowski, (2017) for creating problem with extensive and continuous change. This is because continuous change in organization sometimes becomes disruptive and costly for the business. Moreover, it is also detrimental if the leaders take unnecessary risks in business with their intension to bring transformation.

Conclusion
In conclusion it can be stated in the innovation management assignment that transformational leaders has a positive impact on innovation performance of the organization, yet it is important to control the risk related to such leadership behavior and collaborate it with other leadership style to get effective outcome. Transformational leaders have been connected to extensive learning and motivating behavior that directly impacts innovative outcome in a business.

Overall my learning about the relationship between the two as explained in the innovation management assignment was highly effective. I have come across the multiple views regarding gender differences in leadership behavior where female leaders are seen to be more transformative than male leaders. However, I think that male leaders also support transformative leadership roles instead of commanding roles in many articles because in many areas male participants supported transformational leadership. Moreover, I have learnt that transformational leaders are highly effective in small businesses where such leaders show positive emotions and they are responsible for stimulating innovation. Overall my current state of knowledge on transformational leadership has been positive, as it adds positive impact on business outcome with innovative and creativity. However, I think that the challenges and arguments related to this leadership concept explored in the innovation management assignment needs to be controlled for increasing effectiveness.

References
Arif, S. and Akram, A., (2018). Transformational leadership and organizational performance: the mediating role of organizational innovation. Innovation management assignment SEISENSE Journal of Management, 1(3), pp.59-75.

Boies, K., Fiset, J. and Gill, H., (2015). Communication and trust are key: Unlocking the relationship between leadership and team performance and creativity. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(6), pp.1080-1094.

Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S. and Frey, D., (2013). Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), pp.270-283.

Choudhary, A.I., Akhtar, S.A. and Zaheer, A., (2013). Impact of transformational and servant leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of business ethics, 116(2), pp.433-440.

Dunne, T.C., Aaron, J.R., McDowell, W.C., Urban, D.J. and Geho, P.R., (2016). The impact of leadership on small business innovativeness. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), pp.4876-4881.

Eisenbeiß, S.A. and Boerner, S., (2013). A double?edged sword: Transformational leadership and individual creativity. British Journal of Management, 24(1), pp.54-68.

Gupta, V. and Singh, S., (2013). How leaders impact employee creativity: A study of Indian R&D laboratories. Innovation management assignment Management Research Review.

Lin, H.C., Dang, T.T.H. and Liu, Y.S., (2016). CEO transformational leadership and firm performance: A moderated mediation model of TMT trust climate and environmental dynamism. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 33(4), pp.981-1008.

?ukowski, W., (2017). The impact of leadership styles on innovation management. Marketing of Scientific and Research Organizations, 24(2), pp.105-136.

Newman, A., Herman, H.M., Schwarz, G. and Nielsen, I., (2018). The effects of employees' creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior: The role of entrepreneurial leadership. Journal of Business Research, 89, pp.1-9.

Nguyen, T.T., Mia, L., Winata, L. and Chong, V.K., (2017). Effect of transformational-leadership style and management control system on managerial performance. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.202-213.

Zhang, X.A., Li, N., Ullrich, J. and van Dick, R., (2015). Getting everyone on board: The effect of differentiated transformational leadership by CEOs on top management team effectiveness and leader-rated firm performance. Innovation management assignment Journal of Management, 41(7), pp.1898-1933.