LEADERSHIP STYLE AND CONFLICT LEVELS AS PREDICTORS OF ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING

Abstract

“Organisational Learning” is one of the main focus areas of contemporary research studies and the researchers are interested in identifying the predictors of learning to devise ways of improvement. The present study tries to examine the relationship of constructs of Leadership Style (which includes Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership and Laissez Faire Leadership) and Conflict Levels (which includes Individual Conflict, Group Conflict and Organisational Conflict) with Organisational Learning of executives in select Indian organisations. The novel contribution of this study is the choice of unique predictor variables i.e Leadership Style (LS) and Conflict Levels (CL) to predict Organisational Learning (OL).The independent and dependent variables have been defined and explained in the light of available relevant literature. Also, the conditional effect of demographic features like gender, sector, industry, experience, income and education level which are a potential source of variation in behavioural outcomes on the casual relationship of leadership style, conflict levels and organisational learning was examined. For the purpose of this study, primary data using cross sectional research design was adopted to collect responses from 375 executives (Junior, Middle and Senior) of thirty four Indian organisations (both public and private sector). Standardised instruments were used to collect the responses from varied nature of industries which include Electrical, Manufacturing, Service, IT-ITES (Information Technology and IT Enabled Services) and PME (Power, Mining and Exploration). The data has been analysed using SPSS v 20.0 software. Since the data is multivariate, therefore it was subjected for missing values, normality, reliability, validity and non- multicollinearity. Further, Exploratory Factor Analysis using Principal Component Method was carried on to obtain the factor structure. Afterwards, Descriptive Statistics, Correlation Analysis, Independent Sample t- tests, one way ANOVA and Regression Analysis were employed for testing the research hypotheses. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed using IBM AMOS v20.0 to compare the Proposed Model (Styles and Levels as predictors of OL) and the Alternate Model (OL as a predictor of the Styles and Levels). The research findings show that from highest to lowest the average LS of Indian executives are Transformational, Transactional and Laissez faire. The average CL from highest to lowest is iv Organisational, Group and Individual. Average Mechanisms is found higher than average Phases of OL. Transformational Leadership Style (TFM) has been found as a significant predictor of OL while Laissez Faire (LF) is a negative predictor of OL. Among CL, Group Conflict (GC) negatively affects OL. Significant differences are observed in Transformational Leadership style across industry, income, education and gender while in case of Transactional style the significant differences are found across industry, income and education and in Laissez faire the significant difference is only in income level. LS and CL independently as well as together explain significant variance in OL. The significant differences in conflict levels are across industry in Individual Conflict (IC) as well as in Organisational Conflict (OC). In OL, the significant differences are found across industry and sector in both Phases and Mechanisms. Transformational leadership style positively predicts Electrical, Manufacturing and IT-ITES executives and also varies across gender while Individual Conflict (IC) negatively predicts Electrical, Manufacturing and Service executives. The results of goodness of fit indices indicate proposed model better and acceptable as compared to alternate model. Finally based on discussion, the conclusion and implications have been derived. Future scope has been explained. Here, in this study only two predictor variables (LS and CL) have been taken into consideration which was not studied together in previous researches and hence an addition in the existing literature. This study provides empirical evidence that LS and CL together as well as independently predict OL.