英国research proposal代写范文

RESEARCH TOPIC: LEADERSHIP INTEGRATED MODEL TO UK PUBLIC SECTOR: EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP AND ALL INCLUSIVE TRANSFORMATION MODEL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.. 2

LITERATURE REVIEW... 3

METHODOLOGY.. 5

LIMITATION.. 6

TIMESCALE.............................................................................................................................6

REFERENCES. 7

 

 

RESEARCH TOPIC

LEADERSHIP INTEGRATED MODEL TO UK PUBLIC SECTOR: EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP AND ALL INCLUSIVE TRANSFORMATION MODEL

INTRODUCTION

In public sector organizations, the leaders have limited control  since most of their roles are in policy implementation by the government(Moynihan and Wallace-Ingraham, 2004) and they the leaders coexist collectively and in a dependent and independent manner (Raelin, 2005).

One of the main challenges that leaders face in UK public sector like NHS is the delivery of improved services with a well motivated workforce in the age of austerity (Delloite LLP, 2010). 

According to the research carried out by Delloite LLP (2010), UK public sector have benefited from huge funding in recent years yet, with budget radically reduced while expectations of the citizens continue to increase, hence the need for public sector leaders to equip themselves with skills and insights to handle the challenges in the public sector. Due to this situation of increased expectations from the public of better services and with the reduction in budgets, the leaders in UK public sector are challenged to deliver more with less hence the need for an integrated leadership model comprising of all inclusive transformation leadership to ensure that the workforce is inspired and motivated (Alimo, 2006) and executive leadership to build enduring greatness by combining personal humility and professional will (Collins, 2005).

The intension of bringing significant change in relations to improved service delivery under a motivated workforce is clear- the question is whether there is the public sector leadership to make it happen (Delloite LLP, 2010). It is from this backdrop that the researcher proposes an integrated leadership model comprising of all inclusive transformational leadership and Executive leadership.

This research work aims to achieve the following:

• To review the literature on the effectiveness of transformational and executive leadership in UK public sector
• To explore the current leadership styles exhibited  by the UK public sector
• To identify leadership integrated model that can be of improved effectiveness in UK public sector

The proposed integrated leadership model by the researcher is relevant to the UK public sector given the challenges it faces with continued public demand for better services against the budget cuts. According to Alimo (2006), all inclusive transformational leaders are motivational, build a shared vision, decisive, encourage and facilitate change, resolve complex problem and support a development culture. These attributes are key in the UK public sector if leaders are to cope with increased demands of better services with well motivated workforce to deliver more with fewer resources. Also, transformational model give a clear distinction between management and leadership while providing value based approach to working with staff and patients/users.  On the other hand, Collins (2005) cites that building great organizations needs executive leadership who will combine personal humility and professional will to build an enduring greatness. An integration of the two leadership models is likely to be beneficial to the UK public sector.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Leadership  became a research agenda in the early 20^th century, but the understanding of its effectiveness developed more extensively in the second half of the century than almost any other aspect of human behaviour (Goffee and Jones, 2000; Higgs and Rowland, 2001). 

According to house et al (2004), leadership is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organisations of which they are members. Yurk (2006) share similar view of leadership but adds that it has to be both individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.

The ultimate challenge of leadership is to shape organization’s decision and deliver high value for their return by motivating and supporting the organization’s work force (Lynch, 2009). This challenge is made more complex especially in the public sector where the expectations for better services are high while the resources to achieve such expectation are minimal (Delloite, 2010).

Of the more than 2000 books that has been published on leadership (Goffee and Jones, 2000), an argument that stands out has been on whether leaders are born (personality) or made (Behaviours that can be developed) (Hogan and Hogan, 2001).

 Bass (1985) advanced the behavioural aspect of leadership when he developed a leadership model which identified different sets of behaviours and characteristics required in situations of organisational transformation and situations of stability, which he called transformational and transactional leadership. According to Bass (1985), the transformational leader helps bring about major change initiatives which have positive changes on the group, organisation, or society.  On the other hand, the transactional leader focuses on more routine transactions with an emphasis on rewarding group members for meeting standards.  This model has been operationalized in the form of a questionnaire named the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass, 1997).

This model is described by Alimo (2006) as heroic or “distance by” since it is not universal and fully applicable in UK public sector as opposed to USA  where it has been tested to be valid hence designed an all inclusive transformation model in UK public sector. This research work uses Alimo’s (2006) all inclusive model as the basis while integrating it with executive leadership model for improved services within the public sector.

Research indicates that the transformational and transactional distinction has been observed in a wide variety of organizations and cultures (Bass, 1997).  Although influential in the understanding of leadership in a changing environment, this model has been criticised for being too focused on the USA and on top leaders on organisations (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995).

Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe and Robert Alban-Metcalfe developed the Transformational Leadership Questionnaire (2000) which was developed from perception of leadership of middle, senior and top managers.  Such questionnaire identifies 14 behaviours in three categories: leading and developing others, personal qualities, and leading the organisation.  Their research suggests that these behaviours increase managers and employees satisfaction and motivation, and reduce stress.  It also includes the contribution of followers in their studies. These views are similarly shared by Avolio et al (2002), Bass and Riggio (2006), and Trottier et al (2008) by linking performance to satisfaction of the employees.

Being Visionary is one of the characteristics of transformational leadership since it focuses on the future of the organization.  It has been argued that the new leader should be visionary, concerned with building a shared sense of purpose and mission, creating a culture in which everyone is aligned with the organisation’s goals and is skilled and empowered to achieve them (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995). Tichy and Devanna (1986), goes further to cite the main roles transformational leadership which includes: recognizing the need for revitalization, creating a new vision and institutionalizing change.  Leaders must not only create a vision that others will follow by using communication skills, or by motivating others to do their best, but also they must align people and resources with such vision, to make them a reality (Cohen et al, 2002). This model is applicable to the public sector because aligning people and resources to help make a vision of delivering improved services a reality, then, all inclusive transformational leadership is essential.

A clear vision in an organisation and its widely understanding amongst its members makes them successful and effective because it allows people to work together.  Having a purpose in mind creates the habit that reflects the personal leadership, therefore satisfies the need to find personal existence meaning (Covey, 1989).

Jim Collins (2005) in his book “Good to Great”, argues that an organization cannot move from good to great without an executive leader. He further argues that these leaders Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will. Hence the need for this key component of leadership in the UK public sector.

Executive leadership by Collins (2005) also cultivates culture of discipline where the employees have to be discipline by not needing hierarchy, discipline thought (no bureaucracy) and discipline action (don’t need excessive control). Combination of the culture of discipline and ethical entrepreneurship result in great performance (Collins, 2005). He further describes these leaders as modest and wilful, shy and fearless.

An integrated model of all inclusive leadership and executive leadership that the researcher proposes is likely to result in improved performance in the UK public sector.

METHODOLOGY

According to Dingwall et al (1998), qualitative research used by the researcher involves “broadly stated questions about human experiences and realties, studied through sustained contact with people in their natural environments, generating rich, descriptive data that helps us to understand their experiences and attitudes”. Rees (1997) goes further to differentiate qualitative from quantitative research methods by asserting that rather than presenting the results in the form of statistics, qualitative research produces words in the form of comments and statements. Its aim is to find out people’s feelings and experiences from their own point of view rather than from that of the researcher. Bates (1995) support in saying that qualitative research has a greater validity since it is a holistic approach to research that does not reduce participants to functioning parts. The idea therefore of this  qualitative research , is not to collate numbers but able to understand the challenges that the leaders in UK public sector faces and propose a model that will help the leaders handle the ever increasing challenges  by giving more value with less resources as the public expectations are always high (Bluff, 1997).

 This research work covers Leadership in UK public sector especially NHS. A study carried by Alimo (2006) in UK public sector through Transformational leadership questionnaire (TLQ) and interviews by middle to top level managers in addition to health authorities and NHS trusts to come up with all inclusive transformational leadership model will form the basis of a case study for which this research work is based.  According to Moufahim (2007), Case studies are used to collect descriptive data through the intensive examination of an event in a particular group, organisation or situation. Moufahim (2007) further argues that a single case analysis can be a very powerful example and can be used to fill in the gaps in existing theories hence useful in studying complex phenomena like corporate failures.  Alimo (2006) Case study on transformational leadership model in UK public sector will form the basis of this piece of work by proposing an improvement on it.

Narratives are also a qualitative approach that will be used in this study as they focuses on individual life stories that can be either in written or oral and they allow the understanding of patterns, culture and behaviour in an organisation (Haynes, 2006).  He further explained that since autobiographical stories are the stories of one’s own life and/or experience, narratives can also be in the form of autobiographical stories. The narrative approach has been identified as one of the tools that can be used for transfer of knowledge in organisations (Connell et al, 2004). For example, in this piece of work, four NHS chief executives in England will be looked into on how they tackled the leadership challenge while implementing government policy to setting up primary care groups.

Lastly, ethnography focuses on word and observational data to study human behaviour and cultures (Kamoche, Cunha and Cunha, 2003). Ethnography will therefore be used in this research work to look at what people do in the public sector organisations in terms of how they carry out different tasks at work. By observing employees’ behaviour, it is possible to improve office systems. This approach helps to review and improve the existing office systems and processes over time (Hughes et al, 1993) and this is what the research aims to achieve by improving on sustainable performance through blending an executive leadership with all inclusive transformational leadership.

An improvement of all inclusive transformational model is explored by examining government reports of UK public sector, Delloite LLP research paper series, NHS reports, new paper articles, and Journals that relate to UK public sector to help design an integrated leadership model that will lead to improved performance in the age of uncertainties and budget cuts. It is for this reason that the researcher will use the qualitative design taking a phenomenological approach. Data collected from the secondary sources above will be re-organized by clustering based on the information gathered.

LIMITATION

This research work over relies of secondary sources of data whose findings cannot be extended to the wide populations with the same degree of certainty that quantitative analyses can. This is because the proposed leadership integrated model is not tested to discover whether it is statistically significant or due to chance. The approach the researcher has taken is also perceived to have lower credibility with some administrators/tutors. Data analysis is often time consuming and the results are more easily influenced by the researcher’s personal biases and ideology.