How Leadership Styles Impact IS Implementation Success
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Researcher: J. B.
Abstract
Public Sector Organizations
(PSOs) are huge and complex. In an
era where civilization is increasingly becoming digital and where information
has now become a critical resource, factor of production and commodity, change
is the only constant thing. Available
data suggests that productivity and ultimately, the quality of service
delivery to citizens by PSOs can be enhanced by the successful implementation
of Information Systems (IS). However, successful implementation of IS in the
public sector, and for that matter the Ghanaian public sector, has been found to be greatly impacted upon by the
project leaders’ leadership styles. The study therefore sought to investigate
the impact of leadership styles on IS implementation success in the Ghanaian
public sector. The study
was essentially quantitative in nature and employed the empirical research
design. Primary data was collected by questionnaire administration and was
analysed using statistical software packages.
The most
dominant leadership style within the PSO was found to be the transformational
leadership style (Mean Likert score = 3.74) because it registered the highest
Likert mean score, with transactional leadership style being the least dominant
(Mean Likert score = 3.14), suggesting that the former seem to be the most
preferred leadership style in PSOs. All the identified leadership styles positively but
insignificantly correlated with IS projects implementation success in the public
sector of Ghana, implying that leadership styles in general are strongly
associated with IS implementation success.
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Transformational leadership style is the leadership style that may probably guarantee greater success overall in IS project implementation in PSOs; because, it significantly accounted for the variance in three out of the four IS project implementation success measures utilized for the study. When handling IS projects within PSOs, it is advisable to first determine the most important success measure critical to the organization and or project before initiation. This is because this knowledge will inform the choice of leadership style that will be used to tackle the IS projects. Why? Because findings from the study indicate that the choice of different leadership styles may have varying influence on the different attributes of IS implementation success, be it completion of project within scheduled time, prevention of cost overruns, and or meeting required specifications or standards of quality.
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Transformational leadership style is the leadership style that may probably guarantee greater success overall in IS project implementation in PSOs; because, it significantly accounted for the variance in three out of the four IS project implementation success measures utilized for the study. When handling IS projects within PSOs, it is advisable to first determine the most important success measure critical to the organization and or project before initiation. This is because this knowledge will inform the choice of leadership style that will be used to tackle the IS projects. Why? Because findings from the study indicate that the choice of different leadership styles may have varying influence on the different attributes of IS implementation success, be it completion of project within scheduled time, prevention of cost overruns, and or meeting required specifications or standards of quality.
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Introduction
The Public Sector (PS) is a huge
and complex organization, whose operations and strategic aspiration can be
enhanced by the successful implementation of Information Systems (IS) to
support improvements in productivity and ultimately, the quality of services to
citizens (Gichoya, 2005).
The current global landscape is
very much different from that of past years. In fact, we are in an era where
civilization is increasingly becoming digital (Heeks, 2008) and where
information has now become a critical resource, factor of production and
commodity (Beaumaster, 1999).
Leadership styles are critical to
the successful delivery of information systems products and services (Thite, 2000).
These have been identified as a major contributory factor in the delivery of information
systems (IS) projects and organizational effectiveness in the public sector
(Thite, 2000).
Objectives
The main aim of this study is to
assess the impact of leadership styles on information systems projects
implementation success in the public sector.
Key Findings
The identified
leadership styles prevailing in the randomly selected public sector
organizations (PSOs) were Transformational, Technical and Transactional
leadership styles. The dominant leadership style within Ghanaian PSOs in the
context of IS implementation was found to be Transformational leadership style.
All the identified leadership styles positively correlated with IS projects
implementation success in the public sector of Ghana. Transformational,
technical and transactional leadership styles recorded Pearson correlation
coefficients, r values, of 0.90, 0.81
and 0.73 respectively. None of these r values was found to be statistically
significant. However, the relationship between Transformational leadership
style and the success measures: project completion
within scheduled time, required
specifications or quality standards met was observed to be statistically
significant.
There is a
significant association between the project leader’s transformational
leadership style and the leadership outcome factor, effectiveness, as well as technical leadership style and satisfaction. Technical and
Transformational leadership styles had the most considerable impact on
leadership outcome factors in general.
Transformational leadership style was found to have
significant impact on project being
completed within scheduled time, meeting
of required specifications or quality standards, and the extent of project successfulness, but not on cost.
The cost-related success measure, no cost overruns, was however
significantly impacted upon by both transactional
and technical leadership styles, with technical leadership style having the
greater effect. Hence, transformational leadership style is most likely to have
the greatest effect on project success; however in combination with technical
leadership style project success will further be enhanced due to impact of
technical leadership style on the cost-related success measure.
Recommendations
When handling IS projects
within PSOs, it is advisable to first determine the most important success
measure critical to the organization and or project before initiation. This is
because this knowledge will inform the choice of leadership style that will be
used to tackle the IS projects. Why? Because findings from the study indicate
that the choice of different leadership styles may have varying influence on
the different attributes of IS implementation success, be it completion of
project within scheduled time, prevention of cost overruns, and or meeting
required specifications or standards of quality.
Technical leadership style
should be adopted when subordinates are dissatisfied. Subordinates should be
given more autonomy/independence. The leader should take the necessary steps to
prevent organizational bureaucracy from interfering with the work of
subordinates.
It
is also advised that transformational and technical leadership styles be
utilized in combination because they significantly enhance leadership outcome
factors. Under these two leadership styles, there is the giving of extra
effort, enhancement of leadership effectiveness and satisfaction on the part of
subordinates.
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Some References
Agarwal, B. (1998). Delivering
breakthrough systems. Enterprise Management Institute, Summit Online,
Succeeding at Implementation, http://www.summitonline.com/succeed/papers/tanning1.html
Al-Dmour. H. and Awamleh. R.
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on Job-satisfaction and self-perceived performance of sales people: A Study of
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Altameem, T., Zairi, M. and
Alshawi, S. (2006). Critical success factors of E-government: A proposed model
for E-government implementation. Proceeding
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Beaumaster, S. (1999). Information Technology Implementation Issues :
An Analysis. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Heeks, R. (2008). ICT4D 2.0: The next phase
of applying ICT for international development. IEEE Computer Society,
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