The Impact of Leadership and Management in Research and Development Department of Consumer Goods Manufacturers: A Case Study Based on Tesco

This research project focuses on the impact of leadership and management in the research and development department of consumer goods manufacturers, with a case study based on Tesco. It explores the concept of leadership and management, their importance in the R&D department, challenges faced by leaders and managers, and ways to overcome these challenges. The research design and methodology include interpretivism research philosophy, deductive research approach, descriptive research design, primary and secondary data collection, thematic data analysis, and simple random sampling. The project plan includes a Gantt chart, and risk management is addressed through a RAID log.

Research Project

Table of Contents
1. Title..............................................................................................................................................1
2. Background..................................................................................................................................1
3. Research questions, Aim and Objectives.....................................................................................2
4. Literature review..........................................................................................................................2
5. Research design and Methodology..............................................................................................4
6. Project Plan..................................................................................................................................6
7. Risk Management........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

1. Title
“The impact of leadership and management in Research and Development Department of
consumer goods manufactures : A case study based on Tesco”
2. Background
Introduction: Leadership and management plays their crucial role in the success of the
business and in the same way, the proposal is also based upon the impact of leadership and
management in research and development department. Thus, leaders provide direction o the
employees and managers manages or control the things so that they perform the best in order to
complete the defined aim in better way. Research and development department of the firm
conduct the study before a new product is developed by determining the product specifications,
production cost and production time line. The chosen firm for this report is Tesco which is top
retail firm is UK. Report will describe the methods which researcher will choose for completing
the aim and objectives in better way and then using risk register, researcher also minimizes the
risk which may affect the research in negative way.
Overview of the firm: Tesco is one of the top and leading brand in UK and it is the
British multinational grocery and retail store which is established its unit at global level. The
company is measured third largest in the term of gross revenue and also consider the market
leader of grocery in UK. The company is founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen and now it has over
100 Tesco shops across the country. The firm provides different product such as retailing of
books, clothing, electronics, furniture and toys, petrol and financial services at low rates with
good quality of products.
Rationale: Researcher chooses this topic because they have their own interest and in this
modern era, effective leadership and management have their important role for the success of a
business. In the same way, by study on the particular topic, researcher will gain extra knowledge
regard to leadership which will also help in researcher's personal as well as professional life.
Moreover, another reason of choosing the topic is such that may be University provide the topic
and that is why researcher is study on this specific topic. Apart from this, by study on the
particular topic, researcher will collect more information and realize the importance or role of
leadership and management in the top brands for meeting the demands of customers.
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Scope: In this modern era, the company is effectively run, if the leaders uses the best and
effective leadership and management strategy and they also provide the best products by
analysing the need of their customers. In the same way, the current study is also based upon the
impact of leadership and management in research and development department. Therefore, the
scope of the research is such that company will determine the positive as well as negative impact
upon the success of a business (Bolden, 2016). Therefore, the scope of this research determines
some ways that helps Tesco to manage its research and development department in better way.
3. Research questions, Aim and Objectives.
Aim:
“To identify the impact of leadership and management in Research and Development
Department of consumer goods manufactures : A case study based on Tesco”
Objectives:
 To determine the concept of leadership and management.
 To determine the importance of leadership and management in Research and
Development Department of Tesco.
 To identify the challenges which leaders and managers face during manufacturing goods
in R&D department.
 To recommend some ways that helps to overcome the challenges in R&D department in
Tesco.
Research Questions:
 What do you understand by concept of leadership and management?
 What is the importance of leadership and management in Research and Development
Department of Tesco?
 What are the challenges face by leaders and managers during manufacturing goods in
R&D department?
 What are the ways that helps to overcome the challenges in R&D department in Tesco?
4. Literature review
Theme 1: Concept of leadership and management.
Leadership is that process by which the person can easily direct and guide the employees
and also influence their work as well in order to attain the aims and objectives (Leadership,
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2017). Therefore, leadership is the capacity that influence a group towards goal and leaders have
their strong vision and motivational skills that helps to members to reach towards defined aims
and objectives. Leadership also involves showing how workers effectively perform their roles
and responsibility in order to complete the defined task in prefect manner. On the other side,
Connolly, James and Fertig, (2019) stated that management consist of four terms that is
planning, organizing, leading and coordinating the resources that helps to attain the defined goals
and leads a business towards success. Therefore, management is the strategy that is followed by
the manager in order to manage the employees as well as resources in perfect manner. An
effective Management also help to achieve the group goals and also arranges the factor of
production and then organize the resources in better and effective way.
Theme 2: Importance of leadership and management in Research and Development
Department of Tesco.
As per the view of Timm and McLaren, (2019) leaders and manager of Tesco perform
their important role for innovation in the R&D context such that it includes the idea generating,
entrepreneuring and project leading. On the other side, leader of the firm mainly motivate the
team members, organizing projects and also coordinate the team members in Research and
development department, while on the other side, this creates positive impact upon the
production process and help in the success of a business. Bollettino and et.al., (2019) state that
manager in the same time, makes planning and generate the ideas in order to meet the demand of
customers so that it will help to provide the best products a per the customer need. In research
and development department, leader of Tesco focus on incremental product improvement an
innovating terms so that the best and new product is to be served to their customers. In this time,
manager also monitor the product and then it will proceed to further step. This shows that
leadership and management plays their important role in the business success.
Theme 3: Challenges which leaders and managers face during manufacturing goods in R&D
department.
According to Blanchard, Zigarmi and Zigarmi, (2015) leader and manager faces lack of
human and non- human resource in R&D department. In Tesco, there may be chances that the
firm did not have expertise and sometimes due to lack of quite management decisions, the R&D
is not able to meet the demand of customers and did not produce the same product as well. Apart
from this, internal conflict among employees is another challenge which they both generally face
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and this also affect the entire production level in negative way. These conflict also affect the
business productivity level in negative way and as a result, it also affect the management as well
as leadership in negative way. Beside this, Bush, Bell and Middlewood, (2019) critic that
disruptive innovation is another challenge which leader and manager of Tesco faces because in
this modern era, if the company did not accept the change and did not use advance technology
into working place in proper manner then it affect the entire business as well as performance
level in negative way. In addition to this, differences in language is another challenge which they
face and this also affect the management and leadership in negative way.
Theme 4: Ways that helps to overcome the challenges in R&D department in Tesco.
In order to minimize or overcome the challenges which face by leader and managers of
Tesco, Thorpe (2016) suggested that company should develop effective team and also division of
labour should be done on the basis of their skills, so that it will help them to overcome the
challenge of lack of human resource. Apart from this, manager must uses advance technology
such as Artificial Intelligence in order to minimize the disruptive innovation. It is so because
virtual reality is improving the leaps and bounds and also minimize the difference of language
barrier as well. On the other side, Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube, (2015) stated that leaders
and manager of Tesco should use the best situational leadership style that helps to minimize the
conflicts among employees and leaders should also run effective training session so that it will
help them to improve the performance level of the employees and also run the business in
effective way. In addition to this, it is also recommended to the firm that research and
development department should first analyse the demand of the customers and then develop the
same so that the firm will meet the demand in effective way.
5. Research design and Methodology.
Research philosophy: It is the belief about the method which is used in order to collect
and analyse the data and it is considered one of the vast topic and it deals with the source, nature
and development of knowledge. Basically there are four types of research philosophy such as
realism, positivism, Interpretivism and Pragmatism (Cazeaux, 2017). Among all, researcher will
chooses Interpretivism research philosophy so that researcher will interpret the element of the
study and this research philosophy helps in attaining the defined aims and objectives in better
and precise manner.
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Research approach: It is the method which is consist of different steps that helps to
conduct the research in detail manner by collecting the data in proper manner. In this research,
researcher will uses qualitative research approach and it Is mainly of three types such as
deductive research approach, Inductive research approach and last is Abductive research
approach (Quinlan and et.al., 2019). Among all, Researcher will chooses Deductive research
approach method which is mainly concern with developing the hypothesis that is further based
upon the existing theory. This approach will help a research to make the research particular to
general and assist to attain the aim in defined time with specific information.
Research design: It is the collection of all the methods and plans which is used to gather
as well a measure the variables in order to specified the research problem. It is quite important
because it helps to facilitate the smooth sailing of different research operations by making the
research more efficient by minimal expenditure (Gog, 2015). This is further divided into two
parts such as conclusive and exploratory research design and researcher will chooses descriptive
research design under conclusive research design because it helps a researcher to accomplish the
aims and objectives in better way and complete the research in defined time as well.
Data Collection: It is the method of collecting and gathering the data so that the
researcher will answer the research question in accurate way. The researcher chooses both
methods of data collection such as primary data and secondary data. By using primary data
collection, researcher will conduct an interview and it is the first-hand data collection method
that helps to determine the impact of leadership and management in R&D. Further, researcher
also uses secondary data collection methods in which they use already published articles, books
and Journals to review the data and then used in literature part (Yeakley and Caballero, 2016).
Therefore, both the methods will help a researcher to conduct the researcher in better way and
also attain the aim and objectives.
Data Analysis: It is the process of evaluating the data which is used to introduce the
useful data and also helps in taking better decision for the company. It also helps a researcher to
conduct or interpret the data in an understandable way so that researcher answers the research
questions in better manner (Chambers, 2017). It is also of two types qualitative and quantitative
data analysis and researcher will chooses thematic data analysis under qualitative data in order to
attain the aims and objectives in better way and conduct the data in more precise manner as well.
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Sampling: It is the process which is used in statistical analysis in which some planned
number of measurement that are taken from the larger population. Therefore, this helps to
determine the accuracy of the research and get better results as well. Apart from this, it is two
types such as probability and non- probability sampling (Lohr, 2019). From these, researcher will
choose, simple random sampling method under probability sampling and chooses 20 managers
of TESCO that helps to determine the impact of leadership and management in R&D
department.
Ethical Considerations: It s another important part in which researcher has to take prior
consent to the participants so that they will participate with honesty and transparency. Further
researcher should make sure that participants will not be subject to harm in any ways and all the
data should be protected in better way. Moreover, researcher should also maintain the respect for
dignity and maintain the adequate level of confidentiality related to the data and further, any type
of misleading information should be avoided.
Limitation: For this research project, researcher find out the research limitation such that
scope of discussion and it is so because the researcher have no prior experience of conducting the
research and use of proper conducting the research academic papers for the large size groups.
6. Project Plan
Gantt Chart illustrate the project schedule and also show the dependency relationships
between the activities as well as current schedule status. Therefore, it helps to provide the
graphical illustration of a schedule which helps to plan, coordinate as well as track the specific
task in research project.
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Critical Path:
7. Risk Management
Risk identification in the project is one of the critical point that needs to be determine and
it has to be manage in order to complete the project in successful manner. Risk identification also
provides how the researcher need to manage all stakeholders and use the tool in order to inform
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the decisions. For this research, researcher also faces different types of risk and to minimize
those, RAID log is uses such that:
Risk: It is that event which adversely affect the project and for current research project,
researcher faces some technical issues, Quality issues, security and ineffective internal
communication. Thus, for each of the risk, researcher has to not the probability and then try to
minimize the actions in order to make the project successful.
Assumptions: they are the aspects of the project which a researcher assumes that it will
help the project to run smoothly, but actually there is no guarantee whether it will create negative
or positive impact upon the project (Cazeaux, 2017). Such that they may be the aspect of
environment and the surroundings of the project, therefore, it is quite essential for the researcher
to track so that it will not creates bad impact upon the project.
Issues: If the researcher faces any issues then it needs to be resolved so that aims and
objectives are met with defined time. Generally, researcher faces the issue of not meet the
defined deadlines and this affect the entire project in negative way. For example, when the
human resource of the project is ill and due to some reason, he is not able to come and that time,
the issue needs to be managed in order to gain complete the project as per schedule.
Dependencies: it is exist when the output of the project is needed as mandatory input for
another project of work. Therefore, if there is any kind of issue found then it is the responsibility
of manager to keep record, monitor and manage all the dependencies in better way.
Risk Probability Impact Mitigation action
Technical issue 10 Medium Regular monitor the technical resources used
during the project.
Quality issues 4 High Hire a person to check the quality of
resource used and alternative option must be
develop.
Security 1 Medium Follow data Protection Act to maintain
confidentiality.
Ineffective internal
communication
8 High Use direct communication methods and
taken decisions should be communicated
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effectively.
CONCLUSION
By summing up above, it has been concluded that leadership and management plays an
effective role for the success of a business and in the same way, report also concluded that while
delivering the products to customers, an effective leadership style and management approach
should be used by the leaders and manager of TESCO in R&D department. Report concluded by
using secondary resources the impact of leadership and management in R&D of consumer goods
manufactures and thus, study also concluded that qualitative research approach is used and by
using thematic data analysis, researcher will attain the aim and objective sin better way.
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References
Books and Journals
Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J. and Ololube, N. P., 2015. A review of leadership theories,
principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management.5(1).
pp.6-14.
Blanchard, K. H., Zigarmi, P. and Zigarmi, D., 2015. Leadership and the one minute manager.
London: Fontana.
Bolden, R., 2016. Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook
of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Bollettino, V. and et.al., 2019. Humanitarian Leadership. Social Science Protocols. 2,.pp.1-12.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
Cazeaux, C., 2017. Art, research, philosophy. Routledge.
Chambers, J. M., 2017. Graphical methods for data analysis: 0. Chapman and Hall/CRC.
Connolly, M., James, C. and Fertig, M., 2019. The difference between educational management
and educational leadership and the importance of educational responsibility. Educational
Management Administration & Leadership.47(4). pp.504-519.
Gog, M., 2015. Case study research. International Journal of Sales, Retailing & Marketing, 4(9),
pp.33-41.
Lohr, S. L., 2019. Sampling: Design and Analysis: Design and Analysis. Chapman and
Hall/CRC.
Quinlan, C. and et.al., 2019. Business research methods. South Western Cengage.
Thorpe, R., 2016. Gower handbook of leadership and management development. CRC Press.
Timm, R. M. and McLaren, S. B., 2019. ASM leadership and management. Journal of
Mammalogy.100(3). pp.646-655.
Yeakley, D. D. and Caballero, A. M., Hand Held Products Inc, 2016. Data collection system
having reconfigurable data collection terminal. U.S. Patent 9,256,772.
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Leadership. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.managementstudyguide.com/qualities_of_a_leader.htm>.
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