An Investigation into Leadership's Impact on Business Performance

This dissertation proposal investigates the impact of leadership on the business performance of Argos Ltd. The study explores the role of leadership, its significance in enhancing performance, and the effects of different leadership styles on employees. It also examines the negative consequences of poor leadership. The research employs a quantitative methodology, utilizing a deductive approach and a survey strategy with questionnaires to gather data from 50 employees. The proposal outlines the research questions, aims, objectives, methodology, timescale, and resources required for the study, along with a comprehensive reference list. The aim is to determine the impact of leadership on organizational performance, with specific objectives including identifying the role of leadership, analyzing the effects of leadership styles, and ascertaining the impact of poor leadership on business performance. The research utilizes probability sampling with a simple random sampling method.

Business Management (Top-up)
BMP6001
DISSERTATION
Assessment 1 – Research Proposal
Dissertation Title
(An investigation into the impact of leadership over
business performance of an organisation)
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Title............................................................................................................................................3
Background to Research Topic..................................................................................................3
Background to Research Organisation.......................................................................................3
Research Rationale.....................................................................................................................4
Research Questions....................................................................................................................4
Research Aims and Objectives...................................................................................................4
Research Methodology...............................................................................................................5
Timescale...................................................................................................................................6
Resources...................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................9
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Title
To identify the impact of leadership on business performance of an organisation. A
study on Argos Ltd.
Background to Research Topic
Leadership introduces as an art of motivating and encouraging group of people
towards attainment of organisational goals and objectives. In addition, it is an effective
process used by business executive for directing, guiding and influencing the individual’s
behaviour and work towards achievement of common goals within a given situation.
Therefore, leadership is the capability of a leader to induce the subordinates or employees to
work with zeal and confidence (Al Khajeh, 2018). Argos Ltd is a selected British Catalogue
retail organisation operating in the UK and Ireland. Along with this, leadership within an
organisation plays a fundamental role by improving business performance at marketplace.
There are several importance of leadership including higher employee morale, increased
productivity, better decision making, building of inclusive working environment, creating
confidence, providing guidance, increased motivation and many others. These are
considering main significance of leadership that have positive impact over organisational
performance of company. Apart from this, there is some negative effect of poor leadership
that have affects on business’s capability to retain workers and lower employee motivation,
productivity and moral. These effects are loss of motivation to work, poor scale performance,
lack of ownership, mismanaged resources, poor work structure and evaluating poor
leadership. These are considering major effects of leadership that impact on business
performance of Argos Ltd in negative manner.
Background to Research Organisation
Argos Ltd is a chosen organisation for this dissertation proposal. It is British
Catalogue retailer that was founded by Richard Tompkins in 1972 (Argos Ltd , 2020).
Company specialise in selling of consumer goods through its physical stores and online.
Home appliances, audio equipments, television, jewellery, bedding, toys, sporting goods etc.
are consider consumer goods offered by Argos Ltd to its customers. Argos have made lot of
probabilities or chances to its leadership structure ensuring the promotion of managing
administrator John Walden to chief director of parent company i.e. Home retail group. In this
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organisation, leadership plays an important and significant role by providing accurate
guidance to the each employee. As proper guidance from leader will be beneficial for
employee as they work in effective and systematic manner. This turn to support Argos Ltd in
improvement of its business performance and also in accomplishment of long term goals and
objectives in lesser time period.
Research Rationale
Main reason behind selecting this topic or research is to analyse the advantages and
disadvantages of leadership and its impact on business performance of company. Leadership
is a main part of company that plays very important role in improving performance and
productivity of an organisation. This research is impotent at personal s well as professional
level. At personal level, this investigation supports researcher by improving its researcher
skills i.e. literature review skill, data collection skill, time management skill, data analysis
and many other relevant to the study. At professional level, this topic helps in increasing
awareness about the different types of leadership styles and its impact on performance and
ability of companies. As it is an important topic that helps at different level and enhances
awareness among people, organisations and societies about the role of leadership (Arain,
2018).
Research Questions
 What is the role of leadership at workplace of an organisation?
 What is the significance of leadership for enhancing business performance of Argos
Ltd.?
 How leadership styles effect on Argos Ltd and performance of its employee?
 What is the negative impact of poor leadership on performance and productivity of
Argos Ltd?
Research Aims and Objectives
Research Aim
Main aim of this proposal is “To determine the impact of leadership on organisational
performance. A study on Argos Ltd.
Research Objectives:
 To identify the role of leadership n context of an organisation.
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 To identify the importance of leadership in improving business performance of Argos
Ltd.
 To analyse the effect of leadership styles on Argos Ltd and its employee’s
performance.
 To ascertain impact of poor leadership on business performance of Argos Ltd.
Research Methodology
Research methodology refers as specific techniques or procedures used by researcher
to determine, choose, process and interpreted data regarding a topic. Additionally, it is a
useful process used by investigator to gather information for the reason of making business
decisions in effective manner (Green, Camilli, and Elmore, 2012). The methodology may
consist of publication research, surveys, interview and other techniques, and could contain
both historical and present data about the study. There are several useful methods according
to the current investigation, these are describing as below:
Research Approach:
There are two useful types of research approach such as inductive and deductive. For
doing this investigation, deductive type of research approach will be applied because it
support in analysing of data and information in form of quantitative. Inductive is another type
of approach that is not useful according to the current topic because it consumer more
resources and time of investigator and also require data in form of qualitative (Gadirajurrett
and et. al., 2018).
Research Strategy:
This is an important section of research methodology as it facilitate in collection of
data in number of sources. There are different strategies of data collection including case
study, survey, grounded theory and many others. All these are consider main types of
research strategy but within an investigation, survey will be going too used. Questionnaire is
a main part of survey that will be applied by researcher for gathering reliable as well as
quantitative information regarding the impact of leadership over business performance of
company. Main reason for using questionnaire as it save time and cost of researcher and also
provide valid conclusion (Shah, 2018).
Research Methodology:
There are two different types of research methodology namely qualitative and
quantitative. Within a research, quantitative study will be applied because it facilitate in
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gathering of quantitative and valid data about the leadership and its impact on business’s
performance. Along with this, qualitative is another methodology that is not helpful for
existing study or topic because it necessitate extra time, cost and resources. Therefore as
comparison to qualitative methodology, quantitative form of research is more useful and
valuable for researcher to use and gather reliable information within set time limits (Para-
González and et. al., 2018).
Research Tools:
This is an important and significant part of research methodology as it support
researcher in collection of primary information from the respondents. There are different
tools of basically two tools of data collection i.e. interview and questionnaire. Interview is
useful in collecting of qualitative information, whereas questionnaire is significant in
gathering of quantitative data. Current research is dependent on quantitative methodology and
for gathering such type of information or data, questionnaire will be used. In this tool,
researcher will require to prepare several close-ended questions that turn to support
investigator in collection of reliable and valid data from the respondents. As comparison to
interview, questionnaire is more appropriate as it not consume more cost and resources of an
organisation or investigator (Gioia, Corley and Hamilton, 2013).
Sampling:
In order to select sample from total population, there are two sampling techniques
namely probability and non-probability. Both techniques of sampling are essential but for
selecting sample size regarding the current investigation, probability sampling will be
applied. Under this, simple random sampling method is used because it assist investigator in
selection of sample on random basis. Through simple random sampling 50 employees of
Argos Ltd will be recruited. Main intent behind choosing probability sampling is it not save
time and provides valid outcomes for the research. Non-probability is another technique of
sampling that is not appropriate for this research because it entail more resources and cost of
business organisation or researcher (Dimingu, 2019).
Timescale
In order to measure time period for completion of research, Gantt chart is considering
valuable and most useful graphical presentation tool. In this tool, different number of
activities has been covered that facilitates researcher in finding of starting and ending data of
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each activity. As it turn to assist investigator to complete full dissertation within allotted time
period and in systematic manner (Flick, 2015).
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Resources
There are number of resources that will be required by researcher for collection
dissertation systematically and effectively. These resources are books, computer system
Microsoft office excel, journals etc. These are considering useful and main resources for
researcher to use and complete quantitative study in systematic manner. In addition to this,
there are some another resources that will be needed by investigation. These are
communication, time and cost. These are basic and common sources that will be valuable for
investigator in effectively and systematically completion of dissertation. Therefore without
these researcher, researcher not able to complete each task and activity of study in efficient
and effective manner (Kalsoom, Khan and Zubair, 2018).
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al Khajeh, E. H., 2018. Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal
of Human Resources Management Research. 2018. pp.1-10.
Arain, G. A., 2018. The impact of leadership style on moral identity and subsequent in-role
performance: A moderated mediation analysis. Ethics & Behavior. 28(8). pp.613-
627.
Dimingu, W., 2019. The impact of leadership styles on organizational performance: A case
of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe (Doctoral dissertation, BUSE).
Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to
doing a research project. Sage.
Gadirajurrett, H. and et. al., 2018. Impact of Leadership on Team’s Performance.
Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G. and Hamilton, A. L., 2013. Seeking qualitative
rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia
methodology. Organizational research methods. 16(1). pp.15-31.
Green, J. L., Camilli, G. and Elmore, P. B. eds., 2012. Handbook of
complementary methods in education research. Routledge.
Kalsoom, Z., Khan, M. A. and Zubair, S. S., 2018. Impact of transactional leadership and
transformational leadership on employee performance: A case of FMCG industry
of Pakistan. Industrial Engineering Letters, 8(3), pp.23-30.
Para-González, L. and et. al., 2018. Exploring the mediating effects between transformational
leadership and organizational performance. Employee Relations.
Shah, B., 2018. Effective Leadership in Organization. European Journal of Business and
Management Research. 3(3). pp.1-5.
Online
Argos Ltd . 2020. [Online]. Available Through: <
https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1134Q:LN >
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