Leadership in Kuwaiti commercial organizations : a study of the impact of leadership HRD investments

Abstract

Leadership is widely acknowledged to impact the culture in an organization, employee motivation and commitment, and overall organizational performance. Thus, investments in leadership development by organizations are viewed as being crucial for improved outcomes. The Kuwaiti economy is currently in transition as the nation looks to ensure it can fully engage with the world economy. As such, government and commercial sector investments in education are regarded as integral to achieving a successful transition. Investing in leadership development is part of this transition. This thesis investigated why Kuwaiti commercial organizations (KCOs) establish and maintain leadership human resource development (HRD) programs. This thesis also sought to examine the nature of the leadership development programs (LDPs) implemented by the KCOs and the rationale for their selection, as well as the impact of the LDPs on Kuwaiti managers as a result of their participation. A qualitative multiple case study design was undertaken in this research. Three KCOs were selected for investigation, with data principally collected via semi-structured interviews of 19 managers across the three KCOs. The participants were allocated to either an "experimental group" (n = 11), managers who had recently completed a leadership development event, or to a "control group" (n = 8), managers who had not recently (if ever) completed a LDP. For each group, the managers' understandings of leadership concepts and how they practice leadership were compared and contrasted to assess the effect of the LDP on leadership knowledge and behavior. It was expected that clear differences will emerge between the experimental and control groups regarding the LDP participant managers' leadership knowledge and behavior. The thesis found KCOs establish and maintain LDPs to enhance managers' leadership skills, qualities and behaviors. Two other important findings also emerged from the research. First, participation in the LDPs did enhance managers' leadership knowledge and behavior. Second, as these outcomes can be identified, it helps explain why the KCOs continued to invest in leadership development. Two unexpected findings also emerged in this thesis. One, all manager participants reported gender equality attitudes towards leadership, a view not generally found in Arabian Gulf countries. Two, Islamic conceptualizations of leaderships did not conflict with mainstream (western) conceptualizations of leadership. In Islamic tribal culture leadership is beholden to tradition, which makes the integration and acceptance of new styles of leadership a surprise. This thesis contributes to both academic knowledge of how managers' participation in LDPs could influence organizational outcomes, as well as to how this influence manifests in practice. Regarding the contributions to knowledge, this study is one of only a few conducted on leadership in Kuwaiti organizations. As such, its findings provide new insights into how leadership is practiced in these organizations, and shows that the type of leadership practiced in the three case study organizations is largely similar. In addition, insights are provided into the merits of investments into LDPs. The findings in this thesis also broaden our understanding of how different applications of the Kirkpatrick evaluation model may be employed to evaluate the impact of LDPs on managers. In particular, evaluation need not be prescriptive and should be sensitive to the organizational context and its processes. Lastly, this thesis contributes to our knowledge of how cultural values and norms related to gender roles, and Islamic values in particular, may impact leadership practices in Kuwaiti organizations. Regarding leadership practices in Kuwaiti organizations, the main contributions of this thesis pertain to practice improvements of investments in leadership development. For instance, this thesis elucidates why HRD investments should target the development of managers' leadership knowledge rather than the achievement of specific organizational outcomes. As revealed in the thesis findings, attempts to trace the achievement of organizational outcomes back to managers' participation in LDPs are far more problematic and difficult to accomplish compared to measuring the effect of LDPs on individual managers. In addition, the findings shed light on the benefits to organizations of explaining and communicating how LDPs are evaluated. Furthermore, this research highlighted the benefits of integrating information gathered from routine HRM activities with program evaluation. Indeed, it emerged that managers who participate in LDPs could easily identify when and how knowledge and behavior changed. These findings have relevance for not only organizations in Kuwait and other Middle Eastern nations, but also for organizations in different contexts. However, the limitations of the research are acknowledged and these might diminish any generalizations made. In light of the narrow scope of this research, it is recommended that future research projects on leadership and leadership development in Kuwait include a more diverse range of KCOs. The findings from such studies will help to confirm if situational leadership is widespread and the extent to which gender equality attitudes on leadership are common in Kuwaiti organizations. It is also recommended that research be conducted on commercial organizations in other Arabian Gulf countries to elucidate what variations, if any, emerge in relation to the leadership development of managers.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English