Introduction
A long-lasting organization leadership is important for the sustenance of strategies, objectives, way of execution as well as outcome expectations. Most firms that have been able to maintain success over an extended period are those that have ensured they remain with the same leadership personnel over long-term (Ciulla, 2020). The organization in discussion has failed to accomplish that and it is trending in the wrong direction according to business analysts (Ciulla, 2020). Company ABC deals with fast-moving consumer goods and is in the food and beverage industry in Saudi Arabia. FMCG refer to items sold quickly and at lower prices (Ciulla, 2020). It is documented that in the last five years, the leadership has changed frequently. For instance, the firm has had three chief executive officers and three boards in that same period.
Business analysts have questioned if the business is still pursuing goals of the past that ensured their top spot in the food category. Every leader in a firm has a unique vision and the idea of how the business can reach the goals (Cavaliere et al., 2021). While one may desire to diversify into other sectors, others envision dominating in their respective industries (Cavaliere et al., 2021). This plays a major role in formulating as well as implementing strategy as they represent the core of strategic management (Cavaliere et al., 2021). Without being allowed sufficient time to ensure they attain their aims, the company risks failure since the new individual will have a different way of conducting operations. The problem is that the company’s market share has significantly reduced over the five-year timeframe in the industry (Cavaliere et al., 2021). One of the most suggested causes for the decline in the market share is related to the constant changing of the leadership in the organization.
- The main aim of this research is to evaluate whether this frequent change of management in a short period can affect strategies, objectives, way of execution, and outcome expectations.
Aim and Research Questions
There are five research questions as shown in table 1.
Table 1: The table above represents the aims and research questions of the study
Methodology
As mentioned earlier, the aim of this study is to evaluate whether the frequent change of management in a five-year period has the potential to impact strategies, objectives, way of execution, and outcome expectations. The approach proposed for the research is qualitative methodology as it focuses on attaining information via open-ended as well as conversational communication (Aspers & Corte, 2019). The main techniques utilized in the collection of information will be interviews and questionnaires due to the cultural constraints within the country of interest, Saudi Arabia. At least ten staff members who have worked for the organization for more than five years will be selected for participation in the study. As seen in figure 1.0, the study is aimed for about three weeks or twenty-one days. The time is proper as it considers the various activities to be conducted.
The questionnaires will consist of open-ended questions that will allow the participants to include more detail. This will give the gathered information more meaning and usefulness (Aspers & Corte, 2019). Additionally, they will enable the researcher to under the respondents’ true emotions or attitudes concerning the topic. The questionnaires will be distributed to the selected individuals and the responses analyzed. The study will then proceed to the interview part where the investigator will have a conversational interaction with the participants. The sessions will be recorded and transcripts generated to ensure a more straightforward analysis.
After that procedure, the transcripts will be read, annotated, data conceptualized, segmented and segments analyzed. In the last step, the investigator will determine if there exists a hierarchy among the categories in the data or whether one is more relevant than the other (Ciulla, 2020). At that stage, they may need to align qualitative data with any piece of quantitative information they gathered, for example, amount of profit earned over the five-year period (Ciulla, 2020). Apart from that, some of the ethical considerations that will be made include confidentiality, anonymity, and failure to disclose interest.
In the event the investigator promises confidentiality but fails to adhere to that and does not store and handle participants’ information safely, it shows that they breached the trust of the respondents. Secondly, whereas a researcher may intend well, if they do not properly isolate personally identifiable data from survey answers, or keep it in a manner that exposes it, they are considered unethical. Lastly, the results of the survey need to always be published with a statement of interest to ensure understanding of the context. Regarding the interview process, issues to consider are transparency and honesty.
Transparency as well as honesty are the two most essential parts of doing an interview. Before formally starting the process, the investigator needs to offer a detailed explanation of the purpose in a way that is accessible to the interviewee. The interviewer is expected to motivate the participants to ask questions to help them fully comprehend the course of the procedure and be comfortable giving information needed.
Literature Review
Anytime change in leadership of a firm happens regardless of the sector, it has an effect on the human resource who are responsible for conducting various operations and instructions aimed toward reaching company goals. When the changes become more frequent, it is not only detrimental to the workers but to the organization (Karam & Kitana, 2020). There have been reported failures of such alterations as high as sixty percent due to complicated change implementations and programs caused by resistance of employees. A case in example is the boycott of staff and eventually consumers from the Market Basket (Karam & Kitana, 2020). Replacing the then chief executive officer with others meant that strategies, objectives, way of execution and outcome expectations, would change.
Years of resentment and lawsuits between owners of the business reached peak in the middle of 2013 when the voting power in the board of Market Basket favored one side. The following year, the board fired three top executives, the CEO, Vice President and Director of Operations (L. Haven & Van Grootel, 2019). Soon after, two new individuals filled the spot of the chief executive officer, an action that led to resignation of several high-level managers and a rally of three hundred workers. The main reason behind the board being against Arthur T, the fired CEO, was due to his ideologies in conducting business (L. Haven & Van Grootel, 2019). He believed in offering lower prices to the consumers and better wages to the employees. A new leadership would mean that all this would change. The board had demanded higher prices of goods to increase the profits, a move that would have caused the brand to lose a major section of the customers.
The abandonment of strategies fostered by the previous leadership would have significantly hurt the market share of the supermarket chain business. It is important to understand that leadership possesses a direct cause and effect association upon companies and success (Potter, 2018). A leader determines the culture, value, change tolerance as well as employee motivation. They are responsible of shaping institutional strategies including execution and effectiveness (Potter, 2018). They can appear at all levels of an organization and are not exclusive to management. For instance, in the case in discussion, the firm has changed the board three times too which has a potential of affecting the way of conducting various activities.
Research in the past has focused more on the advantages of an organization hiring new CEOs who have performed exceptionally. The information provided has shown that it is beneficial and positively impacts the firm as there is a promise for growth (Powell & Brubacher, 2020). However, it has failed to reveal that new management means novel ways of conducting operations (Powell & Brubacher, 2020). Additionally, every leader has their agenda and the directives they give target to ensure they meet their goals. The system they implement has a great chance of being different from the one that existed before regardless of whether the latter had achieved success to some extent (Skinner et al., 2018). When such happens often and in a short period, it might affect strategies, objectives, way of execution, and outcome expectations, making it essential to study this topic.
Schedule
Table 2: The table above shows a time plan or schedule for the proposed research
Limitations
Research should be done in the middle east, the main limitation for it is the openness of the people to give their true opinion and also the accessibility to these people. Individuals working and living in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, are exposed to the Islamic religion. It has been documented that this religion teaches against revealing information about others in the society that might seem sensitive (Inal et al., 2020). They regard doing that as snitching which to them is worse than committing a crime (Inal et al., 2020). This may cause fear among the participants as they think that they will lose their jobs in the event they reveal data on wrong actions by the organization’s ownership.
Openness is one of the most essential principles of study. It is important for accomplishing objectives and empowering society to profit from the outcomes of investigation (Tsai & Li, 2018). It assumes a critical part in affirmation and cooperation, and it advances development and discovery (Tsai & Li, 2018). Moreover, it is significant for considering researchers responsible and growing all around informed public strategy (Tsai & Li, 2018). Despite the fact that it is a fundamental piece of the ethos, it is not a standard as there are many valid justifications for maintaining mystery in examinations. From the desire to safeguard priority, credit, and licensed innovation, to the need to limit dangers to others.
Accessibility in research and in this case means being able to make the materials utilized in the study more usable. For instance, the majority of individuals in Saudi Arabia can only communicate effectively in Arabic (Inal et al., 2020). The questionnaires are designed in the English language, which offers a challenge to them. This in turn affects the collection of data from the respondents. In addition to that, choosing to use a third party to explain the questions to participants and their answers to researchers violates the matter of confidentiality and anonymity. Moreover, time is wasted on the translation process and can as well mislead when interpretation does not consider context.
Conclusion
The research aims to evaluate whether the frequent change of management in a short period can affect strategies, objectives, way of execution, and outcome expectations. Company ABC deals with fast-moving consumer goods and is in the food and beverage industry in Saudi Arabia. FMCG refer to items sold quickly and at lower prices. It is documented that in the last five years, the leadership has changed frequently. For instance, the firm has had three chief executive officers and three boards in that same period. Business analysts have questioned if the business is still pursuing goals of the past that ensured their top spot in the food category. This is especially when the company’s market share has significantly reduced over the five-year timeframe.
It is important to understand that every leader in a firm has a unique vision and the idea of how the business can reach the goals. This plays a major role in formulating as well as implementing strategy as they represent the core of strategic management. Without being allowed sufficient time to ensure they attain their aims, the company risks failure since the new individual will have a different way of conducting operations. The paper has shown that there have been reported failures of such alterations as high as sixty percent due to complicated change implementations and programs caused by resistance of employees.
A case in example is the boycott of staff and eventually consumers from the Market Basket. Replacing the then chief executive officer with others meant that strategies, objectives, way of execution and outcome expectations, would change. Regarding methodology, the proposed approach for the research is qualitative as it focuses on attaining information via open-ended as well as conversational communication. The main techniques utilized in the collection of information will be interviews and questionnaires due to the cultural constraints within the country of interest, Saudi Arabia. It is important to conduct this study as it would provide information applicable to many companies.
References
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