Distance Leadership in decentralised sales organisations of small and medium sized medical enterprises E-Book

Reiner S. Bandorf

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2,7, Prifysgol Cymru University of Wales, course: Human Recource Management, language: English, abstract: This master thesis analyses the theoretical basis for Distance Leadership. It examines how decentralised structures affect specifically in the area of personnel management of sales organisations which organisational and communication management tools prove to be useful in this situation and lead to the choice thereof is applied in small and medium-sized companies (KMU). The objective of this work is to gain an overview of the state of research on the topic of Leadership and Distance to substantiate adequate for the medical industry segment and the defined size of the company range of management concepts. The empirical part of this work focuses on the research of suitable management tools for Distance and Leadership focuses on the management of distributed configuration sales organizations in the KMU/SME segment.

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Executive Summary

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

Comment on gender specific Wording

1 Introduction

1.1 Background and Research Theme

1.2 Motivation for choosing this theme

1.3 Objectives of the present master thesis

1.4 Approach and methodology

2 Distance Leadership within the context of macroeconomic development

2.1 Decentralisation efforts of modern enterprises

2.2 Effects on Leadership Tasks

2.3 Challenges of leading employees at a distance

2.4 Distance Leadership in small and medium-sized companies (KMU)

3 Theoretical Approaches on Research

3.1 Definitions

3.2 Selection of Literature and multiparadigmatic evaluation

3.2.1 Distance-Leadership-Compatibility of leadership styles within the context of conventional motivation theory

3.2.2 Distance-Leadership suitability of established leadership models

3.2.3 Distance Leadership Adequacy of organisational and communicative leadership instruments

3.3 Summary of the theoretical research results

3.4 Research gap and research questions

3.5 Hypothesis

4 Empirical Research Approach

4.1 Design and Methodology

4.2. Quality Criteria

4.3 Survey and Analysis of Questionnaires

4.4 Summary of the Empirical Research Results

5 Conclusion and Verification of Hypothesis

6 Limitations and Future Research Questions

7 Bibliography

7.1 Books

7.2 Internet sources and Scientific Journals

8 Annex: Survey Original Hardcopy (German)

List of Illustrations

Illustration 1: Structure of the Master Thesis (Source: illustration by the author)

Illustration 2: Control Functions of Management (Source: Illustration by the author based on Thommen & Achtleitner 2009 and Rüegg-Sturm 2003)

Illustration 3: Tri-Distance-Construct (Source: Illustration by the author based on Eichenberg 2007a)

Illustration 4: Variations of Challenges and Intensity of Distance Leadership (Source: illustration by the author based on Eichenberg 2007a)

Illustration 5: Share of KMUs in German economy (Source: illustration by the author based on Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie 2013 and Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn 2012 )

Illustration 6: Distance Zones (source: illustration by the author based on Hall 1990 and Miller 2010)

Illustration 7: Navigation Range of Distance Leadership (source: illustration by the author)

Illustration 8: Loss of Control and Monitoring vs Requirement of Trust (Source: illustration by the author)

Illustration 9: Situational Leadership (Source: illustration by the author based on Blanchard et al. 1993 )

Illustration 10: The Social Media Spectrum (Source: The Sales Whisperer 2013)

Illustration 11: Survey-Distribution ratio of KMUs to large Enterprises (Source: Illustration by the author)

Illustration 12: Survey-Distribution based on the positions in the company (Source: Illustration by the author)

Illustration 13: Survey-Farthest distances where Sales Employees are localised (Source: Illustration by the author)

Illustration 14: Survey-Frequency of Sales Conventions (Source: Illustration by the author)

Illustration 15: Survey-Self assessment of the used leadership style (Source: Illustration by the author)

List of Tables

Table 1: Definition of Terms (Source: research by the author)

Table 2: Overview of the Basic Literature researched for the present master thesis (Source: research and compilation by the author)

Table 3: Synopsis and evaluation of the six analysed leadership models (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 4: Organisational Leadership Instruments (Source: Iillustration by the author based on his research)

Table 5: Communicative Leadership Instruments (Source: Research and illustration by the author)

Table 6: Survey-Branch Distribution (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 7: Survey-Centralisation Degree of Sales organisations in the companies of the interviewees (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 8: Survey-Sizes of Sales Units in the companies of the interviewees (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 9: Survey-Farthest distances where Sales Employees are localised (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 10: Survey-Perception of the effect of distance on leadership tasks (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 11: Survey-Actually used leadership models (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 12: Survey-Efficiency of the actually used Leadership models (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 13: Survey-Organisational Leadership Instruments (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 14: Survey-Communicative Leadership Instruments (Source: Illustration by the author)

Table 15: Survey-Influence on the used leadership concepts (Source: Illustration by the author)

List of Abbreviations

Comment on gender specific Wording

For simplicity and readability, gender formulations used in this thesis were mostly used in the masculine form, the feminine form is enclosed. The author asks the female readers politely for their understanding.

`Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.´

1 Introduction

`Dezentralisierung und Internationalisierung von Unternehmenstätigkeit resultieren in personellen Verflechtungen zwischen Unternehmenseinheiten. Hierdurch ist insbesondere das Feld der Personalführung zunehmend vor entsprechende Herausforderungen gestellt, da die beschriebenen Tendenzen das Phänomen einer Führung auf Distanz im Sinne einer standortübergreifenden Mitarbeiterführung auslösen´ (Eichenberg 2007b: p454).

The development of Distance Leadership has changed management work. Leading employees over physical distances is on the rise. Executives’ expectation, however, to achieve predictable results by using human resources has not changed, nor has the expectation by employees to be led by modern instruments or methods of leadership concepts despite their physical absence or their persisting desire to be integrated into the company and to be instructed according to their assignments. These things have still been valid and have become more important within the framework of ever more developing social networking. According to the assessment of Melchar et al. (2008) and Holt & Seki (2012) this new development creates higher exigencies on executives to bridge distances and to cope with their daily requirements on management and its tasks despite a partly or even a whole lack of immediate personal contact and regular face-to-face communication. To deal with it there are a multitude of options of electronic communication media that seem easy to handle. `People around the world are now bound together by our interconnectedness as well as economic uncertainty´ (Holt & Seki 2012: p33). The surrogate use of electronic media, however, may lead to management misinterpretation and misjudgement, because the immediate reaction of the person being led, depending on the medium, will be vague or will stay entirely non-transparent.

1.1 Background and Research Theme