Doing well and doing good

The relationship between leadership practices that facilitate a positive emotional climate

and organizational performance

Journal of Managerial Psychology

Emerald:2008

Q-1: Does the article have a stated research question or problem; that is, could you

determine the focus of the author(s) work? Does the purpose clearly defined?

In this said article, author(s) clearly mention the purpose of this study that they are

looking into. The author discussed previous studies has been done in different aspects of the

leadership and their management style which influence employees emotions relates to individual

and group level. Author found some there is less attention is paid towards managers emotional

management practices and organizational level performance.

So this study was to examine the relationship between the leadership practices that facilitate a

positive emotional climate within organizations (the “PEC Practices”) and organizational

outcomes.

Q-2: is this article that describes the collection of data, or does it describes other studies in

which data were collected?

Data for this study was taken from a panel study conducted in Greater Vancouver, British

Columbia, the study of Entrepreneurs and small business owners. 594 organizations were

reached for participating in this research, but only 229 owners of different organizations agreed

to participate; it was 39 percent of overall response rate.

Q-3 was the article organized in a manner that was logical and easy to digest? What could

have been done to further improve its structure?

Article has been designed in a very smooth and clear manner that can be easily

understood. Specially the discussion part, it summarized very well the whole research and their

outcomes. Which is best part of the article and beneficial for the real world leader, they can

know the employees needs and can provide them the climate in which they feel comfortable and

bring value to the organization.

Q-4 did the article contain a section that outlined and reviewed studies that had previously

been done on this topic? In what ways was this previous literature relevant?

This article contains a detailed literature review of the previous studies, and author tries

to relate these studies to the current study. The literature discussed in this article is focusing on

organizational performance, employees-organization relational system, positive emotional

climate, leadership style.

Current study was designed to examine relationship between positive emotional climate

(PEC), organizational performance and their relation with leadership style. Many of the previous

researches had been done in individual and group level performance which was related to the

organizational performance. Those studies were focusing on relationship between employees and

leadership, that, how a leader can motivate their employees, and create a positive relation to

make organizational performance better.

At a glance, the literature review provided in this article is relevant in sense of

relationship between leadership relations and behavior with the employees that can have positive

or negative effect on organizational performance.

Q-5 If the author explained procedures that were followed in the study, were they clear

enough that you could repeat the work and get similar results? What additional

information would haven helpful or required?

In this article, author clearly defines about the variables that are used to measure the

relationship between leadership styles, employees and organizational performance. But the

method they adopted to run the analysis and getting the results was not so clear. Author descirves

very generally about the technique used to test the hypothesis, and which tool was used for the

analysis. So it’s really difficult to follow this researchers steps to repeat the process and getting

the same results.

First of all, author needs to clearly define the tool which was used to analyze the data,

followed by the testing technique that they used for testing generated hypothesis. Also need to

discuss the analyses methods that were adopted for analyzing the data.

Q-6: if data were collected, could you describe how they were collected and how they were

analyzed? Do you agree with what was done? What additional things would you have

completed?

The data for this research was taken from a panel study of entrepreneurs and small

business owners conducted in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia. The authors were interested

on consequences of various human resource issues, but they restricted this study on selection the

firms which has more than four employees. also they selected the firm on gender demographic of

ownership, selecting the firms from three different population of industries, the firms those were

male dominated, female dominated and gender mixed. These selection criteria for selection of

firms’ led author 594 eligible firms, but only 229 were agreed to participate in the survey, which

was 39 percent response rate.

The sample for this study had been divided into different industries, such as, business

services, 31.4 percent, wholesale trade 18.3 percent manufacturing firms 19.6 percent, personal

services 6.1 percent, retail trade 13.5 percent, transportation services 4.8 percent, real estate,

finance and insurance 3 percent and other industries 3 percent. Questionnaires were used to

gather data from organization.

As mentioned in the article that data was taken from a panel study and it was collected in

1995-1996. So its outdated data, in sense of organizational climate and culture, employees

demands and leadership styles. Because in the age of globalization things are changing rapidly,

so we can’t compare a more than a decade older leadership and organizational practices with the

current modern world. If the data were collected recently, it would give a clear picture of the

consequences happened in the organizational settings.

Q-7: Do you agree with the interpretation of the results? Why or why not?

Results has been interpreted in a very clear manner, and presented very well. in the

results, author clearly stated the analysis of each variable and their co relation with other

variables. Analyses techniques and methods were focused when discussing the generated

outcomes.

Q-8: Finally, reflect over the entire article, what was most important to you? What did you

find most interesting? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of this article?

Will you remember his article in the future? Why or why not?

The entire article was presented in a smooth and clear manner, but there were slight gaps

in presentation. Mostly the methodology part, it was discussed very well, but it had paid very

low attention on the methods that were carried out to complete this research. Because if a new

researcher take this article as inspiration and would like to continue the same kind of study.

He/she can’t get to the same results, as in this article it was not mentioned that how the said

analyses techniques were carried out.

The literature part was quite interesting, as it has a good review of the previous studies

which relates to the current study. Reviewing literature and connecting it with your own study is

not a easy task to do, in this research relation of the previous studies were beautifully connected

with the current study.

Strong problem identification and definition shows the strength of this study, because the

problem had discussed and supported with enough proofs that were taken from previous studies.

Problem identification is main part of an research, because research have to convince the people

that the said problem actually exists in society.

If we look at the methodology part, as discussed above, was the weakness of this article,

because analyses techniques was paid very low attention and didn’t described step that followed

to accomplish these tasks. For a new researcher, that want to follow this research as a guide, it

would be difficult for them to reach at the final destination of results. They can know techniques

need to be used, but they wont be able to know how these techniques should be applied. As in

this article it was not mentioned.

This article is worth for remembrance, for the future coming manager and leaders who

want to accomplish organizational growth, organizational performance. In this article it is

examined that what employees wants and how a leader can behave with their subordinates to

make a healthy working environment.

Influence of leadership competency and organizational culture on responsiveness and

performance of firms

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

Emerald; 2010

Q-1: does the article have a stated research question or problem; that is, could you

determine the focus of the author(s) work? Does the purpose clearly defined?

This study is conducted on operational practices of service organizations (Hotels),

according to research there is less interest can been seen on people and organizational practices.

There are two main aspects of service, structural and managerial. So this study is clearly defined,

as working on structural aspects of operational services. The main purpose of this study is to

know that whether or not these above mentioned two aspects can affect the hotel responsiveness

and ultimately on its performance.

Q-2: is this an article that describes the collection of data, or does it describes other studies

in which data were collected?

In this study data was collected, and it is clearly in this article that author design a survey

questionnaire to collect data. After interviewing experts the questionnaire were finalized for data

collection.

Q-3 was the article organized in a manner that was logical and easy to digest? What could

have been done to further improve its structure?

This article was beautifully carried out, with easy understandable language, because

language is the important factor to understand. Sometimes, most researchers uses complex and

very much technical language, that is somehow difficult to digest such readers who are new in

research. But in this article, author tries to make it as simple as possible.

Q-4: Did the article contain a section that outlines and reviewed studies that had previously

been done on this topic? In what ways was this previous literature relevant?

Many of the previous studies had been reviewed for this study; these studies were more

focused on achieving organizational performance through different practices. Author linked that

literature to the practices that he was interested to examine through this research, these practices

were as; organizational culture in operations practices, leadership in operations practices and

organizational responsiveness.

Based on literature reviewed in this article, author developed a frame work to

conceptualize the study. researcher thinks that, leadership competency and organizational culture

would have affect on responsiveness which leads to the organizational performance.

Q-5: If the author explained procedures that were followed in the study were they clear

enough that you could repeat the wok and get similar results? What additional information

would have been helpful or required?

In this study, t-statistics was used to examine the relationship between the hypotheses.

Due to small sample size of 88 respondents author uses VisualPLS to test the structural equation

model for hypotheses.

It shows that researcher explained the clear procedure for examining the study. if any

other researcher wants to do the same kind of research or other study relative to this study. they

can easily follow this study as a guide and will get the results.

Q-6: if data were collected, could you describe how they were collected and how they were analyzed? Do you agree with what was done? What additional things would you have completed?

Data was collected through questionnaires for this study. Data for this study was

collected from all hotels in Malaysia ranging from one star to five stars. Before finalizing the

questionnaires, authors interviewed experts (Mangers) in hotel management and operations to

increase content validity in questionnaire.

For this study t-statistics was used to examine the significance of hypthizised

relationship. VisualPLS is a tool which was used for the data analysis, reason for selecting for

this tool was because of the small sample size. This tool is not so much complex and its good for

analyzing small sample size.

Q-7: do you agree with the interpretation of the results? Why or why not?

Results were discussed very briefly in this article; study variables and demographic data

were ignored. Relationship between hypotheses was focused in the results. The relationship

between variables and demographic data analyses needed to be focused.

Q-8: Finally, reflect over the entire article. What was most important to you? What did you

find more interesting? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of this article?

Will you remember this article in the future? Why or why not?

This article was presented in such a easy way, that any new researcher can easily

understand the meaning and purpose of the study. Each part was given a fair consideration, there

was some gaps as well.

Mostly the results part, because in that part demographic data analyses, variables analyses

and their relationship were ignored. In the result section, author’s more focus was on the

relationship between the hypotheses. It was enough to present the purpose of the study but was

not sufficient enough. It really needs to be polished more in sense of other factors of the study as

well.

The literature and methodology parts were the most strengthen part of the study, as they

were discussed in very specific manner. In the literature part of the article, author beautifully link

the previous work with this research. Leadership in operations practices, organizational culture in

operations practices and organizational responsiveness were the key area in the literature. A

framework was developed to carry on this research.

In the methodology part, author clearly discussed the test and methods which were used

to analyze the data. It’ll help the future researchers to follow this study to accomplish their

studies.

This article worth to remember, it has very good flow of procedures, methods, previous

literature. That is very useful for the future researchers, and they can use this study as a guide to

them

Leadership and organizational performance: from research to prescription?

International Journal of Educational Management

Emerald: 2011

Q-1: Does the article have a stated research question or problem? That is, could you

determine the focus of the author(s) work? Does the purpose clearly defined?

In this article, author is talking about research on leadership and its impact on student

outcomes, and describing some strengths and weaknesses in the base of that research. Though,

the research question or problem is not clearly defined as this is a literature review paper.

Q-2: is this an article that describes the collection of data, or does it describes other studies

which data were collected?

This is a review paper, so there is no data collected on any other data used which had

been collected in any previous study.

Q-3: Was the article organized in a manner that was logical and easy to digest? What could

have been done to further improve its structure?

This study was organized very well, and can be easily understood. As it is using a simple

literature review, that even a new research can understand easily instead of statistics and other

analyses techniques. But this study can be more furnished if author would described the

methodology for this kind of research.

Q-4: Did the article contain a section that outlined and review studies that had previously

been done on this topic? In what ways was this previous literature relevant?

This is a literature review paper, so the structure of this paper is entirely based on

previous researchers which addressing the relationship between leadership and student outcomes.

In this research not only the previous research papers had been discussed, but even few

statements of high profile people like, Ex-Prime Minster of England and Ex-President of USA

were also included.

Most of the literature discussed in this article is related to the leadership styles which

have affect on educational outcomes. In this relationship few types of leadership styles were

discussed, which are, Transformational Leadership, Distributed leadership, Instructional

leadership. Also author take note of the articles which includes leadership development, because

leadership is a skill that can be learnt.

Q-5: If author explained procedures that were followed in the study, were they clear

enough that you could repeat the work and get similar results? What additional

information would have been helpful?

As discussed above that this is a review paper, so in these kind of studies author look into

different researchers work done on the same topic, and relate it with his work. After making

empirical study previous researcher, researcher suggest or conclude the strength, weaknesses or

the area that need to be more focused in future research on said research area.

So these kinds of studies are difficult to follow, as there is no any straight guide line for

new researcher. But if the research includes his/her experience about the topic that how he

conceptualize the research, and what kind of difficulties or easiness he/she faces to arrange

previous studies and linking them in their own research. By doing so, it can be helpful for new

researchers to carry out same kind of research.

Q-6: If data were collected, could you describe how they were collected and how they were

analyzed/ do you agree with what was done? What additional things would you have

completed?

This is a pure review paper, so no data were collected.

Q-7: Do you agree with the interpretation of the results? Why or why not?

In the last of this article, author summarizes his work and come to a conclusion that what

actually the problem is. The final interpretation was carried out in such a way that can be easily

understandable the whole story behind.

Actually author had focused his study on different previous research work, and giving a

review on the bases of that previous research. It is clearly shows that, there is a gap between the

research and the prescription. As stated in the article that educational research is found very

general, most researchers jumps rapidly from insufficient, and limited research to suggestions for

the practice.

It seems that, the interpretation of the results was done well, and can be easily

understand.

Q-8: Finally, reflect over the entire article. What was most important to you? What did you

find most interesting? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of this article/

will you remember this article in the future? Why or why not?

This article was beautifully narrated and worked really hard on it, because writing a

review paper is a hard task to do. Actually in this kind of studies, researchers need to review

previous works on a specific topic, finds lacking in research, methodology, assumption and

results that was generated on the bases of research. Researcher point out these mistakes and

make their suggestion on how this research area can be more elaborated, or can be more specific

than being general.

This article has a detailed literature review, and that was the most interesting and

important part of article. The weaknesses were that, author needs to mention about his/her

method of doing a study like this, Because it can help new researcher to use these kinds of

studies as their guides for future use.

This article is worth useful for the people who are doing the research in same area of this

article. It has a detailed literature review and a lot of interpretation of carrying this research.