The influence of managerial leadership styles on the sustainable growth of small and micro enterprises in South Africa.
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Date
2020
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Abstract
Communities are concerned about the sustainability of businesses. The determining factors for
sustainable growth of businesses include experience, relationship with employees, supply and
demand, and whether or not the key industry resources are available. The other key factor that
contributes to the sustainability of businesses is managerial leadership style. There are different
styles of managerial leaderships, and the aim of this research is to investigate the influence of
three managerial leadership styles on the sustainable growth of small enterprises in
South Africa (SA).
The primary data for this study was gathered through hand-delivered questionnaires sent to a
sample of 384 small enterprise owners in Pietermaritzburg (PMB), South Africa. The sample size was
chosen based on the survey calculations by Krejcie and Morgan (1970). Their survey calculations
are similar to the calculations one gets from an online survey calculator. At a
confidence level of 95 percent and a confidence interval of 5, a population value of 770,007
resulted in a sample size of 384 respondents. The researcher used a non-probability sampling method
with convenience and snow-ball sampling methods to collect data. The Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows Version 25 was used to analyse the
responses obtained from structured and unstructured questions.
For any organisation to succeed and become profitable, it is imperative that the leadership have
the necessary style, skills, and vision. Current research has shown that the two predominant styles
of leadership that are well suited to small enterprises are transformational leadership and the
transactional leadership. However, the study by Franco and Matos (2015) has evident that
laissez-faire leadership style is appropriate for SMMEs as well. For the results of this study to
perceive that laissez-faire leadership style has several gaps, could be because of the particular
sector the business falls under. Based on the type of business, due to the
involvement of monetary transactions in some business organisations, employees still need to be
monitored and the decisions made mostly need to be shared, as the employees cannot make decisions
on their own.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.