表題番号：2024C-083
日付：2025/04/01
研究課題The effectiveness of different leadership styles in managing employees’ continuous improvement practices for marketing and innovation outcomes
| 研究者所属（当時） | 資格 | 氏名 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| （代表者） | 商学学術院 商学部 | 准教授 | フランク ビョーン |
- 研究成果概要
- The effectiveness of different leadership styles in managing employees' continuous improvement practices for marketing and innovation outcomes is a critical area of inquiry that addresses significant gaps in the existing literature. Continuous improvement encompasses employees' sustained efforts to refine products, services, internal processes, and organizational resources. While research has established a positive relationship between continuous improvement and performance outcomes at various levels, its direct impact on marketing and innovation outcomes at the employee level remains underexplored.
This study aims to examine how managerial leadership styles influence employees' continuous improvement efforts in contributing to marketing and innovation outcomes. The leadership styles under investigation include transactional leadership and leader-member exchange. Transactional leadership emphasizes structured rewards and clear expectations, whereas leader-member exchange focuses on the quality of leader-subordinate relationships. Given the potential for leadership styles to shape employee behaviors, understanding their role in continuous improvement processes is essential for organizations seeking to enhance marketing and innovation capabilities.
Existing research underscores the value of continuous improvement in fostering customer responsiveness, particularly in retail organizations. The effectiveness of continuous improvement efforts is shown to be contingent upon contextual factors such as departmental function, ownership type, and managerial leadership style. Specifically, transactional leadership, in conjunction with low leader-member exchange, has been linked to stronger effects of continuous improvement in production departments. This suggests that structured managerial oversight may enhance employees' ability to drive customer responsiveness. However, the generalizability of these findings to broader marketing and innovation contexts remains an open question, necessitating further investigation.
To address this gap, this study collected survey data from managers and their subordinate employees. Employees assessed their own continuous improvement efforts and their supervising manager’s leadership style, while managers evaluated employees’ contributions to marketing and innovation outcomes. The data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.
By elucidating the mechanisms through which leadership styles influence continuous improvement for marketing and innovation, this study provides valuable insights for both academia and industry. Organizations can leverage these findings to tailor leadership development programs, optimize managerial strategies, and enhance employees' capacity for innovation. Ultimately, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of how leadership fosters continuous improvement practices that drive competitive advantage in dynamic business environments.