IT Leadership Behavior and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Outcomes

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IT Leadership Behavior andBusiness Process
Reengineering (BPR) Outcomes

• An Empirical Analysis of 30 BPR Projects Norma
  Sutcliffe

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• DefinitionBusiness
  Process Reengineering (BPR) is a fundamental
  rethinking and radical redesign of business
  processes to achieve dramatic improvements in
  critical contemporary measures of performance
  such as cost, quality, service and speed.
• Hammer and Champy (1993)

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• The Risk in BPRWhile BPR results can be
  startling, the risk of failure runs high. Some
  estimates of failure run as high as 50 to 70.
  Many have sighted a failure in committed
  leadership as the underlying cause.

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• The Leadership of BPR
• Students of the BPR phenomena assert that BPR is
  a top-down phenomena where a directed, committed
  leadership is critical for success.

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• The Leadership TheoristsThere is a substantial
  leadership literature that states that when the
  task is highly non-programmable requiring people
  who are highly motivated and independent
  thinkers, such as BPR, then a non-directed
  leadership is indicated.

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The Dilemma

• Therefore,
• is the success of BPR dependent on top-down,
  directed leadership
• or
• is it dependent on non-directed leadership
• or
• is it a combination of the two?

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The Agenda

• Review of Leadership Literature
• The Framework Used Here
• The Method Used
• The Findings
• The Contributions
• Questions

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Traits VersusBehavior in Leadership Studies

• Trait theories had no predictive power
• Contingency approach found effective in behavior
  studies
• No leadership behavior works in all situations
• Contingency approach never covered change

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Change Focus Versus Leadership Behavior Focus
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Transactional/TransformationalLeadership
Framework

• Transactional leadership covers incremental
  change
• Works within an existing organizational
  culture
• Uses contingent reward for negotiation
• Uses management by exception for feedback

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Transactional/TransformationalLeadership
Framework

• Transformational leadership covers radical
  change
• Uses charisma
• Uses intellectual stimulation
• Uses individualized consideration

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Transactional/TransformationalLeadership
Framework

• Some leadership issues the framework never
  covers
• How needed resources are acquired
• How goals are established and monitored
• How teamwork is accomplished

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Transactional/TransformationalLeadership
Framework Shortcomings

• Transformational highly correlated to
  transactional
• Assumes a line management relationship exists
• Transformational -- only in the eye of the
  beholder
• Could find no characteristics predictive for
  transformational leadership

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The Flamholtz Leadership Effectiveness Framework
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• DefinitionLeadership
  is a process whereby an individual influences the
  behavior of people in a way that increases the
  probability the they will achieve organizational
  goals.

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The Leadership EffectivenessFramework

• A synthesis of several tested theories
• Does not assume personal traits are
  prerequisite
• Does not assume a line management relationship
  exists

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The Leadership Effectiveness Framework Overview
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The Frameworks Compared

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Some Additional Insights from the Literature

• Evidence from previous studies suggest that the
  Flamholtz framework is useful for examining BPR
  phenomena.
• Consistency of leadership behavior seems
  important

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The Hypotheses

• There is significant difference in the
  style-situation fit of successful and
  unsuccessful BPR leaders.
• There is significant difference in the emphasis
  successful BPR leaders place on the task and
  people dimensions (orientations) and the emphasis
  unsuccessful BPR leaders place on the
  dimensions..
• There is significant difference in the
  consistency of leadership task performance
  between successful and unsuccessful leaders.

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The Research Method

• Data collected from 30 BPR projects using a
  two-step survey questionnaire
• Respondents from completed BPR projects sought
  from
• Subscribers to an IT-oriented magazine (snail)
• Two Internet Listservers (electronic)

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Measurement of Variables

• BPR Outcome Variable -- target attainment
  overall project goal primary project goal
• H1 -- Style-Situation Fit
• The Job Autonomy Profile
• The Projects Task Programmability
• The Leaders Style Profile
• H2 -- Task/People Orientation Balance
• Task Orientation
• People Orientation
• H3 -- Consistency of Behavior Using Factor
  Analysis
• The Level of Effort

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Validation

• Content and construct validity claimed
• Steps
• The pretest on all questionnaires
• Colleagues
• Interviews with IS executives
• Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire
• Likert scale versus paired-comparison
• Pilot study to fine tune instruments
• Non-response Bias Test

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Results

• Multiple Regression
• Analysis

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Results

• Hypothesis I
• The Style-Situation Fit
• Dependent Variable Overall Project
  Attainment with b .39 at a .05
• Dependent Variable Primary Goal
  Attainment with b .36 at a .10

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Results

• Hypothesis !I
• The Work-People Tasks Balance
• Dependent Variable Overall Project
  Attainment with b .37 at a .05
• Dependent Variable Primary Goal
  Attainment with b .46 at a .01

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Results

• Hypothesis III
• The Leadership Task Consistency
• Dependent Variable Overall Project
  Attainmentnonsignificant
• Dependent Variable Primary Goal
  Attainment nonsignificant

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Research Projects Contributions

• Research
• Empirical results on previously developed
  framework
• Extension into change management
• Practice
• Behavior based guidelines can be developed
• Not based on line-management

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Questions and Comments