A case study of Oman Oil Company SAOC Transformational Leadership

1. Introduction

The oil and gas field in Oman is a very vivid market as there is a high competition occurring there in addition to the competition of oil market in the whole Gulf area which makes any company working in that field tries hard to reach competitive advantage. Focusing on human resource management can be a good way to reach competitive advantage through employees who are a major asset for any business organization to invest in. According to Alhassan et al, (2014), leadership has great effect on the staff performance which affects the organization's productivity as they saw that the use of the different leadership styles can leave big impacts on the organization's productivity according to different factors and conditions.

Leadership can be used to motivate employees and guide them for helping the organization raise its performance through improving the performance of employees, retaining them and reducing their turnover levels. There are different leadership styles that can be properly used for producing the best productivity the organization can reach.

The current proposal is discussing how leadership styles can affect the organization productivity; it presents some different leadership styles and their effect on productivity focusing on the transformational leadership style and declaring its role and impact on improving the organization's productivity. The research proposal is based upon a case study of Oman Oil Company SAOC which is a big oil company in Oman.

1. Background of SAOC

Oman Oil Company S.A.O.C is a government commercial company that the Omani government possesses. The company was established to be a part of the energy sector in Oman as incorporation in 1996 and it has business inside Oman and outside it. The company's projects are related to energy and other relevant sectors; its business is greatly participating in helping and strengthening the economy of Oman through business with both local and international companies.

The company is working in many fields related to oil sector such as petrochemicals as the company has shares in about five petrochemicals companies; three in Oman and two outside it. The company has big investments as it has shares in Germanic and Spain companies in addition to the investments of the company in Oman and its contribution to the Omani economy.

The company was established in 2000 and it was a closed joint stock company as it included Gas Holding and the Ministry of Oil of Oman with 80% and 20% shares respectively.

The company has a vision of providing high quality products for its customers and ensuring safety and security for all stakeholders as well as ensuring the profit and benefit for all shareholders.

The company business includes transmitting and distributing natural gas as it owns a big network of natural gas pipelines with stations for gas supply and for gas compression and the company also provides its customers with project management services in the pipelines constructing.

1. Literature review
1. Leadership styles and its effect on organization's productivity

Castro, (2013) referred to a relationship between the leadership styles and the organizational productivity; they discussed different leadership styles such as the transformational, transactional and laissez free leadership. Bhatti et al, (2012) discussed other leadership styles such as the autocratic and democratic leadership styles and they investigated their impact on employees' job satisfaction which leads to higher productivity. Ofei, Puni and Okoe, (2014) discussed the effect of leadership style on the performance of firms as they defined leadership as the process that involves many practices by a person or more to influence others and guide them for working to achieve certain goals and to reach certain results. 

Profit is a major request that shareholders have and it is directly associated with productivity; business organizations try to make full use of their resources in order to increase productivity and in turn profits. Among these resources are the human resources that are considered major assets and to use them properly, effective leaders are needed. According to Alhassan et al, (2014) leaders can affect the employees and inspire them to raise productivity when they follow the proper leadership style. Anbazhagan and Kotur(2014)referred to leadership styles and focused on choosing the proper leadership style in order to raise productivity according to the organization's general strategy, policy and value; they referred to studies that proved that autocratic leadership styles can negatively affect employees' productivity as these styles don't give employees a space for being engaged within decision making processes as well as they reduce the levels of communication between employees and leaders which reduces employees' capabilities for providing creative and innovative ideas that are able to increase productivity and thus profits. Choi, (2007)explained how democratic leadership can raise productivity through providing better strategic plans made by more creative leaders who are able to identify the talents of their employees and direct them towards achieving the organizational goals by being a model that motivates others and communicating the organizational values and goals with employees easily.

Masi and Cooke, (2000) discussed the effect of transformational leadership on empowering of employees which can lead to higher productivity and can improve the current level of organizational creativity. They compared it to the transactional leadership style focusing on the differences between them and on how the leader can mix between the two leadership styles to raise productivity of the business organization as there are situations where the leader should be transactional which means to take decisions by the leaders only without reference to employees such in difficult times where time is limited and the leader has to take decisions quickly or when employees are not able to provide creative suggestions.

Many authors discussed the impact of leadership styles on the employees and how this affects productivity; They suggest that the employees' outcome is highly affected with the way leaders communicate with them. Among those authors is Fasola, Adeyemi and Olowe, (2013) as they investigated how different leadership styles affect employees' job satisfaction, organizational commitment and behaviors; they discussed two leadership styles which are the transactional and transformational leadership styles and they focused on leaders' roles in motivating employees and how important is that role as when leaders fail in meeting employees' expectations and in motivating them, employees' performance is affected and it may decline which is reflected on the organizational performance or may lead to problems such as employees' turnover that affects the stability and reputation of the organization as well as productivity. According to Awamleh, Evans and Mahate, (2005), transactional leaders can be effective if leaders motivate their followers using social exchange methods such as rewards and praises, they added that the leader follower exchange can be effective when the leaders are having excellent agendas that are based on the values of the organization and they have leadership behaviors that bear the vision and goals of the organization and can be transmitted to employees in order to increase productivity through the employees' behaviors that should work for the welfare of the organization as employees will be executing the policy of the organization following their leaders. The leadership style is said to determine leaders' behaviors that are reflected on the members of his team and being a manager doesn't mean the manager is a leader as the leader should be a model, a guide, an inspiring figure and a person who is trustworthy by the followers and if these conditions aren't found in a leader, then he is a manager only. Leadership gives the organization the opportunity to develop the potentials of its employees as wise leaders are those who are able to realize the needs of their employees, work hard to satisfy them, understand the employees by communicating effectively with them and train the employees to be leaders themselves.

Ejere and Abasilim, (2015) discussed transactional leadership versus transformational leadership style and they referred to the transactional leadership style as being only managerial that focuses on missions of supervising, organizing and promoting the team members through a leader who is a tool for rewarding or punishing the team members according to their work and performance and according to the profits and level of productivity of the organization; they stated that the transformational leadership style is preferred to the transactional as the later style focuses more on faults and mistakes of employees which makes them very sensitive and only following orders and this may decrease their abilities to be creative and innovative which affects the level of productivity of the organization, They added that this style of leadership can be useful in emergencies, crisis or when there are projects that are needed to be done according to a specific fashion because transactional leaders don't concentrate on thinking but they otherwise give much interest to monitoring employees and making sure their work is done as asked and on the needed time; it is also considers the team members as followers and don't engage them within processes such as decision making and focuses on quantity rather than quality of performance which can affect productivity quality, superiority and uniqueness. 

2. Transformational Leadership style

Transformational leadership is proved to improve the productivity of business organizations as it is mainly connected with personal outcomes of employees; Bushra, Usman and Naveed, (2011) discussed the impact of implementing transformational leadership style to improve productivity of business organizations in addition to improving the organizational outcomes. Mohamed, Zeaud and Batayneh(2011) discussed how high productivity can be gained when leaders are transformational; they explained that transformational leaders are those leaders who work for achieving changes within the organization through employees as they motivate employees for being creative and focus on employees' engagement and empowerment for raising their morale and job satisfaction and they stressed on the importance of leading for organizational change which is meant for raising and improving productivity. Hall et al, (2012) investigated how leaders can be transformational and raise communication levels within the organization as they explained that staff performance is improved by effective communication that helps leaders understand the demands of employees, build supportive relationships with them and train them to raise their effectiveness and help them be good leaders as a part of plans for empowering them and engaging them in all the tasks and missions of the organization as when employees are well engaged, they are more retained in the organization and do their best to raise and improve its productivity. Stweart, (2006) referred to the studies of Buns, (1978) as he first defined transformational leadership to be a style of leadership when leaders encourage their followers to have raised morale, better beliefs and higher motivation and coliation with the values and goals of the organization. He referred to four main elements involved within transformational leadership which are charismatic role modeling, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation and he focuses on the importance of understanding each element of the four by leaders in order to reach effectiveness in productivity by following transformational leadership. Sabir, Javed and Chaudhry, (2012) explained how transformational leadership can provide better solutions for organizational problems as it focuses on updating technological methods used within the organization as well as training employees on the latest trends of business; they also added that transformational leadership provides a work environment that is less stressful and bearing better coordination and business relationships between employees and each other as well as between employees and leaders. Baralt et al, (2009) discussed how transformational leaders are able to build trust relationships with employees which makes it easy for them to communicate the organizational goals and values to employees and motivate them to achieve the organizational goals using creative thinking methods.

Emami et al, (2010) reported that transformational leaders are able to motivate employees for following specific organizational behaviors through the leaders' resultant behaviors that are meant to bring in positive results and better achievement levels that are related to the outputs of the organization and this can improve the quality and quality of production; they mentioned how performance beyond expectation can be reached when the transformational leadership is applied as this technique of leadership can raise the creativity and innovation levels of employees by empowering them and engaging them in decision making processes and this is proved to make employees more self confidence and try to use their talents to provide better suggestions and solutions for the different organizational problems. Barbuto, (2005) discussed the charismatic effect of transformational leaders on employees as he explained that the transformational leaders have an idealized influence and they are characterized with the inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation they leave on employees as this is able to raise the effectiveness of employees by following the leaders who are their role models with a value and a vision of presenting high efficient productivity that can improve the organization position in the market and provide new opportunities for the organization locally and internationally.

Transformational leaders are able to empower employees for doing what is better for the organization as they are guides and advisors for the team members, they encourage team work, cooperation and communication among the team members as well as respecting employees' ideas, they are also pushing employees towards success via using critical thinking and achieving better results regarding productivity and profitability.  Thamrin, (2012) referred to some weakness regarding transformational leadership style including the misuse of power by leader, time wasting and the possibility of having poor agendas. Friedman and Langbert, (2000) discussed how transformational leadership can support the organizational commitment and ensures employees' loyalty and focuses on sustainability in all its practices; they referred that transformational leadership can raise the employees' readiness to work and provide their creative ideas to the organization and this can improve the current practices used for production and promise with new future practices that are able to improve and support productivity of the organization. Haider and Riaz, (2010) showed how some leadership styles that don't consider employees' job satisfaction can lead to high turnover rates as low job satisfaction makes employees quit for better jobs where they can work in a better work environment and where they can be trained and promoted; they reported that this negatively affects production and leads to losing talented employees who are supposed to improve productivity. This was affirmed by Odumeru and Ogbonna, (2013) as they affirmed that leadership styles such as transformational leadership can be effective in raising motivation in the work environment which retain talented employees and turn them to be a part of the organization with high loyalty and plans for increasing and improving productivity. Waqas et al, (2013) discussed how organization's success can be gained through the practices and implementations of transformational leadership as they referred to how transformational leaders are distributing tasks fairly, providing training programs for each employee equally and opportunities are provided without discrimination. Timothy et al, (2011) as well as Ponce et al, (2006)agreed that employees are asset and they need to be invested in by effective leaders who are able to invest them and increase productivity by choosing the most effective evidence based practice and implementations and apply them within the business organization to get the changes needed for having better production and better reputation for the organization in the market as high productivity can tell that the organization is working well and making good use of its resources and allocating them properly especially its human resources who are assets to be invested.   

2. Research questions

The research is tackling the following questions for dealing with the effect of leadership style on the organization's productivity:

1. What are the different leadership styles and how they affect organization's productivity?
2. What is the most proper leadership style suggested for SAOC and why?
3. How can the organization make full use of the transformational leadership style to improve productivity? Can it be mixed with other styles? How?
4. What is the impact of implementing transformational leadership style in the organization?
3. Research objectives

The following are the objectives of the research:

-Identify the impact and effect of different leadership styles on organization's productivity.

-Identify the most proper leadership styles to be followed in order to improve and raise organization's productivity.

-Discussing the different leadership characteristics to affect productivity.

-Discussing the leadership practices that can improve and raise the organization's productivity and others that can negatively affect productivity.

4. Research contribution

The current research is prepared for supporting the human resource management of SAOC organization and raise the employees' performance for the purposes of improving and supporting the organization's productivity and profitability in addition to provide it with clearer vision for a developed leadership strategy that adopts creativity and innovation for having better productivity regarding both quality and quantity. The research is shedding the light on the different leadership styles; their weaknesses and strengths in addition to suggesting one leadership style to be followed by the organization in order to improve its current productivity. The research is investigating some leadership practices and relevant factors that may affect productivity of the business organization.

5. Research design and methodology

Williams, (2011) discussed how research methodology should be selected by the researcher in addition to choosing and forming the most suitable research questions and research objectives; he stated that each research requires to follow specific research methodology in order to reach conclusions relevant to the benefit from research. Passi and Mishra, (2004) discussed how research design should be selected in addition to its methodology and he referred to different methodologies including the qualitative and quantitative methods and he referred to the data analysis techniques such as questionnaires, surveys and interviews. The current research is following the qualitative approach depending on a case study about how to improve the leadership style of SAOC organization by investigating the effect of leadership styles on productivity as there is an interview discussing some important matters and issues related to leadership in SAOC, the effect on productivity and how it can be used to improve productivity including the impact of leadership style on the organization's productivity.  These views are matching the views of Stenius et al, (2016) who discussed the qualitative research methodology explaining techniques for getting information and preparing data in addition to mentioning practices of other researchers and how they collected data according to the needed conditions and measurements of research methodologies; They stated that there should be a time period for planning and collecting data as well as analyzing them and trying to answer the research questions using the research tools such as analysis and design. Kallet, (2004) discussed the differences between the quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and stressed the importance of selecting the proper tools for getting data in each method as he referred to the qualitative method and that the open ended questions are more suitable for the case studies to be made according to this method, he added that this method gives the researcher a great opportunity for setting many suggestions and proposition for solving the research problem or answering the question which enables other researchers to build up on the research conclusions and results for future works. Sofaer, (2002) investigated many different methods for getting information and collecting data in the qualitative method and he focused on the cognitive interviewing that depends on making effective interviews with relevant characters and getting information from them about different situations and matters regarding the research and that can provide answers for the research's questions and he referred that the method can test different issues within the research. The current research is following the qualitative approach through the cognitive interviewing technique in order to get as much information as possible about the SAOC organization and to try to understand the nature of leadership style currently used within SAOC and how far it affects the organization's productivity in addition to find new leadership style to improve productivity in the organization.

6. Research data

This research is being made using a tool for data collection which is a cognitive interview because it is the best tool for getting as much as possible information as the interview is targeting different employees within the organization SAOC including employees and leaders asking them about the techniques and practices leaders follow and the most dominant leadership style followed by them in the organization in order to analyze the data and reach suitable conclusions and recommendations. Questions in the interview are varied between open and closed questions in order to get diversified answers with relevant information that can be suitable for the research , all questions are necessary to be answered by the interviewees in order to get cognitive information about the issues relevant to the matters and issues of leadership styles. Questions are clear and are addressing certain points based on the research questions and objectives. According to Kalinowski et al, (2010), qualitative research is good for identifying the depth of the problem and provides more descriptions for the issue. 

 Participants' selection is based upon choosing all employees' levels as well as leaders in different departments including the human resource department in SAOC, interviews are made face to face using written paper sheets and personal data of participants are either declared or kept secret according to their preferences regarding their own personal information. The language used is the English language, times of executing the interviews are pre set with the company's administration and employees and leaders are acknowledged with the interview times. There will be also audio records for the interviews for additional referencing for the information and to help in analyzing the data correctly. In case employees don't have time for face to face interviews, the interviews paper sheets are send to them to be made by hand or they can be sent by emails to be done electronically and sent by mail.

7.1 Population and Sampling

Population are all from the Omani society working at SAOC which is a great Omani organization for oil and gas production, it has over than 2000 employees working for achieving the organization's goals in providing good refinery services as well as petrochemical and gas products for Omani people. (OPRIC, 2013). The interview is targeting the different departments in the organization using employees from all levels beginning with managers and bossed to employees in different positions. The interview is to be presented for 100 participants including 80 employees and 20 managers, the 80 employees will be interviewed via e mails because of their big number but leaders are to be interviewed face to face due to the limit number of them.

7.2 Data Collection 

Data is going to be collected according to the research needs, objectives and questions as the interview is set to cover such parts. Data can be gained from the interviews' answers; the research will focus on multi methods approach as the interviews are not the only data resource but they will be minor resources such as the reports from the organization and observations. There will be approval for the collection protocol according to the appendixes of the research.

7. Data analysis

Gill, Stewart and Chadwick, (2008)discussed the different common procedures for data analysis according to qualitative analysis and the tools used for it; they stated the uniqueness and usefulness of such method. They added that this method supports the researcher with enough information about the topic and the relevant issues to the research as well as their abilities to ensure enough answers for the research questions. They referred to it as a systematic approach that enables the researcher to compare between different opinions and data got from different tools and this helps reach conclusions easily and also helps in making recommendations that are evidence based. They also reported that qualitative analysis of data has three main simultaneous activities' stages which are limiting the data by selecting and summarizing it to have clear information and the second stage includes data displaying and setting rules for conclusions that will be used in the research and the third stage which is making the conclusions and making sure they are based upon valid information. Valid conclusions are ensuring valid recommendations that can be helpful for additional researches. In this research, the previous steps are going to be implemented after data collection as analysis is to be done according to the stages mentioned here. The information from the interviews will be gathered and analyzed then to be rearranged in tables after filtering and then to be displayed in graphs. There will be quotes from the interviews to be added to the tables and graphs. Data analysis can be made also by Excel sheets in order to make the data clearer and easier for use. The conclusions will be available for any researchers who want to use it in more future researches. 

8. Research ethics considerations

Stern, (1997) discussed the importance of research ethics and declared that research ethics should be regarded by the researcher who is going to write a research because this ensures the validity and liability of the research to be safely applied on real life experiments. He confirmed that research ethics should be well known for the researcher before starting the research as the research is dealing with human participants or animal and should keep the rights of those participants and ethics of research involve this. Ethics of research ensure advice and directions for the research when needed. The current research is giving much interest for research ethics such as respecting the participants in the interview, keeping information as came in the interview, keeping personal information on high levels of security and privacy and ensuring sourcing the different information found in the research exactly and according to the research methodology. This research proposal is based on providing evidence based information about leadership styles and transformational leadership. Ethics include informing participants with all the required information about the research, its objectives and why it is conducted and ethics also include informing participants with appointments to make the interviews and discussing the matter with them. The participants' consent is gained from them before starting any procedures with them such as sending e mails or making face to face interviews or getting information by any other means. Time is arranged and discussed with them before making the interviews and they have an idea about the nature of the interview and the questions before making it. The participants are also having an idea about the research background and the benefits gained by the organization from it. Participants are told that their identity and privacy are ensured, there are breaks participants take to prepare themselves for the interviews. Participants are told that the research has no risky experiments or experiences and they have the right to make comments or objections on any question of the interview. Honesty is a major rule that the research is obliged to follow and objectivity is another rule involved within the research ethics. Participants provide written consents for sharing in the interview and for answering the questions in the language they prefer if English is not suitable to them. Confidentiality and intellectual property are ensured when sharing in the current research proposal in order to make it valid and confidential for other scientific research.