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.

Google Influence on Stakeholders

Google tries to leave positive influences over its stakeholders as employees are enjoying a flat structure and a supportive reward system in addition to being treated without differentiation or discrimination. There are plans for encouraging communication between shareholders and stakeholders in addition to making deep analysis and search studies about clients; needs and wishes. Other competitors such as Apple and Microsoft are also analyzed which raises their interest in how Google works and this reflects a great Google influence on stakeholders. Diversification and surprising products are main reasons for the stakeholders' interest in Google as this depends on innovative management ideas to influence stakeholders such as trying to be a media company and not only a technology company by joining sites such as YouTube to it. Google expects what customers need and then launch the products as they study the market and then prepare to surprise customers and other stakeholders. Innovation management of Google tends to monitor stakeholders and find out their opportunities and threats which makes the company able to boost the market such as for example, when Apple smartphone was launched, Google was ready to launch its Android application to be suited with Apple devices that then was used by other companies of mobiles such as Samsung and others. Gmail was the strong mail service that beat Yahoo to be presented with all fast and easy requirements customers need which reflects a deep understanding of the company's innovation management to all stakeholders which tells Google is able to represent a model for all stakeholders in innovation and management. Meyer, (2016)

AC 3.2: Communicate a creative and innovative management idea to stakeholders of an organization

Communicating a creative and innovative management idea to stakeholders is a very important and required process in any successful business organization that wishes to keep competitive in the market as this process ensures providing stakeholders with the accurate and updated information to all stakeholders. There are a number of ways for this communication based on the abilities and needs of the organization. Examples are the corporate communication or Public Relation processes. In Google, there are some main departments for dealing with stakeholders and communicating the innovative management ideas with them using methods such as open discussions with different stakeholders, making interviews with them and using some certain processes with certain stakeholders in order to communicate creative and innovative management ideas with them such as:     

Stakeholder	Communication Activities	Issues
Customers	Providing customers with feedback about products and discussing their opinions in online forums or through surveys on Google blogs.	Discussing privacy of personal data and safety measurements.
Employees	Presenting satisfaction surveys to employees and meetings for discussing different important matters.	Internal grievances with different employees and promotion issues.
Business Partners	Regular collaboration and coordination meetings	Discussing consequences of risk management
Shareholders	Meetings and discussions face to face	Competition issues and new product launching risks
Government	Holding workshops and councils	Discussing environmental issues

AC 3.3: Establish key goals and priorities for implementation of a creative and innovative management idea using feedback from stakeholders

As being discussed in 3.2, there are many things that can be the goals and priorities of Google's creative and innovative management idea with the help of stakeholders' feedback such as:

Goals and priorities

1. Studying employees' satisfaction reports and raising their morale and motivate them in order to retain them.
2. Using the latest technology that can boost the market and reach higher levels of competition with other rivals such as Yahoo, Microsoft and others which can lead to more creative ideas based on the feedback from those competitors.
3. Providing customers with what they need and expect after discussing the surveys and views they provide on the forums of Google and on different social sites as Google has more than 60 centres all around the world to provide customers with low prices and cheap products.
4. Maintaining large amount of data about all stakeholders and analyzing them in order to use high levels computer technology for serving the internet users and raise their trust in Google.
5. Managing risk by applying the most effective privacy and safety strategies in order to ensure high levels of security and data privacy for all Google's stakeholders.
6. Giving much interest to talented who can provide new innovations to the company and raise its profits.
7. Being clear and honest with all stakeholders so as to provide them with the needed information about the benefits and uses of new products and innovations.  
8. Having a clear leadership innovation strategy that is shared with all stakeholders. (atkearney, 2016)

AC 4.1: Assess the barriers to the implementation of a creative and innovative management idea in an organization

Innovation and creativity in a business organization may face barriers and challenges that delay the implementation of creative and innovations management ideas and these barriers can be created as a result of some element existence and other factors. The organization's strategy can help in controlling the barriers face innovation and creativity to keep market competitiveness. Barriers may be either internal barriers or external barriers as follows:

Internal barriers: 

Internal barriers usually result from internal management problems and conflicts as these problems inside the organization such as lack of understanding creative ideas and innovations or having conflicts about them or others can delay implementation of these innovations. Examples of internal barriers to innovation is the inability to take risky decisions, lack of enough flexibility and bureaucratic culture, poor management, not suitable leadership style, a passive corporate culture to creativity and innovation and lack of organizational transparency and good realization for the innovative ideas.

External Barriers: 

External barriers are those barriers occurring without the control of the organization as they out in the external world around it by the effect of external forces such as laws, taxes, policies, market forces, customers, suppliers or environmental changes or others. These barriers affect innovation and creativity implementation as they may hinder the innovation and refuse it based on external forces refuse. These barriers can lead to failure of the innovation and loss based on low sales.

Google Barriers to creativity and innovation

The company faces many barriers to innovation and creativity implementation such as the sever market competition and the existence of different competitors such as Apple, Microsoft and others.

The company also faces the barrier of high speed life style and high need for new technology such as new software, new mobile devices and new systems for being used in new devices which makes the company in a following need for new innovations.

Another barrier is the fast information cycle that requires continuous training and development for employees and the need for new talents for presenting the company's new innovations and creative ideas.

The customers' needs and their requirements for better service is another barrier faces Google and makes it in a continuous readiness case for developing its products to boost the market. (Adams, 2005)

AC 4.2: Plan a strategy to overcome identified barriers to the implementation of a creative and innovative management idea in an organization

In order to overcome the identified barriers Google faces when implementing creative and innovative management ideas there should be strong strategy for overcoming these barriers and reach competitive advantage. Google should be able to apply a strong leadership strategy that focuses on raising employees' morale and motivating them and selecting talents to be recruited for helping the company be more innovative. Google is keen on having free organization culture that enables the company to have a structure to be followed to face the challenges and barriers to innovation. Google applied the 70-20-10 rule in order to give employees more freedom in using their own innovative and creative ideas and let them apply creative ideas effectively. The strategy that Google can follow can be as the following steps:

1. Setting objectives to attract more talented and creative employees for being recruited in the company.
2. Giving employees the chance to be creative by ensuring the suitable work environment that enables them to provide better innovative ideas.
3. Following a suitable leadership style that can make innovation and creativity easier such as the transformational leadership style that can enable employees to be more creative through a flexibility level and strong communication between employees and each other and employees and their leaders as this can help solve many problems and conflicts related to barriers to innovations.
4. Having clear innovative and creative plans that ensure employees are all well realizing and understanding for the new technologies and new advances in technology and then to train employees on using these technologies.  

Change curve theory

The company can use the change curve theory for facing barriers that are either external or internal as there are four stages that can be used to face such barriers using the theory as follows:

Stage one: dealing with the shock employees have when they face changes suddenly and managing this shock.

Stage two: when employees are still not able to deal with change occurring, they shouldn't be let act negatively against the organization.

Stage three: leadership in this stage begin training employees on accepting change and dealing with it and employees find out how to get the benefits from this change.

Stage four: this is the final stage when employees accept change and deal effectively with it through the hard work of effective leaders who prepare employees and train them for working with change. (Daft, 2015)

AC 4.3: Explain how a strategy plan for overcoming barriers will ensure innovative change is achieved

According to Terziovski, (2008) in order to achieve a successful business strategy plan for facing barriers to change the company has to follow certain steps and focus on some main key points in its strategy plan which can be explained as follows:

 Management skills and qualities: the CEO of Google should master main management skills and qualities that can help in pushing employees towards achieving change and innovations and overcoming any barriers that may face them such as change resistance. Effective leadership styles can be stated and agreed on in the company's strategic plan such as following transformational leadership that ensures achieving the needed innovative change.

Organisational culture: The CEO of Google can follow communication methods for communicating an organizational culture that supports innovative change and this can help employees get easily and fast used to this change and apply it alongside with the different elements of the organizational culture.

Organisational Innovation: Google can't be satisfied by its success in search engines as the company needs to have organizational innovation that depends on spending more time than the 20% on innovation and should analyze its current products and find out how customers estimate them and then try to add new organizational innovations on those products such as its Gmail for example as it needs more innovations in adding services such as blocking services and higher privacy services.    

Strategic Leadership: Google depends on its strategic leadership in providing its employees with the latest training and development programs in using IT and other technologies for providing more innovations and this is achieved by a variety of leadership styles that support innovation.

AC 4.4: Communicate a strategy plan for overcoming barriers to relevant stakeholders in an organization

According to Pfeffermann,  Minshall and Mortara, (2014) Google can communicate the strategy plan for overcoming any barriers to innovation to the stakeholders by the following steps:

1. Identifying stakeholders and dividing them to groups as Google's stakeholders can be customers, clients, suppliers, shareholders and government.
2. Identifying the strategy plan points to be communicated.
3. Finding suitable communication channels for stakeholders such as Google online forums for customer, meetings for employees and shareholders and surveys for employees and customers.
4. Discussing barriers with stakeholders and finding solutions.
5. Barriers facing Google include time constraints, growth rate in some countries, change resistance, speed life style rate, need for technology and other competitors power.
6. Google can use Power and Interest matrix for communicating a strategy plan for overcoming above mentioned barriers.

Google’s suggested communication strategy

Stakeholders	Message	Source	Schedule
Business Partners & Stockholders	Providing business development plans and creating new channels for new technologies.	Meetings and reports	Periodically
Shareholders Investors	Needs for Research and Development and new technologies	Meetings and reports	Quarterly
Employees	Innovation techniques, training and ideas achievement	Meetings, surveys, emails and reviews	Weekly
Government	Regulations, laws, and policies	Councils, conferences and meetings	Periodically or when needed
Customers	new technology, needs of customers and suggestion	Surveys, forums, reviews and external bodies feedback	During different stages of development

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to state that creative and innovative management ideas are important for any business organization that wishes to keep competitive in the market and reach higher competitive advantage. Google is a great successful organization that follows strong leadership strategies that focus on innovation and creativity which helps it be competitive. Google faces many barriers to innovation and creativity and it is recommended to follow a good strategy plan for facing such barriers. The company is also recommended to choose a suitable leadership style that is able to communicate innovative ideas to all stakeholders effectively.

Innovation in Google

Executive Summary

The current paper is discussing how Google company is implementing innovative and creative management ideas in order to reach competitive advantage. It also assess different areas related to Google's implementation of innovative and creative management ideas in addition to discussing the barriers to innovations and creativity implementation in Google as well as presenting a strategy plan for communicating and overcoming barriers to innovative and creative management ideas. Google is recommended to follow a good strategy plan for facing such barriers. The company is also recommended to choose a suitable leadership style that is able to communicate innovative ideas to all stakeholders effectively. 

Introduction

Any business organization that needs to reach competitive advantage and reach boundaries of success that are not reached before should apply different implementations for creativity and innovation. Creativity and innovation can help the organization grow fast and surprise its customers with unexpected success that meets and perhaps exceeds their expectations and wishes. Empowering employees can be effective in encouraging them to innovate and be creative Innovation is a vital aspect of the organization's strategy and should be an important part of its strategic plan as innovation can turn the organization's products from obsolete ones to attractive ones. The current paper is discussing how Google company is adopting creative and innovation techniques in order to reach success. Google company is a great internet based company that is based on its search drive Google that provides different online services for customers from all over the world including mail service, advertising services, search services and others. The company focuses on providing its customers with the best user experience through their browsers, Gmail, Google Adsense, Google books, Google Translate, Google Earth and other services as the company is keen to innovate and keep creative to ensure its success and top position in the digital market. (Google, 2016)  

AC 1.1: Evaluate current creative and innovative management processes in an organization

Innovation in a business organization depends on the its management as according to Birkinshaw and Hamel, (2008), innovation is not only delivering new products to the market but it also represents new processes in managing the business and radical changes that are based on fresh ideas of doing things rather than the usual ideas as well as intelligent methods for managing the business activities. Innovation management is an important part of management because it supports the business organizations and guides them towards the most proper means of innovation. Portfolio management is also needed to manage innovations in business organizations because it consists of three main components that help the organization handle innovation well; they are the incremental process that helps analyze the organization and find out the best innovative ideas related to it, the second is the radical process that is used for finding advanced implementations that uses technology to innovate in the organization and the fundamental process that uses completely different technology.

Google creative and innovative management processes

Google is an organized business organization that is based on innovating in new products and services as it has different search engine websites such as Google that was innovated to be Google Chrome and video sharing websites such as You Tube with its innovated channel owing services, it has other services and products such as its advertising systems including Google AdWards and Google AdSense and 'double click', Google Earth, Google Books, Google Play, Google+ and the continuous innovations the company is doing on these products to make them suitable to the age changes. Google has replaced its incremental process in launching new products with the new 70-20-10 principal which is according to Savoia and Patrick Copeland, (2011) depends on spending 70% of Google's time on search engines and adds while 20% of it spent on technical issues and 10% on crazy ideas.  

AC 1.2: Explain how to lead others to positively embrace innovation and change

According to Schoemaker and Krupp, (2013) leadership is a systematic procedure that is used for influencing team members for achieving specific goals. Leadership has the quality of guiding individuals to achieve specific objectives and goals as the leaders have to find out different techniques of motivating the individuals and directing them towards innovating new creative ideas that help the business and achieve desirable changes.  

Google leadership 

Google depends on leadership greatly in order to embrace innovation and change by employees working there through those effective leaders who are able to solve problems effectively, motivate employees, communicate well with stakeholders and make change understandable by employees who need to apply it. Google is a great organization with about 20.000 employee working under leaders who follow different leadership styles in order to lead and manage change and innovations that help the company boost the market and threaten its competitors. Google tries to apply different leadership styles especially the transformational leadership that is mainly followed for leading employees to apply change and to encourage them to be innovative and creative as transformational leaders are more able than others to communicate changes and innovations with employees.  It is found that Larry Page has adapted the transformational leadership style in order to present a role model for an expected CEO who can lead change effectively by raising employees' morale and encouraging them to be creative. Google posted third-quarter 2014 earnings that marked a 20% year-over-year increase, and among other successes from its vast array of products and services, Google now commands more than 2 million internet searches per second. But it’s more than the numbers Page and his company put up. It’s the way he follows for getting people to perform very well. Another example on the influence of the CEO in Google is Eric Schmidt who also was transformational and was able to solve crisis and conflicts among the staff which helped increase employees' innovations and made them able to work in different work conditions and even under pressure. Balzac, (2015)

AC 2.1 Assess the influence of vision and mission on generation of creative and innovative  management processes in an organization

According to Kottler, (2012) a vision is the organization's desired view of the future. The vision has within some main goals that have to be achieved on the long term based on a number of processes to be done in the organization. A mission is the current situation of the business organization as well as its future plans based on its vision. There is a great influence of the vision and mission on the company's ability in generating creative and innovative management processes as both the vision and mission can inspire the workforce of the company and direct them for specific innovative and creative goals and make them understand how to be creative and innovative by their identification of goals and declaring the company's needs and ambitions. In Google, the vision is to organize the information around the world to enable it be accessible and manageable by all people. Google's vision is based on understanding the needs of customers and trying to present more useful products such as innovating Google Scholar from Google Books as the company is trying to facilitate information access on its customers by innovation strategy involved within its vision and mission. Google's mission statement defines its business sector which is software and it identifies the company's stakeholders which helps in presenting the more effective software for those stakeholder and innovating in them such as innovating the Google Play service and delivering different useful software and programs that match with all stakeholders' needs. This is the role of the company's innovative management which is a part of the company's strategic management as according to Bruton and White, (2010) the development of the company's vision and mission statements is an important part of the company's strategic management process. When there is a clear defining for the vision and mission of the organization, managers are able to set strategic objectives and innovative objectives that are aligned with the long term goals of the company. Managers turn these objectives into an operational strategy that can be applied, controlled and evaluated. The vision and mission here can help the organization find the proper approaches for innovation.

AC 2.2: Use analytical tools to identify potential creative and innovative management ideas

There are different factors that affect the organization's management and make it turn more innovative such as development and training of employees, team work, effective leadership, culture of the organization, creative climate and the organization's vision and mission. Google depends on development and training of its employees in order to motivate them and train them to use innovative ideas effectively with the help of the shared vision and the leadership. SWOT analysis can be a good analytical tool for identifying the potential creative and innovative management ideas of Google as follows: 

SWOT Analysis

Strengths -A brand that has a very brilliant reputation based on speed, user friendly and high quality services. -Having multi functionality and fast coping with clients' needs. -Variety of services and innovative ideas such as Google analytics and Google maps based on previous services that achieved success such as Google books and Google Earth. -Mastering new technological innovative ideas. -Owning social media sites such as Facebook and You Tube. -Ease of use of search engines rather than other search engines such as Internet explorer or Yahoo. -Having a free working corporate culture with no discrimination tendencies. -Keeping current products used along with innovated products such as Google search engine kept with Google Chrome. ·         ·

Weaknesses ·     - weaknesses may include the ability of penetrating some Google accounts and accessing to personal information of users. –Poor abilities in detecting the original contents. –Poor popularity of some Google products such as Google Scholar and Google+. - - -    ·

Opportunities -Providing more needed advances and amendments on the current products by the help of the great innovation management of the company. -Having the top sales rates in the digital online market and the more used products. -Motivating current employees to provide more innovations. -Increasing the speed of search and keeping the current speed stable. (Pahl and Richter, 2009)

Threats ·      -the existence o strong competitors such as Opera, Yahoo, Bing, Firefox and others. –The threat of Microsoft company on Google and the sever competition between the two companies. –threat of not finding new innovations and creative ideas in the current or new employees and managers. -

AC 2.3: Assess risks and benefits of creative and innovative management ideas

Creative and innovative processes are usually associated with both risk and benefits as they are the two expected results for them. Risk can occur as a result of lack of enough information about the important decisions, lack of ownership, poor goals that are not clearly identified and lack of study and analysis before taking the risky decisions. In Google; innovation strategy is based on one insight and two main innovations. The insight of Google helped it from risk and brought high benefits resulting from innovation, it was when web pages grew in number, the internet’s potential of information resource was better than all other resources for everything. People valued better search results. Google’s first innovation was its PageRank system that was developed in 1995 as it was a type of algorithm for internet searches that provided better results than all other search engines. The second innovation was Google's business model innovation, as it led to a financial success to the company. Selling advertising space related to key words that Google users looked for was great and brought a multi-billion dollar profit machine. The idea was well studied by leaders of Google and surprising competitors raised the benefits over the risk taken by applying the two innovations. Google's collaboration with YouTube was a success but the company tried to keep rules and laws by its control system and privacy policy that ensured all rights of the users as well as the company so as to avoid risks associated with any fraud or bad video contents. The company also dealt with the different laws of different countries that can cause risks with legal readiness by understanding these laws and regulations and having the legal persons who are ready to deal with them to avoid legal problems. When Google found that some services don't present the expected benefits from them, the company stopped the service such as Google Answers. This policy reflects how far the company can avoid risks from innovation and creative ideas and got the utmost benefits from them. (Ross, 2015)    

AC 2.4: Use change models to support the implementation of creative and innovative management ideas

There are different change models that can be applied in order to support creative and innovative management ideas such as the ADKAR change model that depends on five main stages of change implementation which are Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. It can be helpful in the development of innovative management ideas as all stakeholders can be involved within the change process in order to understand the innovations and creative management ideas applied by the organization. (Hiatt, 2006) Another model that can be more suitable to Google is the Norwell IDEAL change model as follows:

Investigation: The investigation stage depends on initiating innovative ideas such as those presented by Google as Google earth / Google Maps to be used for identifying locations by maps in the whole world.

Diagnosis: Google spent 20% of its whole time in innovations as Google's CEO diagnoses problems in the meetings he makes with staffs the interviews about innovative ideas so as to discuss them and find out challenges and solutions for them. 

Engaging: Google tries to engage all stakeholders in its innovations such as engaging employees and clients. Google established its 30 R&D centres in main countries such as US, Canada, India, Japan and Russia. These centres try to engage people in the new products and provide information about them when needed.

Acting: Acting refers to the real implementation of innovative products by Google as the company takes serious actions regarding innovated ideas such as launching Google+ to boost the social media sites and launching the Android applications such as Google Play to make it suitable for many and most mobile brands and systems.

Learning: Google developed its Google learning academy in 2006 as the academy is used for teaching Google employees about new and innovated technology and its usage and values. Google presented the service of certifying teachers to be Google certified teachers. (Maxwell, 2009)

AC 3.1: Produce an appropriate rationale to persuade stakeholders of an organization of the benefits of a creative and innovative management idea

Stakeholders: stakeholders are according to Mathur et al, (2007) are all people interested and related to the business organization and they are highly influenced by the events and decisions taken in the business organization as they may be a group of people or specific individuals or organizations related to the business. Then following table includes the main components that relate stakeholders to innovation management:

Phase	Outcome	Methods
Stakeholder overview	Stakeholders evaluation	Setting issues process and presentation
Stakeholders analysis	Great power and interest of stakeholders	stakeholder matrix preparing
Stakeholders plan	Strong stakeholders communication	Engagement plans and communication with stakeholders
Stakeholders management	Strong stakeholders relationship management	Awareness plan for stakeholders

What type of decision must Chad Thomas make daily for his company’s operations to run effectively? Over the long run?

Introduction

The insufficient demand experienced by different companies pushes them to operate below their highest capacity where they find it suitable to change the current policy they adopt in production. Decisions are made regarding the current capacity and how any change in it can affect current and future revenues, quality control, flexibility performance, costs and working capital. In the Chad case, the limited number of workers and reduced dependency on large scale equipment are among the factors behind capacity constraints. However, Chad’s furniture factory sales witnessed a flourishing phase due to the enhancements performed in the standard line of production, but this success was not accomplished without side-effects related to supply chain management. Thomas Chad found himself surrounded by shortage in warehousing place needed for the standard line of production, nevertheless, time scheduling was another problem he faced that may affect how honest will be his business regarding lead time and delivery promises to customers. The overall situation led to reduced profits that are not comparable to what it should be with the current production capacity the business has.

Analysis

What type of decision must Chad Thomas make daily for his company’s operations to run effectively? Over the long run?

Chad faces a situation where he needs to take proper decisions regarding current and future capacity, time scheduling and inventory management. His standard production line requires better time scheduling and he needs to find low cost warehouses. On the long run, Chad must be proactive to the new possibilities related to expansion, for instance, he must ensure having different suppliers to depend on, he also has to find new places for warehousing that are cost effective, he needs to make a plan for hiring new workers at the beginning of every season based on sales forecasts so he can deliver orders on time.

How did sales and marketing affect operations when they began to sell standard pieces to retail outlets?

With the increased sales of standard pieces, Chad business experienced a raise in revenue indexes which can reflect a situation of success. However, this success was coupled with a shortage of capacity needed to meet demand on time, because the business focused on custom line that is used to generate more revenues than the standard line. The rise in sales and marketing inversely affected operations and required time scheduling to deal with the increasing demand.

How has the move to producing standard furniture affected the company’s financial?

In spite of the increased sales in the standard line of production, profits were not high enough regarding the level of revenues the company receives from this line of production. The reason behind profit retract was the additional expenses related to warehousing to accommodate the inventory volumes.

What might Thomas have done differently to avoid some of the problems he now faces?

To avoid these problems in the future Chad needs to achieve cost management techniques that can help him raise profitability and not only revenues. Thomas must set long term plans regarding workers hiring and renting low cost areas for warehousing so he can handle demand for different product lines on time with no delay in delivery.

Conclusion

The current case discusses the issue of better supply chain management and how this can affect delivery time and profitability for any manufacturing company. Chad’s company works in furniture manufacturing and operates two product lines, the standard and the custom lines; with the increased demand for standard line pieces the company witnessed higher levels of revenues, however, the profitability was not high enough, resulting from the expenses incurred for warehouses and the poor time management. This implies the adoption of a long term enhancement strategy considering different issues such as renting low-cost warehousing areas and hiring more employees in order to be capable of delivering orders according to scheduled dead times.