13th Annual International Management Conference Proceeding

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Limitations Nonetheless, the review does recognize that lack of or less data and information from which to draw firm conclusions about the impact of mobile service vendors, about efficiency and effectiveness in their operations, about sustainability (their ‘mortality’) and the gender balance remains a major challenge to evidence based decision making. MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES Introduction “Who doesn’t want to live more whole heartedly? Who would deny deeper experience of being alive and connecting more powerfully with those activities or ventures that they hold so dearly? Who says no to a deeper experience of joy, a chance to contribute to success and well being of others? Unless one is seriously deranged, these choices can be provided one has the courage and know-how (self fulfilling prophecy)”. (Wabala, 2006) With high entry level in small businesses as evidenced in the phenomenal growth in the mobile telephony sector, it takes total commitment to improve performance, create greater happiness and to escape emotional suffering especially if the business is on a down turn. This retinue of challenges calls for a critical review of the operations of mobile telephone venders who more often than not are expected to portray business acumen as well as acting as agents or ‘technical advisers’ of their respective customers irrespective of service providers. Theoretical Foundations While the terms ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ are commonly used interchangeably, many theorists distinguish between them. ‘Leaders’ are expected to provide strategic direction and inspiration, initiate change, encourage new learning, and develop a distinct organizational culture, while ‘managers’ are seen to plan, implement and monitor on a more operational and administrative level (Dwyer, 2006). As a consequence there is a perception that management is concerned with resolving specific issues and day-today challenges, while leadership is about the bigger picture and promoting change (Keller, 2006). The reality is that those people with responsibility to ensure that plans are implemented, systems are effective, and staff motivated are both leaders and managers. This overlap of roles is particularly apparent in smaller organizations similar to the focus of this review where one person often has to play both roles simultaneously (White, 2005). However, in practice leadership 4 and management are integral parts of the same job both of which need to be balanced and matched to the demands of the situation. Hence any analysis that makes a clear distinction between managers and leaders can at best be misleading (White 2006). Effective leaders have to demonstrate some managerial skills on one hand while good managers should display leadership qualities on the other making the relationship between the two symbiotic. There is therefore no water tight formula on the extent or synergy for which these skills or attributes can be used or displayed within an organization or business entity. In practice it depends on the judgment of the individual involved and the context in which they find themselves (Bolden 2004). Nonetheless, leadership remains a grey area that is much contested given the plethora of different theories that attempt to mystify the two concepts. For instance, it suffices in literature that some of the early leadership theorists tended to focus on identifying and isolating a finite number of ‘traits’ that were exhibited by ‘great men’ based on psycho-dynamic perspectives. Some of the limitations of trait theories prompted others like McGregor (1960) and Blake and Mouton (1964) to highlight the importance of what leaders actually do, rather than their personal characteristics. They focused on leadership behavior and styles, often advocating for a ‘team management’ approach. The next wave of theorists (such as Fielder 1967 and Hersey and Blanchard 1977) emphasized the ‘situational’ aspect of leadership – in other words they believed that the effectiveness of different leadership styles depended largely on the particular situation. Within this framework 4 In the last 25 years, leadership has become one of the most talked about elements of organizations. As an illustration of this, today there are more than 16,000 publications referenced to leadership on the Amazon.com web-site, up by almost 50% in the last two years alone. Yet amidst this accelerating activity, there is still no widely accepted definition of leadership and no common consensus on how best to develop leaders. 12
John Adair highlighted the importance of a leader being able to balance the needs of the task, the team and the individual (1973). From the late 1970s onwards the concept of ‘transformational leadership’ gained currency with writers like Burns (1978) and later Covey (1992) advocating that leadership should be about transforming people and organizations by engaging their hearts and minds or what Eric Garner calls the Pygmalion effect (treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is and treat a man as he can or should be and he will become as he can or should be). Other leadership theories have emphasized the importance of the ‘charismatic leader’ or the ‘servant leader’ particularly in the last 20 years (Greenleaf 1998). Others have highlighted the spiritual dimension of leadership (Owen 1999; Kakabadse and Kakabadse 1999) or what Wabala calls the heart of a servant leader 5 . These ideas have been complemented by recent work on ‘distributed leadership’, based on the notion of leadership being first and foremost a relationship of mutual influence between leaders and followers. The ‘followership’ of an organization or business entity, and how freely they attribute leadership authority, is also increasingly recognized as having an important role to play in the behavior and success of a leader (Howell and Shamir 2005). Good as this review may be, it suffices that almost all this leadership theory is based on a very specific context – Western management of private sector companies. As a result much of the current leadership research is not relevant to the different contexts in which small businesses operate or work given the great dynamism (Smillie and Hailey 2001; Fowler, Ng’ethe and Owiti 2002; Hailey and James 2004). While these studies have increased our understanding of the static characteristics of effective leadership within small organizational settings, few have tried to explore the dynamics of how leaders change and develop within small enterprises that might have either just one or two people. Yet as social identity theory suggests, for leadership development approaches to be effective, they must be designed with an understanding of the historical social forces, pressures and realities affecting small and medium enterprises in local contexts and which influences them to change behavior. POLICY FOCUS FOR GROWTH OF SMALL BUSINESSES The Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation 2003 – 2007 underscores the major challenges facing Kenya as being restoration of economic growth, generation of employment opportunities to absorb the youth (they comprise 75% of the national population) and reduction of poverty levels. It may be important to recognize here that the paper was developed against a backdrop of rising poverty levels in the country from 48% in 1990 to 56% in 2001 However; it does identify the small and micro enterprises sector 6 (SME’s) as an integral part of employment creation over the four year period. The sector currently employs over 6 million (78% of the national labour force) mainly young people compared to 1.8 million, in the formal sector. In 2005 alone, the sector provided employment for over 474,000 workers against 437,000 created in 2004. This employment figures are benchmarked on the 1998/1999 labour force survey, the 1999 population and housing census projections and the <strong>Annual</strong> labour enumeration survey of the central bureau of statistics (CBS, 2003). The key sub sectors that registered increased growth included manufacturing and mobile telephone services providers. MOBILE TELEPHONY SERVICES PROVISION The growth in the mobile telephone services in Kenya has been exponential. With about 15,000 subscribers in 1998 to over 4.5 million in 2005, the mobile telephone sector remains one of the fastest growing sectors in Kenya with great potential for employment creation (see chart 1) below. Given that there are no entry and exit statistics, there is a flurry of activity particularly as regards vending business from established dealerships, simu ya jamii, pre paid electronic airtime vendors using mobile handsets to retailers operating roadside kiosks. 5 The Bible exhorts us to gird our hearts with all diligence for it is out of it that the issues of life flow Prov. 4:23 6 A comprehensive policy paper on development of micro and small enterprises is being developed. The paper outlines the way forward as regards creation of an enabling legal and regulatory framework, funding and skills development strategies, research and development and an effective policy co-ordination mechanism. 13
Page 1 and 2: Gender diversity on the Board, Inte
Page 3 and 4: its own. Relationship-based assets
Page 5 and 6: Boards, for example, enable the fir
Page 7 and 8: H7: Firms with diverse boards are i
Page 9 and 10: 29. Johnson, J., Daily, C., and Ell
Page 11: population in Kenya especially in a
Page 15 and 16: PRACTICAL ANALYSIS TO RESOLVING KEY
Page 17 and 18: SUB-THEME : SOCIO-CULTURAL ISSUES A
Page 19 and 20: ecognize and nourish their capabili
Page 21 and 22: threatened by increased dynamism in
Page 23 and 24: 2.0 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK At the ro
Page 25 and 26: 2.1 Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Dev
Page 27 and 28: FIGURE I: THE ROLE OF KENYA INSITIT
Page 29 and 30: 4.2.3 Researches Services This is a
Page 31 and 32: Source: GOK, Central Bureau of Stat
Page 33 and 34: with regard to training, research a
Page 35 and 36: REFERENCES 1. Balunywa Waswa, (2004
Page 37 and 38: APPENDIX I: SCHEDULED PROGRAMMES RU
Page 39 and 40: economy activities that include one
Page 41 and 42: III. SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISE (S
Page 43 and 44: two professors used a survey questi
Page 45 and 46: V. RECOMMENDATIONS : ADDRESSING THE
Page 47 and 48: 16. International Finance Corporati
Page 49 and 50: DEVELOPING INTRAPRENEURSHIP IN SMAL
Page 51 and 52: � Innovators � Leaders � Inde
Page 53 and 54: The intrapreneur is really the corp
Page 55 and 56: Figure 1 The Model of Intrapreneurs
Page 57 and 58: 1. Leadership - Any organizational
Page 59 and 60: to (Kolveried and Amo, 2002). This
Page 61 and 62: REFERENCES 1. Antoncic, Bostjan and
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39. Kibas, Peter B. and George O. K
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75. Whitehead Martin (2004). Rescue
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Perceived desirability Perceived fe
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experience empathy is a social entr
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ATTITUDES (Behavioral beliefs x Out
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Sociologists and organizational the
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accountability. They assess their p
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DETERMINANTS OF AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT
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The Objective of the study The obje
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A production function portrays an i
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But, Y � ax j i i bi xj b ui je .
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Land Land size and land fragmentati
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Agricultural Extension Because of l
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REFERENCES: 1. Chambers R. (1983) R
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The training approach to small ente
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Topic of Training No. of Respondent
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Key to Figure A - More capital inve
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Conclusion programmes were implemen
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Bibliography 1. Abrahamson, R and H
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whether those trained start their o
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Changes were also noted in business
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Conclusions From the findings, ther
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References 1. Baldwin, T. T., & For
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13th Annual International Management Conference Proceeding

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