Purpose-driven leadership and organizational success: a case of higher educational institutions

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the relationships between organizational purpose, leadership practices and sustainable outcomes for universities in emerging economies. We propose that a strong sense of purpose is a fundamental and defining feature in the leadership practices of these institutions, which ultimately contributes to their success.Design/methodology/approachThe authors present a research model that defines the relationships between a sense of purpose, leadership practices, student success outcomes, alumni involvement outcomes and societal reputation outcomes. Over 200 higher education administrators in India participated in the study.FindingsThe institutions' sense of purpose directly relates to their leadership engagement practices and their student success outcomes. Student success outcomes are a crucial linkage between leadership engagement practices and alumni involvement outcomes to achieve their societal reputation.Practical implicationsAs competitiveness intensifies, educational institutions under resource constraints must differentiate their organizational practices. This paper demonstrates how their core purpose and leadership actions result in achieving effective outcomes and overall sustainable societal reputation.Originality/valueThere is a significant difference between having an organizational purpose and enacting that purpose through their leadership practices. These results highlight the cascading effect from the institution's fundamental sense of purpose to their leadership practices and the positive outcomes of student success, alumni involvement and societal reputation.

Supporting a Merger of Entrepreneurship Curricula: Combining Organizational Frames and Theory of Change

The field of entrepreneurship education is growing in both size and complexity within colleges and universities, leading to needed organization level adjustments. This applied case study (not a teaching case) follows a merger of two educational entities focused on entrepreneurship at Michigan State University (MSU). In a pattern consistent with difficulties experienced by other academic programs, MSU’s programs evolved independently and led to duplicated efforts and confusion for students and staff members. Entrepreneurship program leaders were tasked with merging two units and aligning efforts to improve pedagogical and organizational quality. Scholar practitioner consultants supported a merger process by using organizational frames to analyze previous practices and theory-of-change (ToC) tools to synthesize new designs for a merged unit. Participation in efforts provided an opportunity for personnel in two organizations to co-create and redesign their own program while developing a shared organizational purpose and process. Follow-up surveys and cluster analysis showed that this approach was able to facilitate convergence in mental models of the program and the merger process was met with a high level of approval. Case findings demonstrated that organizational frames and ToC tools have the potential to effectively address challenges in structural, human resource, and pedagogical layers of mergers.

Exploring the Meaning of Organizational Purpose at a New Dawn: The Development of a Conceptual Model Through Expert Interviews

Organizational purpose has flourished in the professional management literature, yet despite increased scholarly interest, academic knowledge and empirical research on the topic remain scarce. Moreover, studies that have been conducted contain important oversights including the lack of a clear conceptualization and misinterpretations that hinder the further development and understanding of organizational purpose. In view of these shortcomings, our interview study aimed to contribute to academic and societal conversations on the contemporary meaning and function of organizational purpose considering the voices and perspectives of 44 global experts. Employing template analysis, we defined organizational purpose as “an organization’s reason for being characterized by significance, aspiration, direction, unification, and motivation.” Moreover, we proposed an explanatory conceptual model, including drivers and outcomes of purpose, important boundary conditions, and explanatory mechanisms. Drawing on self-determination theory, person–organization fit theory, job characteristics theory, and conservation of resources theory, we were able to explain how and under what conditions these concepts are related to organizational purpose. In doing so, our research contributes to advancing the knowledge and understanding of organizational purpose and its effects on human lives within and outside organizations. Our study thereby enhances the understanding of the role of organizations in society and helps in evaluating whether organizations take responsibility by living their purpose in the society they are part of. As such, our study provides important insights for theory development, scale development, and further empirical research on organizational purpose and its effects in different streams such as OB, HRM, marketing, leadership, and strategy.

Engaging Through Purpose: The Mediating Role of Person–Organizational Purpose Fit in the Relationship Between Perceived Organizational Purpose and Work Engagement

Drawing from self-determination theory and person-organization fit theory, the present study contributes to the literature on organizational purpose by examining the relationship between perceived organizational purpose and work engagement and the mediating role of person-organizational purpose (P-OP) fit herein. Based on data from a cross-sectional quantitative study among 517 knowledge workers from five financial service organizations, we tested two possible psychological mechanisms underlying the direct and indirect relationships between perceived organizational purpose and work engagement. The results of our structural equation modelling confirmed the hypothesized indirect effect model in which perceived organizational purpose was positively associated with work engagement, both directly and indirectly via P-OP fit. These findings show that organizational purpose has the capacity to directly and indirectly foster work engagement. The study suggests avenues for future research in OB, strategic HRM, and marketing.

Innovation in the 21st Century: Architectural Change, Purpose, and the Challenges of Our Time

Understanding the process of innovation has been a central concern of management researchers, but despite this progress, there remains much that we do not understand. Deepening our knowledge is critically important given the enormous environmental and social challenges we face as a society. Pursing incremental innovation will continue to be hugely important, but this paper argues that building a richer understanding of architectural or systemic innovation will also be crucial. This paper suggests that the study of organizational purpose may provide a particularly fruitful avenue for future research. This paper has been accepted by David Simchi Levi for the Special Issue of Management Science: 65th Anniversary.

Financial and Non-Financial Practices Driving Sustainable Firm Performance: Evidence from Banking Sector of Developing Countries

Since independence, state-owned enterprises in Pakistan have been struggling for performance enhancement. The goal of sustainable performance is still unachievable. Therefore, the paper evaluates sustainable corporate performance based on financial, social, and environmental performance areas. The organizational restructuring framework for sustainable performance enhancement is developed on software PLS-SEM. The financial and economic performance (FEP) was evaluated through financial reports and surveys; however, social and environmental performances (SEP) were quantified through survey questionnaires for seven performance areas with multiple sub factors, based on Weisbord’s six box model. The study time period in focus is 2011 to 2015. Data was collected from 517 employees of 19 public, private, and privatized banks of Pakistan. The results demonstrate that the total effect of FEP and SEP is much stronger (t-value = 7.619) than the individual direct impact of FEP (t-value = 5.189) on sustainable firm performance (SFP). This is a clear indication of the mediating role of SEP for SFP evaluation. Furthermore, FEP depends on significant indicators include net assets, total deposits, profit before tax, and earnings per share of total deposits with outer loadings, which are given as 0.995, 0.992, 0.978, and 0.954, respectively. Moreover, SEP depends on indicators, i.e., reward policies, redefining organizational purpose, coordination mechanism among employees, and supervisor relationships, with correlations of 0.864, 0.849, 0.805, and 0.761, respectively. The framework will assist in the enhancement of the performance of economically unviable public and loss-making privatized entities.

Chaos, Complexity, and Contingency Theories: A Comparative Analysis and Application to the 21st Century Organization

Organizations in the 21st century deal with constant changes such as globalization, technological evolutions, regulatory changes, competition, and other unexpected events, among others. These challenges can be viewed and addressed through the lenses of contemporary theories. This paper selected three contemporary theories namely chaos, complexity, and contingency theories, and presented their foundations and characteristics by comparing and contrasting their key concepts. These concepts include nonlinearity, feedback, bifurcation, strange attractors, fractals, and self-organization for chaos theory; nonlinearity, dynamism, feedback, self-organization, emergence, and adaptability for complexity theory; and adaptation, equifinality, effectiveness, and congruency for contingency theory. Examples of studies and organizational applications of these theories were provided, and implications for scholars and organizational leaders were discussed. By explaining notions such as how the capacity of a system could be greater than the sum of the capacities of its subunits, this paper can act as a starting point for anyone seeking to understand the three theories or use them for research or organizational purpose.