Citation
(2014), "2013 Awards for Excellence", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 21 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-01-2014-001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2013 Awards for Excellence
Article Type: 2013 Awards for Excellence From: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Volume 21, Issue 1.
The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award for Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
"Leadership – style, satisfaction and commitment: an exploration in the United Arab Emirates' construction sector"
Kasim Randeree
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Abdul Ghaffar Chaudhry
Halcrow International Partnership, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Purpose – This paper aims to provide an examination of the extent to which different leadership styles impact employee job satisfaction
and organizational commitment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through a case analysis in the construction sector.
Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey of three companies, one client organization, one consultancy firm and one contracting
company. The useable survey comprised 251 individual responses from 600 distributed, giving a response rate of 41.83 percent.
Findings – The findings show that consultative and consensus leadership styles are prevalent in the construction sector in the UAE.
Further, it was found that an employee's job satisfaction is strongly affected by leadership, with more than 50 percent of
survey respondents stating that leadership strongly influences their job satisfaction. Leadership style was found to moderately
to strongly affect organizational commitment of employees in the industry in the UAE.
Practical implications – The survey provides a useful instrument by which organizations across other sectors and within different cultural contexts
can evaluate the significance of leadership style, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Originality/value – The work is unique in that it is an examination of the impact of organizational leadership style within a contemporary
regional context. A number of studies have been carried out in the Arab world that suggest that leadership in Arab culture
nurtures consultative and participative tendencies. These are all outdated by more than a decade and no recent study in the
Arabian Gulf region exists and none which explore leadership styles’ impact on employees.
Keywords Construction, Job satisfaction, Leadership style, Organizational commitment, United Arab Emirates
www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09699981211192571
This article originally appeared in Volume 19 Number 1, 2012,Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
The following articles were selected for this year's Highly Commended Award
“Trust and the project management body of knowledge”
Graham Brewer, Scott Strahorn
This article originally appeared in Volume 19 Number 3, 2012,Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
“Human resource practices of contractors that lead to job satisfaction of professional staff”
Lewis J.W. Lim, Florence Y.Y. Ling
This article originally appeared in Volume 19 Number 1, 2012,Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
Outstanding Reviewer
Esra Bostancioglu and Wayne Lord