LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURECHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION...1 1.1 Reason for choosing the topic ...1 1.2 Literature review...1 1.2.1 Researches related to leadership skills...1 1.2.2 Researches re
Trang 1FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY
Trang 2Supervisor: ASSOC PROF, DR NGUYEN XUAN MINH Reviewer 1:
Review 2:
Review 3:
This thesis will be defended at:
Trang 31 Tran Thi Bich Nhung, 2017, Criteria for evaluating business performance
of Vietnamese textile enterprises, Foreign Economic Review, No 95/2017,
4 Tran Thi Bich Nhung, Le Thai Phong, 2019, The effects of leadership skills
on firm performance: The case of textile and garment firms in Vietnam Management Science Letters, 9(12), pp.2121-2130.
5. Tran Thi Bich Nhung, 2019, Leadership skills: a study in Hochiminh City, Vietnam, Business & IT, Vol IX(2), pp 29-40, DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14311/bit.2019.02.03
6 Tran Thi Bich Nhung, Lê Thai Phong, 2020, Leadership skills at Vietnam Textile and Garment enterprises, Vietnam Journal for Indian and Asian Studies, No 3 (88) March/2020, ISSN 0866-7314
Trang 4LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURE
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Reason for choosing the topic 1
1.2 Literature review 1
1.2.1 Researches related to leadership skills 1
1.2.2 Researches related to business performance of companies 2
1.2.3 Relationship between leadership skills and leadership effectiveness, business performance of the company 2
1.3 Overview of the research situation and identify research gaps 3
1.4 Purpose and research mission 3
1.5 Research questions 3
1.6 Subject and scope of the study 3
1.7 Research methodology 4
1.8 Thesis structure 4
Conclusion of chapter 1 4
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH MODEL 5 2.1 Theoretical foundations of leadership skills 5
2.1.1 Leadership and leader definition 5
2.1.2 Leadership skill definition 5
2.1.3 Levels of leaders 5
2.1.4 Elements of Leadership skills 5
2.2 Theoritical foundations of performance 6
2.2.1 Business performance definition 6
2.2.2 Performance measurement system 7
2.2.3 Charateristics of performance measurement system 7
2.2.4 Some requirements of performance measurement system 7
2.3 The effect of leadership skills on leadership effective, business performance of companies 7
2.4 Research model and reseach hypotheses 8
Trang 52.4.2 Detailed research models and reseach hypotheses 8
Conclusion of chapter 2 9
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 10
3.1 Research process 10
3.2 Stage 1 – Defining and coding measurement 10
3.2.1 Leadership skills measurement and coding 10
3.2.2 Performance measurement and coding 10
3.3 Qualitative study 10
3.3.1 Interview 10
3.3.2 Evaluating the results, adjusting the measurement and design questionnaire 11
3.4 Quantitative study 11
3.4.1 Conducting an official survey 11
3.4.2 Checking and perfecting data, testing measurement, testing research models and research hypotheses 11
Conclusion of chapter 3 11
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS 12
4.1 Vietnam’s textile and garment industry overview 12
4.1.1 Industrial production and export indicators 12
4.1.2 Main markets and product 12
4.1.3 Main modes of production 12
4.1.4 Labor in Vietnam textile and garment industry 12
4.1.5 Number and size of companys in Vietnam textile and garment industry 12
4.1.6 Some financial indicators of some typical textile and garment enterprises 13
4.2 Descriptive statistics 13
4.3 Measurement realability test 13
4.3.1 Cronbach’s Alpha test 14
4.3.2 EFA test 14
4.3.3 CFA test 14
4.4 Survey results of current status of leadership skills in Vietnamese textile enterprises 15
Trang 64.5.1 SEM test 16
4.5.2 Bootstrap test 18
4.5.3 Extensive testing of research models 18
4.5.4 Manova test 19
Conclusion of chapter 4 19
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 20
5.1 Discussion about the main research results of the thesis 20
5.1.1 Status of important and level of implementation of skills 20
5.1.2 The influence of leadership skills on business performance of Vietnamese textile and garment companies 20
5.2 Some recommendations related to the research topic for Vietnamese textile and garment companies 21
5.2.1 Developing leadership skills through training programs 21
5.2.2 Developing leadership skills through learning from real experience 22
5.2.3 Developing leadership skills through self – improvement from leaders 22
5.3 Contributions 22
5.4Further research 23
Conclusion of chapter 5 23
CONCLUSION 24
REFERENCES 25
Trang 73 Table 4.3: the leaders’ self – assessment about the importance and
performance
15
4 Table 4.4: Detailed research model SEM test results 16
LIST OF FIGURES N
o
1 Fig 2.1: Leadership skills model of Mumford, M.D and et al 6
8 Fig 4.4: The results of extensive testing of research models 18
Trang 8CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.9 Reason for choosing the topic
Business performance is always the most concern of all companies Allcompanies are constantly improving and improving it There are many factorsaffecting business performance of the enterprise, in which factors related to leaders areconsidered as those that significantly affect the business performance of the business,because leaders are indispensable in any business
Among leadership elements, leadership skill is considered as one of the mostimportant factors Skill is the ability to perform an intellectual activity that contributes
to the effective performance of a job task Skill is the ability that can be developedthrough learning and practice, not necessarily innate, and proven by doing the job, notmerely the potential
Meanwhile, Vietnam's textile and garment industry is strong and growing,playing an increasingly important role in the growth of the national economy, theexistence and development of textile enterprises Vietnam's garment has beencontributing greatly to the socio-economic development of Vietnam
That is the reason why the author has chosen the topic “Studying the relationship between leadership skills and business performance of Vietnamese textile and garment companies” The thesis studies the influence of leadership skills on business
performance of companies in Vietnamese textile and garment industry, based on whichthe thesis proposes a number of solutions to improve and develop leadership skills,contribute to the imrpovement of the business performance of Vietnamese textile andgarment enterprises
1.10 Literature review
The issue related to the research topic of the thesis has been received a lot ofattention from scholars around the world for a long time
1.10.1 Researches related to leadership and leadership skills
Until now, there have been thousands of different leadership studies and thesestudies have approached in many different directions According to Gary Yulk (2013),theories and empirical research on leadership can be divided into the following 5approaches: (1) leadership characteristics, (2) behavioral leadership, (3) approach interms of influence/power, (4) situational leadership, and (5) integrated research
The study of leadership skills is considered the center of quality leadership theoryand situational leadership There have been many scholars studying directly andindirectly about leadership skills (Bass, 1990)
Trang 9In terms of research content, research on leadership skills can be divided into twomain research groups, namely:
- The first group is the research that explores the skills that a person will pursue aleadership career or excel as an unofficial leader in a group
- The second research group is the study on the relationship between a leader's skillsand leadership effectiveness in the current managerial position
Based on the research model, researches on leadership skills in the world oftenuse one of three research models: Katz's three leadership skills model (1955),
Mumford's et al (2000), or a model of the four leadership skills of Mumford, Campion
1.10.2 Researches related to business performance of companies
Until now, researches on business performance are very diverse and oftenapproach in three main directions:
- Firstly, the aim is to evaluate business efficiency and propose solutions toimprove business efficiency of the business
- Secondly, reseaches help to study the system of indicators to assess businessperformance of enterprises and research on business performance evaluation activities
of enterprises
- Thirdly, researches foster researching in business performance ininteraction with other factors, foreign studies often focus on this approach
1.10.3 Relationship between leadership skills and leadership effectiveness,
business performance of the company
Researching the relationship between leadership skills and leadershipperformance, business performance of enterprises is one of the main research branchesrelated to leadership skills and business performance of enterprises These studiesoften identify a leader’s skills through testing, problem solving, self-assessment orevaluation by others, and then determine the influence of a leader's skills on leadershipefficiency Leadership effectiveness is measured by the performance of the work ofindividuals, groups and the whole enterprise (Yukl, G, 2013) These include: sales,
Trang 10profits, market share, Return on Investment (ROI), Return on Assets (ROA), employeesatisfaction, employee motivation, and develop employee skills, solution quality
In Vietnam, through researches on leadership competencies, Do Anh Duc (2014)and Le Thi Phuong Thao (2016) also assessed the influence of leadership skills to theeffectiveness of the business
1.11 Overview of the research situation andidentify research gaps
Over the world, research on leadership skills is very diverse, is done in manydifferent research models, and is conducted in many different fields of industry InVietnam, there are many relevant studies on business performance of companies, butthe research on leadership and leadership skills is quite limited Research on leadership
is mainly focused on leadership competencies and leadership styles, with a few studies
on the role and personal charateristics of leadership in companies
The above analysis shows that, “studying the relationship between leadership skills and business performance of Vietnamese textile and garment companises” is a
new study, not duplicated with existing, valuable researches, scientific and practicaltreatment
1.12 Purpose and research mission
This thesis focuses on researching the influence of leadership skills on businessperformance of Vietnamese textile and garment companies in general
1.13 Research questions
Based on the above purposes and tasks, the thesis must answer the research
question which is "What is the impact of leadership skills on business performance of Vietnamese textile and garment companies?"
1.14 Subject and scope of the study
Subject of the study: The dissertation studies the influence of leadership skills
on business performance of Vietnamese textile and garment companies in general
Scope of the study:
- Scope of content: The thesis studies the influence of leadership skills on thebusiness performance of Vietnamese textile and garment companies
- Scope of space: thesis researching Vietnamese textile and garment companies
- Scope of time: the thesis was implemented in the period from the beginning of
2016 to 2019 The interview, investigation, survey of leaders at Vietnamese textileand garment companies were conducted in the period from October 07, 2018 toApril 2019 Suggestions of the thesis are towards 2025
- Scope of the research object: the research object of the thesis is a leader at alllevels currently working in Vietnamese textile and garment enterprises
Trang 111.15 Research methodology
- The thesis uses a combination of research methods
- Data sources: the thesis uses secondary and primary data
- Data collection method: online, direct and indirect
- Methods of data processing: The thesis uses Excel, IBM SPSS Statistics 21,AMOS, and writes reports in Microsoft Word
1.16 Thesis structure
Besides the introduction, conclusions, references, necessary papers and related appendices, the thesis consists of 5 chapters as follows:
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: Theoretical background and practical experience
- Chapter 3: Research methodology
- Chapter 4: Research results
- Chapter 5: Discussions and recommendations
Conclusion of Chapter 1
Trang 12CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDANDRESEARCH MODEL 2.1 Theoretical foundations of leadership skills
2.1.1 Leadership and leader definition
Leadership has received a lot of attentions from many scholars around the worldfor a long time.Researchers usually define leadership according to their indivudualperspectives and the aspects of the phenomenon of most interest to them(Yukl,1989),so, up to now there are hundreds of different definitions of leadership Theabove definitions are neither entirely true nor completely wrong, because according toCampell (1977) depending on the object and objectives of the research, scholars come
up with different definitions of leadership.This thesis uses the definition of Yulk
(2013), “Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating induvidual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” Leaders indicate
people who occupy positions in which they are expected to perform the leadershiprole, implement objectives of company through influencing others
2.1.2 Leadership skill definition
Skills are the ability to perform tasks, the ability to turn knowledge into actions
to effectively perform tasks to achieve goals and skills can be developed throughlearning Leadership skills are leaders’ ability to perform tasks, turn knowledge intoactions, demonstrate leaders’ proficiency when applying the knowledge gained inpractice to perform leadership functions to achieve the goals
2.1.3 Levels of leaders
In company, leaders are usually divided into 3 levels: senior leaders, middleleaders, and junior leaders
2.1.4 Elements of Leadership skills
2.1.4.1Katz’s Three-skills approach
It is assumed here that an administrator is one who (a) articulates strategicvision, mission and purpose of the organization, (b) directs the activities of otherpersons and (c) undertakes the responsibility for achieving objectives through theseefforts Within this definition, successful leader appears to rest on three basic skills,include technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills Of the three skills,technical skills are the most familiar because they are specific and obvious to mostpeople, technical skills are essential for junior level leadership Meanwhile, humanskills are indispensable skills for all levels of leadership, and conceptual skills areessential for senior leaders in the business At the same time, Katz (1955) emphasized
Trang 13Career Experiences
Individual attributes Competencies Leadership outcomes
General cognitive abilities
Crystallized cognitive abilities
Motivation
Personality
Problem solving skillsSocial judgment and social skillsKnowledge
Problem solvingPerformance
Environmental Influences
Fig 2.1: Leadership skills model of Mumford, M D and et al
(Source: )
that leadership skills are not inherent born as mentioned in previous studies, they can
be formed and developed through training and practice
2.1.4.2 Elements of Leadership skills of Mumford, M D.and et al.(2000)
In this model, leadership skills are important elements and affect directly onleadership outcomes
2.1.4.3Leadership skills strateplex ofMumford, T V., Campion, M A., and
Morgeson, F P (2007)
On the basis of analyzing, separating and synthesizing previous studies onleadership skills, the authors propose a leadership skills model, including the followingfour skill groups: cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, business skills and strategicskills Senior leaders demand higher leadership skills than lower level leaders At alllevels of leaders in organization, cognitive skills are the most important, followed byinterpersonal skills, business skills and strategic skills In the career advancement ofleaders, business skills and strategic management skills are more important thancognitive and human skills
2.2 Theoretical foundations of performance
2.2.1 Business Performance definition
2.2.1.1Performance definition
The word “performance” is widely used in all fields of management
Trang 14Although there are many different interpretations of efficiency, oftenperformance is defined or equated with effectiveness and efficiency (Neely, Gregory
và Platts, 1995; Corvellec, 1994).Effectiveness is about accomplishing a task orproducing a desired result, refers to do the right things Efficiency is about performing
a task in a best possible manner It focuses on achieving the objective and maximunresult with least time and effort
2.2.1.2Business performance definition
The business performance of a company is a reflection of its ability to combineinputs, allowing to minimize costs in its business operations in order to achieve itsprofitability goals This concept is quite similar to existing concepts of businessperformance in Vietnam and the concept of performance of Neely, Gregory and Platts(1995) and Corvellec (1994)
2.2.2 Performance measurement system
So far, many scholars have researched and offered different interpretations ofbusiness performance measurement systems.This thesis uses the Balance Score Card
of Kaplan and Norton (1993) to measure the business performance of companies inVietnamese textile and garment industry
2.2.3 Characteristics of performance measurement system
According toNeely, A., and et al.(2007),the performance measurementframeworks should display some key characteristics that help an organization toidentify an appropriate set of measures to assess their performance
2.2.4 Some requirements of performance measurement system.
Business performance measurement system needs to meet certain requirements
2.3 The effect of leadership skills on business performance of companies
Kehinde, J.S, Jegede, C.A and Akinlabi, H.B (2012) studied the influence ofleadership and strategy on the performance of banks in Nigeria According to theauthors, this research is similar to the views of Stott and Walker (1995) and Bourneand Franco - Santos (2010), who believe that leadership skills have a direct impact onbusiness performance of the business At the same time, this result is similar to theresearch results of Abosede et al (2011) emphasizing that leadership skills (including:technical skills, people, and cognitive skills) are factors of extreme of businessefficiency of the business
Sarker, M.A.R., và cộng sự (2019) studied soft skills, the results showed thatleaders in Bangladeshi textile enterprises need the following soft skills: leadershipskills, communication skills, teamwork skills, critical thinking skills, and results alsoshow that these soft skills have a direct and positive effect on the performance of
Trang 15Direct affectPositive affectLeadership skills
Performance of Vietnam textile and garment companies
Fig 2.2: General research model
(Source: the author's suggestion)
Fig 2.3: Detailed research model
(Source: the author's suggestion)
H1H2H3H4
Cognitive skills
Interpersonal skills
Business skills
Strategic skills
Performance of Vietnam textile and garment companies
workers On the other hand, Islam, S., và cộng sự (2018)show that the soft skills that
local leaders in textile enterprises in Bangladesh are still limited compared to leaders
from abroad have These include communication skills, presentation skills,
decision-making skills, motivation, negotiation, communication, marketing skills and a few
other soft skills
Research by Rosaline, Z., (2013) shows that leadership skills will affect the
Indian knitting industry in improving productivity, increasing market share in the
global market, increasing sales and contributing to Indian economic development
In addition, in Sri Lanka, the findings of Gunawardena, M.K., Cooray, C.N and
Fonseka, A.T., (2014) on leadership in the textile industry show that leadership
behavior influences innovation in textile enterprises in Sri Lanka
2.4 Research model and research hypotheses
2.4.1 General research model
2.4.2 Detailed research models and research hypotheses
- Hypotheses H1: Cognitive skills affect posivitely on performance of Vietnam
textile and garment companies
Trang 16- Hypotheses H2: Interpersonal skills affect posivitely on performance of Vietnamtextile and garment companies
- HypothesesH3: Business skills affect posivitely on performance of Vietnam textileand garment companies
- HypothesesH4: Strategic skills affect posivitely on performance of Vietnam textileand garment companies
Conclusion of chapter 2
Trang 17Defining research objectives and missions
Conducting an official survey
Studying theor and suggest research model and research hypotheseses
Evaluating the results, adjusting the measurement and design questionnaire
InterviewDefining and coding measurement
Checking and perfecting data, testing measurement, testing models and research hypotheses
Stage
1
Writing report
Stage 2: Qualitative study
Stage 2: Quantitative study
Fig3.1: Reseach process
(Source: the author's
suggestion)
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1Reseach process
3.2 Stage 1 –Defining and coding measurement
3.2.1Leadership skills measurement and coding
This thesis uses the scale of Mumford, Campion and Morgeson (2007)to measurecognitive skills, interpersonal skills, business skills, and strategic skills
3.2.2 Performance measurement and coding
This thesis uses Balanced Score Card of Kaplan to measure performance ofVietnamese textile and garment companies
3.3 Qualitative study
3.3.1 Interview
- Preparation:Based on the proposed measurement, author prepares appropriatecontent
Trang 18- Interview subject:Leaders at all levels working in Vietnam textile and garmentcompamies.
- Sample zise:30 leaders
- Interview methods: directly and by phone
3.3.2 Evaluating the results, adjusting the measurement and design questionnaire
Results of discussions with 30 leaders showed that:
- In terms of leadership skills, most of the interviewed subjects said that the skillsmentioned in the measurement are very necessary skills for leaders, and theseskills affect business performance
- Regarding the business performance of enterprises, the leaders all believe thatthe above indicators are necessary, and supplement the indicator "Lead time" toevaluate the performance in internal processes perspective of performance
3.4Quantitative study
3.4.1 Conducting an official survey
- Sample size: 476 respondents
- Data collection:Data is collected through online survey, direct survey and indirect
survey via questionaire
- Data analyse software: IBM SPSS Statistics 20and AMOS 20.
3.4.2 Checking and perfecting data, testing measurement, testing research models and research hypotheses
3.4.2.1 Checking and perfecting data
The data after being collected will be checked and removed invalid observations,perfected and moved the next steps
3.4.2.2 Testing measurement
Cronbach Alpha, EFA, and CFA (Confirmation Factor Analysis) testing are used
to test leadership skills and performance measurement
3.4.2.3 Testing research models and research hypotheses
SEM and bootstrap testing are used to test research models and researchhypotheses
Conclusion of chapter 3
Trang 19CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS 4.1 Vietnam’s Textile and Garment Industry overview
4.1.1 Industrial production and export indicators
Industrial production index shows that the industrial production of Vietnamtextile and garment industry has increased over the years The ratio of textile andapparel export turnover shows that the textile and garment industry accounts for alarge proportion of Vietnam's total export turnover
4.1.2 Main markets and product
The products of Vietnam’s textile and garment industry are sold in both domesticand foreign markets In the domestic market, they are sold in markets, retail store,supermarkets, trade centers and accounts for about 14% The products of Vietnam’stextile and garment industry arer exported to more than 180 countries and territoriesworldwide (Le Hong Thuan, 2017) In particular, the main markets are he UnitedStates, the EU, Japan, Korea, and some other markets such as ASEAN, Canada, Chinaand Taiwan… These markets are notorious for being extremely strict in terms ofproduct quality, price and design In addition, these markets are also high demanding
in product control and standard of the product
4.1.3 Main modes of production
Although Vietnam textile and garment industry has a high proportion of exportturnover and high growth rate, it is mainly manufactured under the CMT method (themode of production produces the lowest added value), about65% of total exportvalue.About30% of export value is produced by FOB mode and only 5% of totalexport value is by other mode of production
4.1.4 Labor in Vietnam textile and garment industry
Labor is one of the main factors of production and business in the textile andgarment industry and is reflected in both the quantity and quality of labor The number
of labors in textile and garment industry is about 1.6 million labors, accounting formore than 12% of the labor force in the industrial sector and nearly 5% of the totallabor force in Vietnam The average labor productivity in this indutry is lower thanother countries in the region, such as Hong Kong, China, Korea, Thailan…
4.1.5 Number and size of companies in Vietnam textile and garment industry
According to statistics by Bui Van Tot (2014), there are about 6.000 companiesoperating in the textile and garment sector in Vietnam, of which small and mediumcompanies account for a large proportion In terms of ownership, about 84% of textileand garment enterprises are prive; 15% are foreign invested enterprises and about 1%
is SOEs By sector, about 70% of companies are in of the garment sector, 17% of
Trang 20enterprises are in the textile/ knit sector, 6% of enterprises are in the yarn sector, 4%are in the dyeing sector and about 3% of companies are in the supporting industries Interms of grography, companies in the north occupy about 30%, companies in thecentral and highlands occupy 8% and companies in the south is about 62%.
4.1.6 Some financial indicators of some typical textile and garment enterprises Table 4.1: financial indicators of some typical textile and garment enterprises
Revenue 15.462 17.447 19.101 3.238 3.021 3.499 4.215 4.217 4.897Revenue
The sample size was 476 observations
Table 4.2: Descriptive Statistics
Trang 214.3.1 Cronbach’s Alpha Test
Cronbach’s Alpha test show that the leadership skills scale is satisfactory afterremoving Cog3 item, and the business performance scale is satisfactory
4.3.3CFA Test
The results of CFA test show that the scale is consistent with market data
Fig 4.1: CFA test results
(Source: The result of thesis)