The research proposal has been designed to propose a research study on the topic “Investigating the link and impact of leadership, creativity and innovation in Virgin Group”. For this purpose a very brief introduction has been presented to provide base to the title. Significance, research objectives and questions have also been designed which will be further unveiled in the research. A literature has also been presented so as to provide foundation to the research topic. Research design and methodology has been proposed such that data collected becomes easy. Moreover, a complete research timescale has been developed which will be followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.1.Title

The research will investigate three main variables namely creativity, innovation and leadership with respect to Virgin Group. The title of the research will be

“Investigating the link and impact of leadership, creativity and innovation in Virgin Group”

1.2.Introduction

In the current era or in the modern business environment, there is a rapid transformation in the business practices and also in the processes through which the products and good are produced. The main reason behind this transformation is technology and the integration of innovation and creativity in the business processes. In addition to this the leadership is also greatly affected by the transformations and also the leadership is involved in the effective integration of innovation and creativity in the procedures and processes. The research will deal with the leadership and the analysis of leadership with respect to innovation and creativity.

Researches have identified how strategy, culture, organisational structure and other management tools can bring competitive advantage and effectiveness to the organisations (Galbraith, 2002). Galbraith (2002) has also identified that first source of competitive advantage in the 21^st century organisation are creativity and innovation but very few organisations have unveiled the role of leadership in the innovation. The organisations which are creative are not an accident but at the back end there are leaders who deliberate change in the culture, structure and process so as to transform the organisations to effective, creative and productive organisations (Gardner, 2000; Weinzimmer, 2001; Realin, 2003). It is believed that success is brought through strategy, culture, organisational structure and other management tools becomes the source of competitive advantage but the truth is that it is the leadership which is the main source of competitive advantage as being identified in the research work of Wheatley (2001). Leaders are the catalyst that manage as well as create organisational culture, environment, and strategies which helps in encouraging and sustaining the effectiveness, innovation and success in the organisation.

The role of leaders cannot be neglected in organisations. They are the source of encouragement and this is done by providing and building inclusive and friendly working conditions as identified by Pfeffer (1998). It has been identified that the employee performance increases when leaders provide value, respect and harness the richness of backgrounds, ideas, as well as perspective of every employee (Meurling, 2004). New developments are encouraged by the leaders as according to Kuhn (1993). In a nutshell, an environment is produced which supports creativity and innovation.

The company which is selected to be researched is Virgin Atlantic. Virgin is one of the Leading investment group which was conceived by Sir Richard Branson in 1970. This Group has developed some of the successful businesses and entrenches various industries showed in the following figure

Figure 1: Virgin Group and Its businesses (self-developed)

It is giving jobs to 50000 people all around the world and is in 34 countries offering its various brands. The revenue generation in the year 2011 was £13bn. Virgin group is known for its quality products and services, the fun which it provides, innovating products and services, providing value to the money of the customers and providing the customer experience.

Virgin Atlantic is an innovative and creative company because of leadership of Richard Branson. This research will identify and investigate Virgin Group for the style and role that leadership is playing towards creativity and innovation and how creativity, innovation and leadership are together playing its roles in obtaining and sustaining the competitive advantage of the company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The significance of research is three – folded. There is theoretical, practical and novel importance of the research.

• Theoretically, the research will be addition to the theory and literature as it has been mentioned before that there are not many researches that have identified the role of leadership in creativity and innovation (Galbraith, 2002).
• The practical significance of research will be that the organisation can take help from the research when the data from the employees will be revealed about the Richard Branson leadership impact.
• The research is novel because in past applicable researches have not been conducted rather much focus was on identifying the literature.

The research questions are the main questions which are answered in different sections of research. These solve out the problem statement of research gradually and provide the plan for the research. The questions which will be answered from the study are

• What is the difference between creativity and innovation?
• How leadership can instigate creativity and innovation in organisation?
• What type of leadership can work towards creativity and innovation positively?
• How leadership style of Richard Branson has harnessed creativity and innovation in Virgin Group?
• What are the actionable ways through which other organisations can create leaders that support creativity and innovation?

The research objectives are designed in the start of the research so as to provide direction and significance of each part. These are very important for a research. The objectives which will be used for the forthcoming study are

• To investigate the link between creativity, innovation and leadership in Virgin Group.
• To identify the role of leadership in making organisation creative and innovative.
• To what extent leadership is source of competitive advantage for the organisation.
• To recommend some implications for the organisations so that leaders can be identified and they work towards creativity and innovation.

The framework of study is shown as under

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: Theoretical Framework (Self-developed; IV= independent variable, DV: Dependent variable)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.1. Creativity and innovation in context

According to the Oxford English Dictionary creativity is being called as “inventive” and/or “imaginative”. In a more detailed manner this is also related to thinking irrespective of the traditional way or having a different perspective on a certain things. In creativity the previous experience of a person is being added but here too a condition is hanging that too much of the rest on the previous thinking can fail the creative thinking. The real creative thinkers are the people on which the criticism does not have any impact and that they are very much concerned about the creative idea that they force it to reach its conclusion. There are two types of creativity one being the visual thinking which is defined as an intellectual capability of visualizing a new situation (Shepard and Cooper, 1973) while second one being the problem solving which is defined a reaching up the goal by breaking the goal into sub goals as according to Anderson (1990).

According to the Oxford English Dictionary innovation is being called as “new methods” and/or “new ideas”. Innovation is about identifying the process and procedure to perform a particular task or to invent contemporary ideas in a different manner so that a new idea can be generated. The main different between creativity and innovation is that creativity is a continuation of a previous idea while this one is totally a generation of a new thought. Innovation is visualization and then manipulation of the thought as according to Kosslyn (1983).

In the current era the management of both the creativity and innovation is critical for the companies because in organisations these are being continuously used in every activity which the company performs. It has also being found out that the organisations does not have any theoretical background to this perspective to be applied in the practical and training frameworks of the companies (Abraham and Knight, 2009).

In an organisation innovation in the processes holds a fundamental importance (Van de Van et al, 1999). Innovation basically is a part of the system which the organisation produces as according to Weick (1979). Moreover innovation and creativity basically is an integration of the innovation and the creativity in the processes which are already in the use by an organisation. In another way the technology has posed challenges to the organisations because all of the changes lead in organisational transformations. According to Schumpeter (1950) mostly the organisations considers innovation in the products and processes.

Generally speaking the innovation and creativity of the organisation mostly refers to the usage of the creativity and new ideas to the organisation as according to Daft (1978) and Damanpour (1996). As it has been said before that there is not much of work being done in this specific field or in other words work has been conducted but still it is not well integrated meaning thereby that theory and practice does not seem to have any integration.

Let’s get into the detail of innovation which is conversely taken as creativity. There is one theory in this respect named as Enterprise Innovation System (EIS) according to which there are certain set of conditions, rules and regulations, processes and methods in all of the organisations in which different activities are taking place, on to which innovators depends such that the implementation of change on the aspects and circumstances of production using the invention, discovery made for management, market opportunity and success factors (Shen et al 2009). This theory identifies six components which are

• strategic innovation
•  organisational innovation
•  cultural innovation
•  products innovation
•  process innovation
• marketing innovation

                     

Figure 3: EIS Six components (Self-developed)

According to the above six elements it can be postulated that the organisations need to integrate innovation in each and every step or in value chain activities. Innovation cannot be successfully added to the organisational processes unless and until it is not being added into each and every step (Christopher, 1993).

According to a research by Skarzynski and Gibson (2008) in order to add innovation and creativity at each and every step, it is believe that organisations require creativity of the personal but this is not true because rather than the personal creativity organisation need to have an assemblage policy so as to provoke innovation in order to have breakthrough in business.  According to the researchers the innovators who invoke innovation have the ability to find out the opportunities in the environment on the basis of four standpoints and these are

1. challenging the conventions
2. Strapping up the discontinuities
3. Working over competencies and the assets
4. Understand the hidden needs

Figure 4: Four standpoints of innovators (self-developed)

In another perspective which is a point of view of business, there is a lot of opportunity in the market as in terms of technology and this is for those who understands it and threat is for those companies who are still resisting innovation and creativity. In organisations opting out innovation and creativity as the strategic base must have proactive approach towards the needs of the customers, technical matters and internal processes of organisation and culture.

6.2. The role leadership can play in empowering employees to become creative and innovative

6.2.1. Leaders and their importance in the Innovation Process

Various researchers and scholars have found out that how various elements or the management tools can help in gaining competitiveness and effectiveness (Galbraith, 2002). In addition to this it has also been found out that the recent trends in the organisations leading to competitiveness is via the means of creativity and innovation but little debate has been done over the role of the leadership in this process i.e., innovation. Organisations following the principles of innovativeness and creativity do not form as a result of accident but they are being led by the leaders who drives and also deliberate plans to integrate innovation and creativity in each and every organisational move and also in the processes too. Many organisations have much of the influence over the culture, structure, strategy and technology for gaining competitiveness but the source or the catalyst is the leader (Agbor, 2008).

When certain strategy is established by an organisation it is the leaders who implement it or helps in the accomplishment of that strategy. The leaders support, sustain, encourage and inspire the people who are involved in application of the strategy. Hence it is important for organisation to develop the leaders and to put them in the right place. In addition to this the leaders must also have an interest in innovation process otherwise it can fail. The top leaders have all the powers to make the strategies and then to implement them. They need to be ambitious towards innovativeness and must have proactive approach to the renewal of the organisational process in order to achieve success (Schein, 1985).

Talking about the culture change, it has been found out and asserted by Cameron and Quinn that it cannot be done unless and until the leaders show commitment, involvement and support of the leaders because leaders assert the importance of cultural change to the management of the organisation (Tichy, 1997). In the organisations where the leadership is weak, there are lots of problems that are being faced in the implementation of cultural change. In contrast the organisations having the leaders who believe in creativity and innovation the restructuring becomes easy (DuPont, 2002).

Effective leaders have the powers to manage the process change through creativity. There are problems which are faced by the organisations is due to lack of creative leaders (Askenas et al, 2002). Hence creative leaders are important in the success of an organisation.

6.3.Leadership types Involved encouraging Innovation

The structure of leadership in an organisation encourages the creativity and innovation. Therefore it cannot be said that the leadership styles and models explained can all be applied to this aspect of innovation of leadership. To invest in specific related leadership styles can help in reaching the goals. It has also been found out that the mutual and joint leadership in comparison to authoritarian management can help in unlocking the potential (Tichy, 1997).

According one of the research outcomes it has been found out that the organisations following the authoritarian and hierarchical management style and where leadership have command and control over the employees, those organisations are less creative and employees show less productivity (Hornstein & De Guerre, 2006). In this model the leadership are the top most people controlling the organisations and this was much common in 19^th century (Harrison, 1999). In the modern organisations the followers which are employees have a certain perception of leadership and through this perception of followers the organisation can move successfully as the employees know that the leaders are responsible of the outcomes. This is a heroic approach. In this approach the leaders reach to the goal with the help of employees but he or she is leading them (Spillane, 2005).

There is another form of leadership in which the leaders believe that not one person is responsible to the creation of innovation but everyone is involved in it but the leadership qualities are required to empower people so as to have influence. This is called as contemporary leadership in which the ideas and knowledge and skills of everyone is welcomed to perform the complex tasks. It is important to harness innovation and creativity in an organisation by adding up the ideas of the entire member from top to bottom (Bergmann & Horst, 1999). The current era is about involving everyone and organisation having a shared vision and in these types of organisations ideas, innovation and creativity is being added by everyone (Realin, 2003).

According to the above analysis there are three types of leaderships which have been identified and also are shown in the following figure.

                 

Figure 5: Three leadership skills (self-developed)

In my point of view the leadership style which is contemporary which is being used by many organisations is contemporary leadership style because in this type the innovation and creativity is being added into organisational processes when the employees and the leaders work as a team. Hence this style must be adopted by organisations.

6.4.Encouraging creativity and Innovation by Leaders

The leaders can encourage creativity and innovation when they develop and build an environment which is friendly and in it all the employees normally. When the environment of organisation is built in such a way that the employees feel free to work and move in it then they show their creative aspect. The employees must be encouraged to share the ideas (Gardner, 2000).

Furthermore the leaders on the top must harness an environment in which the opportunities are developed for the employees and then they are encouraged to meet the challenges enthusiastically (Pfeffer, 1998). The employees must be encouraged and motivated by the leaders because this helps in building an organisation. Friendly environment further compliments and nurtures the creativity and innovation.

Innovation and creativity can further be made an important principle by making it a system of organisation. All the issues are tackled in this manner. In addition the leaders believing in the knowledge, skills and capabilities of the employees and considering them the part of organisation can motivate them in sharing their ideas for the betterment of organisation. Hence innovation can be brought in the processes of organisation by stimulating it by challenging the employees and getting the solutions from them. This also helps in making the employees know of their hidden talent (Meurling, 2004).

In addition to this the questions are welcomed by the leaders, and employees usually question the leaders about the reason for the implementation of a certain change (Edwards, 1996). The mistakes of the employees are taken as a part of the process of learning and the alternative ideas are again welcomed by effective leaders. Through this a rich culture of an organisation is developed. Hence in a learning environment more innovation and creativity can give birth to new ideas (Kuhn, 1993).

In diversified organisations having employees with different backgrounds, leaders can better inculcate and generate ideas as leaders know the employees and know about their talents (Weinzimmer, 2001). There are certain organisations in which the challenges are posed to the effective usage of the employees skills or it inhibits the talent (Sonnenberg & Goldberg, 1992). It is believed that in organisations where there is creativity and innovation, the organisations find the way out from the challenge and in a diversified organisation this becomes much easier (Wheatley, 2001). Different cultured people inject more creative ideas.

7.1. Research Design

Research design is the complete procedure of data collection and different analysis techniques. There are different types of research methods: qualitative research, quantitative research, and a mixture of both can be used for research study. This study will use quantitative approach to perform research which is quite feasible to cater data. The purpose of the research is to investigate the relationship between different variables. The advantage of using this method in contrast to other methods is that large amount of data can be analysed easily. Moreover, it allows the researcher to apply the statistical models to test the collected data.

Study will be Cross - sectional study in which measure different variable at the same time. Researches measuring employee perspective are cross-sectional (Ramamurthy, 2011; Saunders et al., 2009). Furthermore, researcher will use different statistical models to check the collected data. The cross-sectional study was used to measure employees’ perspective as suggested by various researchers (Saunders et al, 2009; Ramamurthy, 2011). Under the cross-sectional study, various variables are measured at the same time. The survey design is most appropriate for this study as it is the most economical method to obtain data directly from respondents. 

Questionnaire will be designed by the researcher by taking assistance from the literature review. In survey method the researcher only guides the employees when they have an issues regarding the questionnaire.  Descriptive statistics has been used to describe the sample. Unit of analysis in this study was the employees of Virgin Group.

7.2. Sampling Design

The data for the research will be collected from different business of Virgin Group, and for this purpose employees will be selected for the purpose of data collection. The main focus of research is on creativity, innovation and leadership in the Virgin Group. The population of study will be employees working in Virgin Group. The number of employees working in United Kingdom is approximately 1400. Therefore, the sample size of research will be 350 employees working in different businesses in of Virgin Atlantic in London. This size of sample has been selected keeping in view the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) model. 

This was the cross - sectional study in which data will be collected once in across the population. The main technique for sampling, which will be used is convenience sampling, which is a type of “non - probability sampling technique”. Convenience sampling is a type of technique in which the members of the population are conveniently available as according to Saunders et al, (2009).  The sampling location chosen for this study was from London. Due to the personal reference, questionnaire will be filled easily. The questionnaires were distributed to 350 respondents and sent to different department.

7.3. Instrument

The instrument of research will be close – ended questionnaire and it will be developed by the researcher as there are not well – developed instrument which can cater all of the three variables of the research. The scale of research will be Five point Likert scale. The first section of questionnaire will include demographics in which the main business to which employee belongs will be mentioned. Rank, position, age and gender will also be part of the questionnaire. The second section will include the items related to the variables.

7.4. Statistical Tools and Techniques

SPSS version 19.0 will be used to analyse the collected data. The main tests which will be generated will include

• Descriptive statistics
• Mean
• Pearson Correlation

These tests will identify the shape of the data and the relationship between leadership, creativity and innovation. For the demographics section frequency tables and graphs will be used.

7.5. Data Collection Method

Questionnaire is one of the most widely used survey technique. The data through questionnaire will be collected from 350 respondents of Virgin Group. The participants will be the Executive Officer, manager, non-managerial staff and Officer of Virgin Group businesses. Researcher personally will personally collect data. The representatives of the administration department will disseminate the questionnaires and they will be collected by them too and handed over to researcher. The language will simple and it was easily understandable by the employees selected as sample for this study. The medium of communication used will be English.

 

 

The ethical considerations are very important to be taken into account whenever the research is in plan because through this ethics are identified and researcher gets to know about the boundaries into which research should be conducted. The ethical considerations of the current research will be

• The name and identity of the respondents will be kept anonymous, only the name of the company will be mentioned.
• The researcher will not force any respondent for data.
• The data will not be disclosed to the higher authority.
• The data will be used for academic purpose.

 

The creativity and innovation will be defined in detail from the perspective of an organisation as well as literature review. It will be identified that the organisational leadership is foundation of creativity and innovation in an organisation. Without the role of the leaders who puts the creativity and innovation in motion and also sustains it, renewal or transformation of an organisation is not possible. Hence there is a need of the creative leaders by an organisation to initiate, control and implement innovation process. The findings of the research will indicate that the inspiration of the leaders to employees who play role in effective application of innovation and creativity.

The following structure will be followed for completion of the research study.

 

Research Activity	1st week	2nd week	3rd week	4th week	5th week	6th week	7th week	8th week	9th week	10th week	11th week
Introduction
Collection of articles from renown journals
Literature review writing
Work on methodology chapter
Data collection
Data punching in SPSS
Data analysis
Discussion and Conclusion
Proofreading and formatting

Table: GANTT Chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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