The Project
Section 1 of this study was used to review the field of leadership and its current
environment in business and research. While the field of leadership is rich in research at an
individual leader level and strategies abound at the many processes and functional levels of an
organization, the researcher proposed there is a gap in knowledge and literature regarding the
purposeful coordination of leaders within an organization through a leadership strategy via the use
of an organizational leadership framework. The organizational leadership framework is a synthesis
of an organization’s strategies, functions, culture, and individual behavioral efforts into universal
guiding principles in which all facets of the business reference and follow to create more intelligent
and coordinated magnetic like movements across the organization. MacLeod (2016) stated that in
business there is a need for a clear vision, purposeful mission, and guiding values that form a
constitution by which everything in the organization is measured, yet few organizations are
meaningful, motivating, and inspiring in stating their objectives. When these objectives are set,
Thompson (2017) pointed out that members of an organization need to know how managers desire
to achieve these objectives along the way and if those actions are matching the desires of the
organization.
The objective of this research is to begin a shift in research from leadership as an individual
experience to that of a collective experience guided by the organization and provided through a
single universal approach, the organizational leadership framework. This organizational leadership
strategy, the organizational leadership framework, is thus far not represented well in research.
When it comes to research representing the collective leadership experience organizational culture
seems to be the main subject research has to offer on the topic. Díaz-Soloaga (2019) cited a
definition of organizational culture as a set of behavioral habits generated by the people of a
company that crystallize in basic assumptions. Omazić et al. (2020) stated that culture is a cause
and consequence of behavior that determines the overall success of an organization while directing
the decisions and behaviors of management and employees alike.
The research of the collective leadership experience through organizational culture presents
a reactive group influenced by their environment where Belias and Koustelios (2015) showed the
leaders ability to understand and adapt determines their effectiveness. The organizational
leadership framework eliminates an assumptive and reactive environment through further
clarification and communication of the organizations desired leadership approach. Like a
constitution, the organizational leadership framework reflects how the organizations desires those
they employ to lead within their roles. Within this study the first initiative in setting up the shift
from an individual to collective leadership experience focus is to show through a single case study
that leadership is indeed uncoordinated and lacking a consistent approach around how their
organization desires them to lead to accomplish the organizational objectives in their role. This
section provides procedural information regarding participants, data collection, data analysis, and
other pertinent information on how the study is to be performed.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this qualitative case study is to expand upon the leadership body of
knowledge by exploring the lack of an organizational leadership framework in a business
environment and its effect on leadership and business results. Current leadership knowledge,
learning, and focus seem to be on the individual leader. Lahtero et al. (2019) stated in their study
of distributed leadership in the educational industry that traditional leadership approaches are often
leaving individuals feeling demotivated with a decreased sense of well-being and lacking
meaningfulness. Kellerman (2016) stated that in the world of business leadership as an industry
needs to shift its learning through the shedding of its obsession with individual leaders and shifting
to a focus of creating a systemic approach. This research focused on leadership within the retail
industry. Retail is the second-largest employer industry in the United States (Duffin,
2020), and it is also the eighth largest industry representing 5.8% of the Gross Domestic Product
(Shriever, 2020). The retail industry's impact on the field of leadership is significant, while the
researcher also has a working knowledge and experience in the field. This study sought to explore
this more significant problem by highlighting the individualized leadership approach within retail
store leadership in the United States and reveal the need for a systemic approach to leading within
an organization to improve leadership and organizational effectiveness.
Role of the Researcher
The researcher in a qualitative study plays a far different role compared to that of a
quantitative study. Stake (2010) stated that the qualitative researcher is an instrument themselves
in the qualitative study, often observing and even playing a subjective role in the study as they use
their own experience for interpretation. Creswell and Poth (2018) stated that an understanding of
philosophy in qualitative research is essential as it reviews the philosophical assumptions that
underlie qualitative research such as how we formulate our problem and research questions, how
those assumptions root themselves within the scholarly community that we work, and how that
causes the researcher to evaluate related research criteria for decisionmaking. Creswell (2014)
stated that in qualitative research, the inquirer or researcher is involved in intensive experiences
with participants that could create a range of issues, and therefore it is vital that researchers identify
their biases, values, and personal background reflexively.
According to Creswell (2014), because the researcher is an instrument of the study
themselves, external influences such as the researcher’s educational institution, leadership
mentors, or research community and internal influences such as the researcher’s personal,
educational, and career experiences should be addressed. The researcher’s experience with the
study includes performing the role of store manager in a retail environment for organizations with
a vision, mission, or value statement. The researcher has experienced both the presence and lack
of a leadership framework in a retail environment. The work under a leadership framework is part
of the inspiration for this study. The researcher has identified potential biases based on values and
personal background and acknowledges that the inspiration from experience and mentorship of
leaders helped identify this knowledge gap and inspiration for the study. Therefore, the researcher
used university guidelines and scholarly text to help design and bind the case in a way that
identified participants and interacted with them, their data, along with how it is handled in an
ethical way which conforms to scientific research methods. It is important that in the study results
the researcher reflected those results that are expected, unexpected, and unusual as suggested by
Creswell (2014).
Participants
Creswell (2014) stated that the following ethical considerations need addressing before the
beginning of a study: code of ethics for the researchers' professional institution, application to the
institutional review board, retrieval of necessary permissions, selection of a site without vested
interests, and negotiation for authorship of the publication. The educational institution of the
researcher has precautions to ensure all ethical considerations are in place. Participants in the study
needed to complete consent-to-participate forms. According to Creswell and Poth (2018), this form
expresses the following: the right for the participant to withdraw, describes the purpose and
procedures of the study including researcher as the author, protects the confidentiality of the study,
expresses known risks to participants in the study, expected benefits to participants in the study,
and signature of both participant and researcher. No participant selection came from any
organization where the researcher stood to benefit from the research.
Access of participants is randomized but specific to the selected organization due to its use
of a leadership framework and follows the process outlined in the data collection section of this
study. This is what Creswell (2014) referred to as purposefully selected participants as they help
the researcher to best understand the problem and research questions. No contact with any
participant occurred without prior approval of the Institutional Review Board. Contact of
participants occurred via email rather than sources that track relationships or profile views such as
the likes of social media. Potential participants were briefed on all aspects of the study for complete
clarity and stressed to each participant is an option to withdraw at any time for any reason. As with
all research, protecting the privacy and anonymity of the participants is an essential part of this
process.
Research Method and Design
This qualitative case study sought to understand further the need for an organizational
leadership framework that sets forth principles, a compass, or the constitution of leadership
behaviors that is a synthesis of an organization's strategies, functions, culture, and individual
behavioral efforts to create more magnetic leadership movements that shift the focus of research
from leadership as an individual approach to that of a collective unit. This study aimed to create a
foundation for future work in the organizational leadership framework by seeking to show that
each leader of an organization takes a different uncoordinated approach to achieving the vision,
mission, or values of an organization that is formed through their own understanding of their
individual leadership experience. The creation of an organizational leadership framework is to
change the current business environment approach to leadership and the culture or environment it
creates from reactive to proactive. This section discusses the selection of a qualitative method and
digs further into the design's choice of a case study.
Method
The method of this research study is qualitative. Creswell (2014) stated that the qualitative
research design lends itself to a social constructivist world view where people desire to understand
where they live and work. Creswell and Poth (2018) described qualitative research as a problem
that needs exploring within a group or population in which identifiable variables cannot easily
measure and has a strong desire to understand the context of the participants. This study sought to
understand if leaders are indeed coordinated in their efforts to achieve an organization's, vision,
mission, or values under a leadership framework is the objective. Such a behavioral focus makes
selection and measuring of a variable challenging. The study sought to understand the context and
construct of the participants. Stake (2010) stated that from a qualitative study, the reader gets a
better sense of experience in a complicated situation. This description further aligns the study's
objective with the selected qualitative method as it sought to study the experience of leaders within
a retail industry setting and the complexity in how the individuals, groups, and organizations
interact.
Design
This study is designed as a single case study. Creswell (2014) stated that case studies can
be found in many fields and are used to evaluate programs, events, activities, or processes of one
or more participants. Case studies are useful in a variety of settings. Yin (2014) stated that case
studies are popular in the study of business and arise out of the desire to understand complex social
phenomena. Understanding the dynamics of leaders without a common approach to how the
organization desires its members to achieve their vision, mission, or values is one such example.
Creswell and Poth (2018) described the case study as a qualitative approach where researchers
study and explore real-life bounded systems over a period through the data collection of multiple
sources.
Yin (2014) described a case study as one of the most challenging avenues in social science
with the researcher’s goal to fairly collect, present, and analyze data. Creswell and Poth (2018)
stated that the objective of a quality instrumental case study is to present an in-depth understanding
of the problem through multiple sources. This being a single case study design allowed for a more
in-depth analysis of the organizational leadership framework. This case and its objectives align
with Yin’s (2014) first rational of a critical case design in that it wished to contribute significant
knowledge and theory building by attempting to shape and shift future research in the field of
leadership. As this case examined the global nature of an organizations leadership it has what Yin
(2014) referred to as a holistic design with both its strengths and opportunities found in the nature
of the case itself. With the single case design the researcher can reach a greater percentage of the
leaders in a single organization providing more depth, understanding, and saturation. The design
of this research as a single case focused on using multiple units of analysis through interviews at
different levels of overall store leadership beginning with the store manager and ending with the
district manager. Yin (2014) described the use multiple units of analysis as seeking to repeat the
data produced to predict similar or contrasting results. This description aligned with how the case
is bound along with its population and sampling. Through data saturation and ethical collection
and analysis of the data collected the researcher presented a well-rounded set of research results
which reflect expected, unexpected, and unusual results (Creswell, 2014).
Population and Sampling
The population selected for this study were retail store managers along with their overall
store leaders identified as district managers. The store manager respective leaders included those
who are solely responsible for the leadership of store managers and the store functional unit who
have no subordinates responsible for other areas or functional units of the business such as
corporate office or distribution center roles. The selected retail store manager group and their
respective leaders are a part of a retail organization in the United States which practiced a form of
an organizational leadership framework in communicating the direction of an organizational
objective. This research anticipated that store managers would provide coordinated approaches,
experiences, perspectives, and interpretations towards accomplishing the overall objectives of an
organization while each leadership level closer to the top of the leadership hierarchy would align
more closely to one another and the overall organizational objectives.
The National Retail Federation (2020) stated that the retail industry supports forty-two
million American jobs while directly employing 29 million people. According to the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics (2020), the number of front-line supervisors leading this work force is
1,171,900. Statista (2020) showed that these employees worked across 442,597 different brickand-
mortar locations across the United States which would also equate to the equal amount of store
managers within the United States.
For this study, the researcher limited the selection of a retail organization to those based in
the United States with a store count between 100 and 500 brick-and-mortar retail locations that
were identifiable in practice a form of a vision, mission, or value statements, and offered a form of
the leadership framework. While no statistics were readily available the researchers 23 years of
experience in the retail industry contained knowledge that this count would provide the
organization with at least two district managers at the upper level of leadership while allowing for
a manageable purposeful sample size that also provided room for a maximum variation approach.
At the higher echelon of management, the sample size would be less, increasing in size at the store
manager role where the sample size expected to hit saturation of new response at approximately
no more than 10 to 15% of the store manager population after the purposeful and randomized
candidate selection process. Creswell (2014) described saturation as data which no longer reveals
new insights.
Yin (2014) stated that in sampling within a case study the size will never be adequate to
represent the larger population and that the case, rather than being a sample itself, is meant to
instead shed empirical light about a theoretical concept. However, Gill (2020) stated that the
selection of an appropriate sampling process will enhance the rigor of a qualitative study. With the
list of qualified retailers containing potential participants for the study, the researcher then initiated
contact with organizations explaining the study and requesting permission to interview
participants. Once permission was obtained from an organization, participants were selected at
random across the organization by the researcher using their available email list that represent
different geographical locations throughout the United States. After a comprehensive explanation
of the study and upon showing interest in participation, two qualifying questions were asked of
potential store manager and district manager interview candidates.
The first qualification required the candidate be able to acknowledge awareness of and
familiarity with or access to the organization objective and vision, mission, or values and
leadership framework. This verification of the participants ability to identify the organizational
objectives and ensures they can provide insightful responses to the interview questions. The second
qualification required the participant to be with their organization and in their role for a minimum
of one year. The selection of store managers and their respective leaders due to their experience
and place within the organization is an example of what Creswell and Poth (2018) described as
purposeful sampling or selecting of participants that inform the understanding of the research’s
problem or central phenomenon. Steffens et al. (2014) stated that individuals display higher level
of performance as their tenure increases at an organization. One year allows the participants’ the
experience of all seasons of the retailer along with at least one formal feedback process. This
provides the candidates both experience and confidence in their ability to answer the interview
questions.
Creswell and Poth (2018) stated that case studies prefer unusual cases with maximum
variation. The population and sampling of this research provided such variation. Farrugia (2019)
stated that maximum variation involves the recruitment of study participants who vary widely on
dimensions of interest while identifying themes that hold true across a diverse sample. The
population of store manager and district manager candidates is vast in its selection while the
sampling process gives confidence to variation.
The selection of store managers as a base for this study along with their respective leaders
is due to the complexity and boundary spanning reaches of their role. Loi et al. (2018) stated that
the role of the store manager is complex with the individual applying a broad set of skills to act as
if they were entrepreneur’s running their own business. Nuvolari et al. (2018) stated that the
entrepreneur and his or her journey is complex in activities which involve a wide array of talents,
skills, and abilities with varying outcomes. However, while store managers may act as
entrepreneurs running their individual stores, they are doing so to fulfill the objectives or vision,
mission, and values of an organization.
Making the challenge even more complex is their position as middle management. Leavitt
(2005) discussed that even as organizations attempt to flatten their structure, hierarchy remains
leaving middle managers as being expected to both humanize and inspire while also systemizing
their people to tighten controls and speed up operations. Leavitt (2005) continued that the modern
middle manager-leader should investigate and develop themselves to become savvy about the
power and politics of their organization. Store managers as middle management are left to navigate
the world of the organization above their role to better guide those whom they lead.
Arnold et al. (2019) stated that store managers play a critical role in linking top
management and retail employees while being vital in the fulfillment of corporate strategy in the
store environment. The role of a store manager in a retail environment is essential in the execution
and achievement of the company's vision, mission, or value strategies. However, as acting
entrepreneurs, each store manager may have their own values and perspectives that are different
from the organization which influence the decisions and strategy they chose for their location
which directly affects their business and those employed at the location. For example, Vieira et al.
(2018) showed that salespeople encounter different types of leadership behaviors through leaders
who project their beliefs. This reflects the suggestion that without an organizational leadership
framework stating desired behaviors and approaches to reach their objectives, store managers may
be providing an aimless uncoordinated approach in achieving those objectives. Hughes and
Denison (2019) stated that the future of leadership needs to be an interaction or process rather than
a person. This study sought to provide a path forward towards that purpose through revealing the
need for an organizational leadership framework or strategy.
Yin (2014) stated that a when a single case design is selected more insight should be
provided as to why a single case design is selected. This research sought to be the foundation for
a shift in future research from the individual leadership focus to leadership as a collective process
through an organizational leadership framework. A group of store and district manager candidates
from a single organization will provide greater depth and variation regarding their collective
experience at various organizational levels and reveal greater insights with a more expansive
participant count that obtains a higher ratio of the participant population to better reach saturation.
This in-depth analysis of the research theory at different roles within in an organization is an
example of what Farrugia (2019) stated as an exploration of various aspects to increase confidence
in study findings through replication. However, this study fully expected and anticipated the need
for future research and simply sought to serve as a foundation for future research that will include
steps such as a multiple case study of the same design and studies that implement and lack an
organizational leadership framework.
Data Collection
Stake (2010) stated that qualitative research is also known as interpretive research as it
relies on the observers to interpret and reinterpret meanings of the observations. The researcher
leads in this interpretation as they are conducting the research. The researcher in qualitative
research designs the study, collects the data, and analysis the results. Stake (2010) stated that the
most valuable instrument in qualitative research is the researcher. Creswell and Poth (2018)
pointed out that in qualitative research, the researcher often creates the instrument itself, such as
an interview, rather than relying on the interview tools of another research. This case study and its
data arrived through the interviewing process. Interviewing is an essential process for clarification
and understanding of individuals and their environment. Stake (2010) stated that interviews obtain
information held by the person, collect numerical aggregation of information from many persons,
and find out about a thing the researcher is unable to view themselves through probing questions.
Creswell and Poth (2018) described interviewing as a social interaction where knowledge gets
constructed in an interactive attempt to understand the world from the subject’s point of view. This
point of view is difficult to capture via other avenues.
The data collection used in this qualitative case study is an interview guide. With a retail
organization within the United States identified, the researcher used qualifying questions to
determine participants for the process of being interviewed for the study. The researcher in this
case study designed open-ended probing interview questions to uncover information central to the
two research questions of the case study. Within the interview guide questions designed around a
leader’s decision-making in how they approach their role as a leader represent the first central
research question, how leaders approach the vision, mission, or values of an organization. This
represented the first central research question. Within these questions the researcher expected
lower variance and some alignment in an environment with an organizational leadership
framework simply due to nature of the work and routines found in having the same metrics and
goals tracked. These questions expected to find alignment due to design of the role or job
description.
Follow-up questions are important to a study and need to be carefully planned. Yin (2014)
stated to avoid the word why in follow-up questions as it creates defensiveness in the interviewee,
instead use of the word how should be used to create more friendly and nonthreatening questions.
Follow-up questions for this case study were designed as such to avoid defensiveness and reveal
further information central to the two research questions of the case study. Within the interview
guide questions designed around the participant’s interpretation of how, or the prioritization and
arrival of their approach, represented the second central research question, how does the presence
of an organizational leadership framework affect the leader’s approach towards accomplishing the
vision, mission, or values. Within these questions the researcher expected little variance with
alignment in an environment with an organizational leadership framework as there may still be
interpretation opportunities from leaders of the organization in how they are desired to lead.
Creswell (2014) stated that it is the researcher who makes the interpretations of the
statistical results through interpreting themes and patterns which emerge in the data. This process
makes the researcher an instrument of the study conducted in qualitative research. These interviews
were recorded and transcribed to code and interpret the data retrieved from the participants.
Creswell (2014) stated that interviewing explores a process and recommends notetaking during the
interview process in the case of equipment failure. Creswell and Poth (2018) stated that these notes
also help the researcher organize thoughts during the interview process, such as how to organize
the data and its themes.
The interview guide itself conformed to the recommendation of Creswell (2014) who stated
that procedures for interview protocol include the following: heading, instructions for the
interviewer, questions along with probing for those questions, space to record responses, a thank
you statement, space for logs along with comments on reliability and validity. These transcriptions
will be kept on the researcher's hard drive and labeled by the position and interviewee number so
that not disclose the possible identity of any participant. In coding the data, each level of leadership
will be labeled as follows: SM for Store Manager and DM for
District Manager. The set up for this case study labeled the participants at the store manager level
as SM(1), SM(2), SM(3), and so on while the store managers leader were labeled DM(1), DM(2),
and so on to identify the different levels of leadership.
The coding method within each case used a pattern matching technique. Yin (2014)
described the pattern matching technique as desirable in pattern-matching logic as it compares an
empirically based pattern, one based on findings from the case study with the predicted ones before
data are collected. Within this case each level of leadership remained separate from one another in
data analysis to provide more depth in the study by allowing the researcher to analyze the data at
increasing levels of the organization. The research design provided the researcher data regarding
the experience at different levels to determine if alignment and coordination strengthened or
weakened up and down the leadership hierarchy. While a single case study, the multi-level
leadership approach allows for a form of cross-case synthesis to be applied which Yin (2014)
described as making results stronger and more robust due to aggregated findings across a series of
studies.
Data Analysis
Yin (2014) stated that there must be caution taken in the analysis of data so that questions
of the case study remain the unit of analysis while the unit of data collection remain at a separate
and different level. This specific case study focused on the presence of a corporate strategy around
leadership, named in this study as an organizational leadership framework. Thompson (2017)
stated that while the purpose of an organization explains why they exist, and the mission and vision
explains where they are going, organizations need clear direction to explain how they desire to
their members to behave or achieve the objectives along the way. The data analysis focused on the
decision-making of leaders with an organizational leadership framework. The research sought to
discover if the presence of an organizational leadership framework led to a
