Assignment: 5

The impacts of charismatic leadership style on team cohesiveness

and overall performance during ERP implementation

Submitted To:
Dr.Sajid haider
Submitted By:
Sumaira Sarwar (Fa19-RMS-011)
Department:
Management Sciences
Comsats University Islamabad
Vehari Campus

The impacts of charismatic leadership style on team cohesiveness

and overall performance during ERP implementation
Eric Wang a, Huey-Wen Chou a, James Jiangb
International Journal of Project Management
1) Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of project managers , charismatic
leadership styles on project teams cohesiveness and thus the teams overall performance during
ERP implementation in Taiwan
Cohesiveness

Research Model

Cohesiveness

Charismatic Project team

Leadership performance

2) Key Concepts
Charismatic Leadership
Charismatic leadership behaviors are identified as among the most critical leadership behaviors
in terms of satisfaction.
 Weber first introduced the term ‘charisma’’ and described it as a somewhat super-human
attribute, or ‘‘an endowment with the gift of divine grace.’’ According to Weber, a
charismatic leader is viewed as a mystical, narcissistic, and personally magnetic savior.
Attributed personality traits that others consider extraordinary define one characteristic of
charisma. Some researchers argue that charismatic leaders fuse each member’s personal
goals with the team or organizational mission.

Cohesiveness
 Group cohesiveness can be thought of as the degree to which members are attracted to the
group and are more motivated to remain part of the group.
 In spite of the lack of attention received in the IS literature, cohesiveness has long been
identified as a factor exerting considerable influence over work group performance and is
considered central to the study of group dynamics in other disciplines.
ERP Project Team
The term ERP project team refers to a small group in which individuals work together outside of
traditional hierarchical lines of authority on a temporary basis on ERP implementation projects
to reach some predetermined standards such as quality, within time and budget constraints.
Effective team performance
 Effective team performance derives from several fun-damental characteristics.
 First, team members need to successfully integrate their individual actions. Team
processes become a critical determinant of team performance.
 Second, teams are increasingly required to perform in complex and dynamic environments.
These performance requirements heighten the need for member coordination and cohesion.
 Team leadership represents a third characteristic of effective team performance.

3) Methodology:
Three hundred companies listed in the ‘‘Top 500 of the largest corporations in Taiwan 2001’’
that had implemented ERP systems were sent a questionnaire. Any key person, except the leader,
of the ERP project teams in each company was asked to fill out and send back the questionnaire.
Before the questionnaire was delivered to the respondents, each company was approached at
least two times to locate the key respondent. Background information on the research theme was
provided to the respondent. Among the 300 companies surveyed, 106 returned the questionnaire,
which makes a response rate of 35.3%.Among the 106 respondent companies, more than half
had implemented more than seven ERP system modules. About 21.4% of respondent companies
have fully implemented the ERP systems. About 63.7% of the implemented ERP systems came
from local vendors in Taiwan, such as DSC (15.6%), IE (5.8%), ProYoung (5.8%), with the rest
coming from foreign vendors, such as SAP (10.7%), Oracle (13.6%)
4) Findings:
After confirmatory factor and correlation analysis charismatic leadership have a positive
influence on the project teams cohesiveness and the project teams overall performance. And
statistically significant. Furthermore, the degree of team cohesiveness has a positive relationship
with project teams overall performance.
5) Conclusion:
The present study serves as an initial step to explore the impacts of charismatic leadership style
on team cohesiveness and, thus, team performance in the context of IT implementation.
The results indicate that the ERP project leaders charismatic leadership style significantly
influences the level of team cohesiveness, which, in turn, affects the overall project team
performance. This result is consistent with Cheung et al. findings that charismatic behavior has a
significant influence on project team member’s behaviors and efforts. The result also confirmed
with Thites study that charismatic leadership style can have significant effects on project
performance. The project managersexperience has a positive influence on the final project
outcomes. This study pro-vides the first empirical evidence of the importance of ISD project
manager’s ability to instill a strong sense of purpose, beliefs and values in team members. This
has a positive influence on team members cohesiveness, which, in turn, impacts team
performance.