THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT AND LEADERSHIP: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF PROCESS MATURITY ON LEADER BEHAVIOR

Business processes are embedded within organizational culture, behavior and ultimately leadership actions, so why aren't researchers studying the effects of process improvement initiatives from aspects other than improved quality, speed and lower cost? Can an organization's structure and underlying process framework influence leader behaviors essential to organizational success and overall employee satisfaction? This study considers the influence of the organization on the behaviors of its leaders and supersedes the traditional leadership study which studies the influence of the leader on the organization. The objective of the study is to evaluate and compare specific leader behaviors in organizations that have been awarded a staged, CMMI process maturity level, specifically either a Maturity Level 2 or a Maturity Level 5 award. The study explores the relationship between the organizations process maturity and six dimensions of leader behavior and suggests that changes to structure and design instituted during the course of developing an organizations process maturity level present contingencies which over time lead to changes in leader behavior. The goals of the study include: 1) clarifying uncertainties regarding the value and benefits of adopting process improvement models and methodologies and 2) providing data to empirically support the influence of organizational process frameworks on leader behavior. MANCOVA and ANOVA comparisons support a significant group difference in certain leader behaviors between ML 2 and ML 5 organizations. The findings of this study provide evidence that cultural changes occurring during the course of maturing an organizations business processes do have an influence on leadership behaviors