Strategic Planning: United Arab Emirate Public Organisations - Research Proposal Example

IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN THE UAE’S PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Table of Contents IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN THE UAE’S PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS 1 Table of Contents 2 1.0 Aims and Objectives 3 1.1 Aims 3 1.2 Objectives 3 2.0 Literature Review 4 3.0 Research Approach or Methodology 7 3.1 Primary Research 7 3.2 Secondary Research 8 3.3 Population and Sample Selection 8 4.0 Expected Outcomes 8 Research Plan and Timetable 9 References 11 Impact of Effective Strategic Planning and Leadership Development in the UAE’s Public Organisations 1.0 Aims and Objectives 1.1 Aims 1. Assess and explore the conceptual nature of leadership development and strategic planning as they apply to the public organisations in UAE. 2. Investigate the effectiveness of the leadership development programmes in the development of leadership practices at the public organisations. 3. Examine the implementation levels of strategic plans and ascertain the extent to which leadership development currently occurs at the public organisations. 4. Identify the initiatives of leadership development utilised in the public organisations and analyse the usefulness of leadership development forms. 5. Evaluate the significance of internal (organisational) and external (contextual) barriers on the strategic planning at the public organisations. 1.2 Objectives 1. To examine the extent to which strategic planning has been espoused in the public organisations. 2. To ascertain factors impeding and contributing to the smooth implementation of strategic management in the public organisations 3. To assess how factors like organisation culture, leadership traits as well as organisation structure can impact strategic planning 4. To identify the leadership development programmes espoused in the public organisations 5. To identify hurdles that prevents the occurrence of successful leadership development in the public organisations as well as how such obstacles may be overcome. 2.0 Literature Review In democratic systems, it is the obligation of the government to promote the public value as well as to differentiate public management from private administration in a basic and moral sense that serves a higher purpose (Rosenbloom et al., 2015, p.10). Although it is often hard to precisely identify what the public desires, it is the obligation of the public administrators to take the public interest into account. In UAE, in spite of the immature democratic system, the public interest as stipulated by the ruler is as an objective and obligation of the government. Therefore, strategic planning has been used as a way of helping the communities to handle change as well as improve their ability to learn, act and think, strategically. Thanks to strategic planning, the UAE public sector organisations have successfully promoted strategic thinking; thus, improving decision-making, improving the effectiveness of the public sector, and creating interconnectedness. All the above-mentioned benefits have been viewed by Bryson (2010, p.S255) as a valid reason for adopting strategic planning within the public sector. Basically, leaders in the public organisations play a crucial role in the process of transforming the general government sector. Such leaders are trying to drive a shift in culture within the public organisations under the influence of various theories of management, which have been successful in the private sectors. The majority of the UAE’s public sector organisations are moving from the formal as well as hierarchical structure paradigms of bureaucratic organisations to the successful structures used in the private sector. According to Sapru (2013, p.572), management theory has previously had a significant influence on the practice as well as the theory of UAE’s public administration. Evidently, the rapid growth of technology and economy has put more pressure on the public services delivery. Strategic planning as defined by Steiner (2010, p.11) is the process that an organisation when determinedly positioning itself within its task environment by responding proactively to the threats as well as opportunities provided by the task environment as they pursue their long-term goals. In the current business environment that is exceedingly competitive, the success and failure of the organisation are normally highly impacted by the existence of effective leaders having a wide perspective of the business. Moreover, Kotter (2008, p.133) believes that the increasing intensity of competition as well as the growing intricacy of organisations shows the need for leadership development has increased tremendously. As pointed out by Murphy and Reichard (2012, p.211), there is need to minimise leadership development barriers, particularly prejudice, which is the assumptions help by people that inhibit them from viewing what is new. Another barrier to leadership development is poor career planning and poor work environment. As a continuous process, strategic planning is of much essence to public organisations for the reason that its operation environment is characterised by a high pace of change, unpredictability, complexity and discontinuous change. According to O'Donovan (2014, p.58), organisations that have espoused the strategic management philosophy have a successful organisational culture. The strategic process is embraced by this culture embraces and used for developing an organisation that collaborates so as to determine its future direction. Before strategy is used by the organisation to successfully improve its current direction and structure, it must first think strategically. Basically, the ever increasingly multifaceted setting that the public organisations operate in is providing challenges, which puts its existence and survival at risk. Understanding the essence of effective strategic planning is paramount for the public organisations bearing in mind that successful strategic planning is a tool that cannot be ignored by any organisation that seeks to remain effective. Even though some literature on strategic planning and leadership development in the public organisations has materialised, this study seeks to contribute towards filling the existing gaps in the accessibility of suitable literature on leadership development and strategic planning processes in government public organisations. This study presents an exceptional research on the practices of strategic planning and leadership development in the UAE’s public organisations of Interior. The findings of the study will be crucial to the public organisations and other government institutions given that the research will examine the process utilised for leadership development as well as their effectiveness in the public organisations of Interior. It is anticipated that the research findings will offer a source for future developments, and will also offer a framework for evaluating the formation process of strategic planning that may be applied to any government institution. Almost no research has been carried out in the UAE government institution, and so the context of the research is somewhat new. The study findings will undoubtedly be important for decision-makers in the public organisations in making timely as well as quick decisions with the intention of overcoming the obstacles as well as barriers to leadership development and strategic planning. The study will also benefit other UAE public organisations through highlighting the importance as well as the value of leadership development programmes in realising the general organisational effectiveness. As observed by Groves (2007), programs of leadership development may be enhanced through developing better practices of leadership as well as enhancing the present leadership training standards all which assists the organisations in identifying future needs of leadership development. 3.0 Research Approach or Methodology This study has utilised quantitative questionnaire survey as well as qualitative semi-structured interviews research techniques in the attempt to examine the connection between various variables as well as the result in concrete results. For this reason, two key primary qualitative techniques were utilised for this research: interviews as well as questionnaires. In this case, the researcher carried out two different questionnaires as well as three different schedules for the semi-structured interview. For the purpose of this study, employees working in the public organisations of the interior were used as a unit of analysis. Besides that, the unit of analysis included both male and females. 3.1 Primary Research In the primary research, face-to-face interviews and questionnaires were selected as the two techniques for collecting data, mainly because more structured information can be generated by the questionnaires for the purpose of further analysis. In view of this, the questionnaire design was anchored on the objectives of the research as well as the literature review. Moreover, the face-to-face interview was comparatively designed so as to obtain comprehensive information by means of open-ended questions that could not be achieved through the questionnaire. 3.2 Secondary Research The researcher conducted an online search on the UAE’s official government website, Local Newspapers both in Arabic and English. In this case, the English newspapers consisted of: Gulf Today, Gulf News, as well as the Khaleej and National Times while the Arabic Newspapers consisted of Al Wahda, Al Ittihad, and Emarat Al Youm so as to achieve adequate information before communicating to the corporate leaders who were taking part in this research study. Furthermore, other secondary resources consisted of online articles, online business journals, human and business resource magazines, leadership development and HRM textbooks. Besides that, strategic plans for UAE government institutions, annual reports, as well as publications for were utilised. 3.3 Population and Sample Selection The sampled population included workers both nationals as well as non-nationals working in the UAE’s public organisations of Interior. The research will mainly focus on the public organisation in Dubai with workers from various levels in different departments (operational as well as managerial levels). In this regard, the total sample included 70 respondents whereby 35 respondents were chosen for the questionnaires. The respondents were selected based on their position in the public organisation. 4.0 Expected Outcomes It is expected that this research will prove why the success of government institutions in the United Arab Emirates must be frequently benchmarked as well as compared with other programmes for leadership development at the global level. The study is also expected to show how this can be achieved through application of the assessment selection criteria with the objective of enroling the right persons into the leadership development programmes. As it will be evidenced by the study, designing leadership development program should be given careful thought, because such programs must be in a position to offer activities of leadership development that can be measured all through the process of delivering interventions for human resource development. Observably, the public organisations should heavily invest in the skills so as to implement transactional and transformational or resource transfer as well as activities provision of the project; bearing in mind that transformational projects lead to changes that are more sustainable and lasting in the people’s lives being served by the public organisations. The study will provide evidence why the eventual achievement of strategic plans is rooted in the capability to generate lasting change for the people that the public organisation serves. In view of this, this research will validate the relationships between crucial variables in strategic planning in the context of research. It is expected that this research will highlight the relationships between leadership development and strategic planning, and their essence in UAE’s public organisations of interior. It is expected that the highlighted relationships will be a new knowledge body in the UAE context. Imperatively, leaders within the public organisations must manage the strategic planning process considering that this study results will show a number of variations in carrying out the needed steps. Research Plan and Timetable Activities From To Select topic July August Literature review Preliminary field work Preliminary research Develop research question Field works Complete draft proposal Develop research methods  Revise proposal Approval of proposal August Data collection August September Data analysis September October  Finish first draft of paper October Submit revised draft November Thesis writing November December Publications December Thesis submission December References Bryson, J.M., 2010. The Future of Public and Nonprofi t Strategic Planning in the United States. Public Administration Review, vol. 1, no. 1, pp.S255 - S267. Groves, K.S., 2007. Integrating leadership development and succession planning best practices. Journal of Management Development, vol. 26, no. 3, pp.239-60. Kotter, J.P., 2008. Force For Change: How Leadership Differs from Management. Florida: Simon and Schuster. Murphy, S.E. & Reichard, R., 2012. Early Development and Leadership: Building the Next Generation of Leaders. New York: Routledge. O'Donovan, M.G., 2014. Solvency II: Stakeholder Communications and Change. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Rosenbloom, D.H., Kravchuk, R.S. & Clerkin, R.M., 2015. Public Administration: Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Sapru, R.K., 2013. Administrative Theories and Management Thought. Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Steiner, G.A., 2010. Strategic Planning. Florida: Simon and Schuster. Read More