Leadership and Innovation Growth: A Strategic Planning and Organizational Culture Perspective

It is imperative to better understand the influence of strategic planning and organisational culture on the leadership-performance relationship within SMEs in emerging and established economies. This research contributes to a better understanding of the direct and indirect relationship that exists between leadership styles and SMEs performance within developing countries. Furthermore, this research provides managers and SME operators, within the Egyptian context, a more detailed level of understanding of the mediator influence of strategic planning. In addition, the moderating impact of organisational culture on enhancing and increasing SMEs performance is also examined. The paper investigates the role of leadership styles in SME's overall performance by examining the relationship between strategic planning, organisational structure and leadership styles. How leadership styles affect SME's Performance through the moderating effect of organisational culture and the mediating influence of strategic planning? Moreover, the paper examines the direct and indirect relationship between leadership styles, organisational culture, strategic planning and SME's performance in one integrated model in the context of an emerging economy. A cross-sectional design was chosen to critically evaluate different Egyptian SMEs. An opportunistic manufacturing SME sample (n = 50) was used. The results indicated significant positive relationships amongst the variables as demonstrated statistically using correlation sand multiple regressions. For example, positive correlations were observed between leadership, organisational culture, strategic planning and performance. Regression tests demonstrated that transformational and transactional leadership styles have a positive influence on organisational performance.