Presenting Structural Equation Modeling OF the Impact of Visionary Leadership on Optimal Customer Relationship Management with the Mediation Role of Employee Voice

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Management, Zahedan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Zahedan, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran

Abstract

Extended abstract
Abstract
Leaderships and management, as educational system administrators, are primary factors to facilitate educational goals achievement. The purpose of the present research is to explain the effect of visionary leadership on optimized customer relationship management (CRM) with the mediating role of employee voice in Zabol University. This is an applied study in terms of purpose and a structural equation modeling (SEM) descriptive survey regarding the method. The research statistical population included all 500 staff of Zabol University. 217 samples were selected through simple random sampling method using Cochran's formula. Research data were collected using library and field study through standard questionnaires of Visionary Leadership (Conger-Kanungo-Questionnaire, 1988), Organizational Voice of Employee (Erdogan et al., 2011), and Customer Relationship Management (Moghimi and Ramezan, 2011). Questionnaires' validity was verified through factor analysis and face and content validity, and questionnaire reliability was measured 0.91, 0.87, and 0.90, respectively, through Cronbach's alpha. Research data were analyzed through SPSS 20 and Smart PLS. Research findings show that visionary leadership and its components, along with the organizational voice of employees, influence customer relationship management. Also, corporate voice mediates the relationship between visionary leadership and optimized customer relationship management. Finally, it can be concluded that visionary leadership is of a critical factor in improving the quality of customer relationship management and organizational voice of employees. Therefore, it is recommended that university administrators at various levels are sustainably committed to the organizational vision. The present research can be a new vision to change the general policies of Zabol university officials to revise innovation and transformation plans.
Introduction
Higher education and its leadership can be considered as one of the critical elements of the educational system around the world, which can play a crucial role in enhancing communities. Leadership is of the essential approaches recently interested by management experts and practitioners. Thus, regarding leadership theories, new models attempt to view the leadership phenomenon from a creative and intelligent point of view (Keikha, 2017). Universities are amongst the most valuable institutions bestowed upon communities for development. Universities, on the one hand, maintain and transmit cultural heritages and values dominating society; they satisfy the social requirement to acquire, promote, and develop knowledge and technology (Keikha, Hovieda &Yaghoubi, 2017).
Recently, with the advent of positivist psychology movement, research on leadership positive and emotional dimensions has been increasingly improved. Regarding remarkable individual and organizational results, many scholars have investigated positive leadership styles, including visionary leadership (Danaei Fard, Alvani& Azar, 2014).
Visionary leadership mainly focuses on creating a vision, communication, and sharing experiences with followers and their empowerment by the leader to realize and implement this vision. Thus, the study mainly highlights organizational visions (GolAfshani & Salehi, 2019).
Today, universities significantly contribute to individual social life. Many employees take customer relationship simple, but because of the increasingly growing of these organizations, customer management and retention is challenging (Zarei Matin, 2016).
Therefore, visionary leaders provide positive and attractive images of the future for employees and clients in such a way that individuals find their purposes. The vision leaders seek for is to create energy. They transfer the vision to employees through building positive relationships with employees and helping them realize the vision through followers' empowerment (McLaughlin&Davidson, 2006:25).
According to Dodes, customer relationship management is about delivering better services to customers at all organizational levels; customer attraction can be one of the significant goals for universities (Osunde, 2014). The main objective of visionary leadership at universities is customer relationship management, where employees are allowed to express their preferences and concerns by being encouraged to express their opinions and ideas (organizational voice) (Gholampour, Pourshafaei, Ghasemian, 2019). This significantly improves organizational activities and meeting organizational objectives. 
Case study
Universities require strong and capable leaders to organize and administer organizational operations and to attain the highest level of productivity (keikha &et al, 2017) .  Zabol University with over 10000 students, 110 courses and majors in Ph.D. and professional doctorate, master, bachelor, and associate daytime and evening time courses, and containing eight faculties, a research center of three research units, 360 full-time faculty members, Baghiyatollah 8000-hectare educational-research complex, equipped and state of the art laboratories and an unequaled webpage among national universities is one of key higher education centers in the southeast. Therefore, studying the relationship between research variables and their effects from Zabol University employees' point of view largely contribute to the university and higher education development, and may provide first-hand information to managers and planners to enhance university status in Sistan and Baluchistan. 
Research methodology
This is an applied study in terms of purpose and a descriptive survey through using structural equation modeling. The research statistical population included all 500 employees of Zabol University. Two hundred seventeen individuals have been selected as research samples through simple random sampling method using Cochran's formula. Field data were collected through Conger-Kanungo's (1988) standard visionary leadership questionnaire, Organizational Voice of Employee scale (Erdogan et al., 2011), and Customer Relationship Management questionnaire (Moghimi and Ramezan, 2011) on a 5-point Likert scale. Experts and practitioners verified face and content validity. Construct validity was estimated using factor analysis. And, questionnaire reliability was obtained using Cronbach's alpha test. Research data were descriptively and inferentially (structural equation modeling) analyzed through SPSS 20 and Smart PLS.
Results and discussion
Respecting research hypothesis indicating that visionary leadership can influence optimized customer relationship management with the mediating role of the voice of the employee, research results revealed that visionary leadership and voice of employees could explain 23.5% of customer relationship management variance. It can be concluded that research variables of visionary leadership and the sound of employees can adequately explain CRM variable variance. The indirect effect of visionary leadership on customer relationship management is statically significant (p>0.05). Therefore, it can be stated that the voice of the employee variable mediates ye relationship between visionary leadership and CRM.  Since the indirect effect of visionary leadership on customer relationship management is statistically significant, hence, the voice of employee variable mediation is partial. Finally, respecting the indirect effect coefficient of visionary leadership variable on CRM, the effect is estimated relatively direct and low. As a result, the research hypothesis is maintained. Further, of visionary leadership dimensions, environmental sensitivity, rhetoric articulation, change flexibility, as well as attention to staff requirements may influence customer relationship management. 
Conclusion
A leader's real skill is its ability to positively interact with followers in achieving university missions and meeting a prospering future. Since higher education centers are one of the central authorities of the national educational system, thus it is necessary to have visionary leaders in providing the infrastructures for functional. Organizational Voice of Employee and consequently optimized customer relationship management with students and the community. Therefore, universities and higher education centers as national educational institutions may need a visionary leadership system to contribute to international areas. 

Keywords

References

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Public Management Researches
Volume 13, Issue 48 - Serial Number 48
September 2020
Pages 217-240

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