INTRODUCTION

In the past, the research studies show that the interest in the subject of leadership in higher education has got tremendous attention for discussion and debate. Leadership as a concept has continuously been evolved due to globalization, advancements in technology and work practices. It has been widely accepted and shared that the role of academic leaders cannot be ignored in shaping and transforming institution for better performance. Andrew, et. al.

(2015) opined that for organizations to be successful in this competitive environment requires dynamic and capable leaders. Academic leaders are the backbone for the success and survival of universities and other higher educational institutions and play an instrumental role in achieving academic excellence. Ahmad and Mir (2012) stressed the need for effective and sound academic leaders for transforming institutions and enabling them to meet global standards. The future belongs to those institutions and universities that can outshine and outrun their competitors by exhibiting and upholding the ethos of academic culture and by contributing towards institutional building and national development. It has therefore, posed challenge as well as opportunity before academic leadership to develop an effective academic policy which must be acceptable, result oriented and futuristic in order to compete at global level.

Past research studies have pointed out numerous leadership styles that are effective as per organizational contexts and settings, however in educational sector the use of transformational leadership has got immense popularity and relevance. Middlehurst, et. al. (2009), Bolden et. al. (2008) and Anderson and Johnson (2006) concluded that transformational leadership style is very effective in realizing the goals and objectives of educational institutions. Transformational leadership practices has a major role in contributing towards achieving institutional objectives and thereby in determining its success (Amin and Hassan, 2010; Laohavichien, et.al. 2009 and Burns, 2004).

Institution Building Practices:

1) Quality Teaching:

Quality of teaching is considered as an important pillar of institution building and in achieving academic excellence. The quality of teaching in an institution impacts the employability of students as it helps in developing their skills, abilities, knowledge and mental faculties. The teaching in an institution should match academic quality standards as this has link towards gaining higher ranks among world academic institutions. Every rating agency and institution keeps quality of teaching as an important factor in determining the progress and performance of institution.

2) Quality Research:

Research in education is necessary in order to provide a basis for educational planning. It is one of the main fields that should be embedded in higher education curriculum (Niemi and Jakku-Sihvonen, 2006). Quality Research is gaining immense popularity among academicians and policy makers as it enhances the country’s resource base and results in institutional competitiveness. Higher educational institutions are in a race to outperform each other as quality of research in educational institutions is critical factor in achieving competitive advantage.

3) Academic - Industry Linkages:

The academic- industry partnership is a win – win collaboration where both benefit from one another. The linkages between the two helps universities to share their research expertise and academic know-how with industry experts and similarly industry acquires and hires individuals, graduates, and researches for enhancing their innovation capabilities. Institution building process calls for developing strong ties between academic institutions and industry. Jacob et al., (2000) stressed that organisational design, or more specifically intra-organisational design, must be structured and coordinated to support knowledge exchange between university and industry.

4) Performance Management System:

Sudin (2011) opined that performance appraisal is a managerial process that relates the organizational objectives, performance standard and evaluation to the performance review that is applied. (Getnet et al., 2014 and Ikramullah et al., 2011) believed that performance appraisal process helps in enhancing the morele of employees towards their job performance. (Salleh et al, 2013 and Moulik and Mazumdar, 2012) pointed out that performance appraisal performance helps in development of individuals which leads to their commitment towards their organizations. Hussain et al (2008) were of the view that performance appraisal is perceived degree to which performance appraisal system has attributes, those are right for fair and accurate evaluation of employee job performance. Appraisal process must be continuous and there should be communication of feedback to the individuals about their performance.

5) Training and Development:

Dessler (2003) opined that training and development programs play a critical role in enhancing the knowledge, abilities and attitude of employees towards their work. Obeidat et al., 2014 stressed that training and development is concerned with imrpvining the knowledge, competencies and skills of individuals for performing better. Rotherberg (2003) opined that training is designed to help the organization to accomplish objectives. Chang (2008) highlighted that training to employees’ means giving them opportunity to learn and increase their efficiency and professional knowledge. Training plays an important role in the development of individual and contributes towards his commitment and satisfaction with work and organization.

6) Organizational Culture (OCTAPACE):

OCTAPACE Culture refers to the extent to which openness, confrontation, trust, autonomy, pro-activity, authenticity, collaboration and experimentation are valued and promoted in an organization (Rao and Abraham 1986 and Ganihar and Nayak, 2007). Organizational culture includes beliefs, views, norms, assumptions and shared values which are available in the organization. In other words, it is the way of performing works by the organization (Gunter and Furnham, 2014; Panagiotis, Alexandros and George, 2014). Institutional Culture plays a critical role in determining how individuals work and perform at work places.

7) Graduate Employability:

Employability encompasses the combination of four aspects of higher education: ‘understanding of subject matter’ (propositional knowledge in the form of mastery of the subject matter of the degree), ‘skilful practices’ (these can be characterised as procedural knowledge), ‘efficacy beliefs’ (belief that one generally can make some impact on situations and events) and ‘metacognition’ (awareness of what one knows and can do, and of how one learns more). Employers pay less importance to academic credentials and more importance to personal attributes and skills when the supply of graduates increases (Brown et al, 2003). Garcia-Aracil (2009) presented a review of research about student and job satisfaction using survey data to identify what aspects of the academic environment had the highest influence on student satisfaction and student learning.

8) Career Planning and Development:

Career planning and development has significant impact in developing employee potentials and improving individual efficiency. Manolescu (2003) defined career planning as a continuous process for an individual to develop his own occupational concept as a result of his own skills and abilities, needs, motivations and aspirations. Rao (1999) viewed career opportunities as an important factor in providing a developmental climate in any organization. Career planning must align individual career needs and aspirations with organizational needs and opportunities.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

A. Research Objectives:

The following objectives have been laid down for the present study:

1) to study the existing perception of teaching staff towards transformational leadership and institution building practices prevailing in sample select universities,

2) to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and institution building,

3) to draw conclusions and suggest measures for improving transformational leadership and institution building practices.

B. Hypotheses:

Keeping in view the above objectives, the following hypothesis has been formulated for the present study:

H1. There exist a positive and significant relationship between transformational leadership and institution building.

C. Reliability Test:

It is very important for the empirical studies to test the reliability of the variables as it depicts to what extent variables can produce consistent results if computed or calculated repeatedly. The most widely used method to check the reliability is Cronbach’s Alpha Test. A pre-test on 60 employees was done to check the validity of the instrument and it was found quite valid as no issues were reported while responding to the framed questions and thus used for final analysis. In the present study, we used Cronbach’s Alpha Test in order to measure reliability and the same is depicted in table 1.

Table1. Reliability Test

S.no	Variables	No.of Items	Cronbach’s Alpha
1	Idealized attribute	4	0.79
2	Idealized behavior	4	0.82
3	Inspirational motivation	4	0.74
4	Intellectual simulation	4	0.72
5	Individual consideration	4	0.84
6	Quality of teaching	3	0.77
7	Quality of research	3	0.69
8	Performance appraisal system	4	0.80
9	Training and development	4	0.78
10	Academic-industry linkages	3	0.81
11	Graduate employability	4	0.68
12	OCTAPACE Culture	8	0.70
13	Career development	4	0.83

D. Data Collection:

The study was performed in four universities of J and K state. The study targeted 206 academic staff out of which only 171questionnaires was received back. Out of the 171 questionnaires returned, nine responses were found either incomplete or not fit for analysis. Therefore 162 questionnaires were used for final analysis representing usable response rate of 78.64 %. The questionnaire also gathered information on demographic variables such as gender and age. Male staff comprised of 98 employees (60.49%). Academic staff having more than fifty years of age consisted of 64 (39.50%) while those having age between 40-50 years represented 52 (32.09 %) and academic staff having age between 30-40 years represented 46 (28.39%).

F: Sample Study Organizations:

The present study was confined to the Higher Educational Institutions in J and K state. The sample institutions included University of Kashmir (Kashmir), University of Jammu, (Jammu), Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (Rajouri) and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (Katra). The selection of universities was based on purposive sampling while respondents were chosen as per proportionate random sampling.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Table 2: Teaching staff’s perception towards transformational leadership

Construct	Mean score	Std. Deviation
Idealized attribute	3.33	.81
Idealized behavior	3.29	.77
Inspirational motivation	3.35	.76
Intellectual simulation	3.27	.71
Individual consideration	3.24	.79
Transformational Leadership	3.27	.77

Table 2 shows the perception of academic staff towards transformational leadership practices in select universities in J and K. It was found that overall perception of academic staff towards transformational leadership practices was found favourable with overall mean score of 3.27. Moreover, the highest perception among dimensions of transformational leadership was found in inspirational motivation with mean score of 3.35, it was followed by idealized attribute with mean score of 3.33, idealized behaviour 3.29, intellectual stimulation 3.27 and the least satisfaction was found towards individual consideration with mean score of 3.24.

Table 3: Teaching Staff’s perception towards institution building practices

Construct	Mean score	Std. Deviation
Quality of teaching	3.41	.70
Quality of research	3.29	.68
Performance appraisal system	3.32	.78
Training and development	3.36	.82
Academic-industry linkages	3.30	.77
Graduate employability	3.34	.69
OCTAPACE Culture	3.39	.72
Career development	3.45	.75
Institution Building	3.36	.73

Table 3 shows the perception of academic staff towards institution building practices in select universities in J and K. It was found that overall perception of academic staff towards institution building practices was found positive with overall mean score of 3.36. The highest perception among dimensions of institution building was found towards career development with mean score of 3.45, it was followed by quality of teaching, OCTAPACE culture, training and development, graduate employability, performance appraisal system, academic industry linkages and quality of research with mean scores of 3.41, 3.39, 3.36, 3.34, 3.32, 3.30 and 3.29 respectively.

Table 4: Relationship between transformational leadership and Institution Building

Correlations
		Transformational leadership	Institution Building
Transformational Leadership	Pearson Correlation	1	.516^**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.000
	N	162	162
Institution Building	Pearson Correlation	.516^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
	N	162	162

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 4 depicts that there is a positive and significant relationship between transformational leadership and institution building in sample select universities. It depicts that the more we exhibit transformational leadership in universities the more it will lead towards institution building. The correlation between transformational leadership and institution building was found (r=.516, p=0.000) which is both positive as well as statistically significant. Therefore, the hypotheses 1 is accepted, indicating a positive and significant relationship exists between transformational leadership and institution building.

CONCLUSIONS:

In the present study an attempt was made to examine the linkages between transformational leadership and institution building. The findings of the study revealed that there exists a positive and significant relationship between the transformational leadership and institution building practices. It can be stressed from this finding that more the transformational leadership practices are exhibited the more it would lead to develop institution building practices.

On the basis of findings, the present study suggests that universities need to focus on exhibiting transformational leadership behavior that would lead to enhance employee delivery at work places. The study suggests that academic leaders should pay more attention to individual’s needs and aspirations for improving their morale and commitment towards their organization. The study also suggests that more humane approach is demanded from academic leaders towards their academic staff that would help in building superior-subordinate relationships. The study also suggests that an atmosphere of creativity and positive thinking must be promoted for exploiting the inner talent and potential of individuals.

The findings of the study also points study universities must focus much on developing academic and industry linkages for improving its image and providing better employment avenues to their students.

The study highlights that universities should create an atmosphere of promoting quality teaching and research which would enable faculty members to develop themselves better in delivering their services to students. The study also suggests that performance appraisal process must be fair, transparent and timely for enhancing academic staff’s satisfaction and commitment in performing their assigned duties and tasks.

The present study is faced with some limitations. Firstly, the study was confined to only four universities J and K. As such the findings of the study cannot be generalized, thus future research can include other universities with wider geographical representation. Secondly, only state universities were taken in the present study, therefore future research can include private and central universities as well in order to capture and generalize the results. Thirdly, perceptions through demographic variables such as age, gender experience, designation and qualification were ignored in this study; therefore future research can consider these factors so that transformational leadership and institution building practices can be studied more exhaustively.

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Received on 02.01.2018 Modified on 24.01.2018

Asian Journal of Management. 2018; 9(2):869-874.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2018.00137.3