The Relationship between Inter-Organizational Relations and Leadership Performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan

The objective of this study was to examine the influence of political-adminis-trative interface on leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. The study was guided by Leader Member Exchange Theory. The study adopted quantitative descriptive research design targeting 1973 employees working in the Ministry of Petroleum. The re-searcher adopted Yamane sampling formula to arrive at 333 employees as the sample size. The main data source was primary data collected using questionnaires and interviews. Descriptive statistics techniques were used to analyse quantitative data which include frequencies, percentages and mean. Regression analysis technique was used to analyse the inferential statistics and to test the set hypotheses. The findings were presented in the form of tables and figures. The study established significant influence of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum and assessed intervention strategies that could be adopted to improve public leadership effectiveness in the Ministry of Petroleum. The study further concluded that the poor leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan was due to inter-organizational relations caused by ineffective organizational structures. The study recommends that the Ministry of Petroleum should enhance the institutional structures for improved leadership performance there should be checks and balances in the operation of the ministry to achieve the desired accountability. Such checks and balances will go a long achieving operation efficiency and optimum resource utilization.


Introduction
As far as partnership is concerned, Lasker, Weiss, and Miller (2001) observe that partnership uncertainty is the obstacle that reveals themselves in these relationships. They typically arise because of one organization's assessment of its partners' unclear future behaviour. Task ambiguity arises from a partner's failing to perform in accordance with the relationship's terms and circumstances (Knight, 2002). According to Karthik (2002), existing ties and links between companies are more likely to generate new relationships. Similarly, the partner organizations could learn cooperative skills from one another, making them better, among other benefits that are anticipated to result from the linkages between firms (Karthik, 2002).
On Collaboration and partnership, organizations' ability to collaborate in partnerships boosts their efficacy and efficiency in accomplishing joint strategic and learning goals. Individual partners' costs are greatly lowered when they work together to pursue specific pursuits (Sigglekow, 2007). Hendrix et al. (2002) observed that cooperative arrangements between organizations resulted in higher quality of service supplied, improved access, and lower costs associated with their inter-organizational connections.
In examining public service delivery, the provision of public services was one of the major pillars of SPLM's peace building and state-building strategy as shown in Peace through Development initiative of (2000) and was granted a prominent position also among post conflict priorities with great emphasis on the "peacedividend" character of services. Indeed, post-2005 discourses on service delivery have been constantly intertwining with that of "peace dividends". This is in the belief that enabling newly established local state institutions to deliver material benefits to the citizens was crucial to avoid backdrops to war. Decentralized delivery would have increased the number of people benefitting from central resources, maximizing the positive outcomes of improving service delivery particularly to the rural areas.
The Local Governance and Service Delivery (LGSD) project was designed as a 5-year project directly engaging county executives and legislative bodies to enhance the provision of basic services, framed as not only as "peace dividends" but also as "independence dividends". The shortfalls of service delivery are attributed to SPLM/A's endemic legacy of leadership underdevelopment since its inception in 1983. Since then, the SPLM/A has been run by one-man, late Chairman, Garang, without active involvement of the rest in decision making or skilfully empowering them. The movement never had any obvious practical leader- This is particularly true in civil service institutions that continually grapple with leadership transition problems, compromising their continuity and quality of service delivery (Omondi, 2016). A long-standing organizational core and a central issue in political study and public administration, the interaction among bureaucrats and politicians is a basic issue of governance and administration in respect to their structural interaction (Rahman, 2015;Svara, 2006). However, the public service sector of the Republic of South Sudan has been subject to enormous political and social influence, which inter alia include, interference of politics, militarization of civil service, political patronage, corruption, nepotism and favouritism, low institutional capacity, and lack of professionalism (Rahman, 2015). Inter-organization relations can contribute positively to improved leadership performance. In South Sudan, however, inter-organizational governance appears less effective. The forgoing mentioned challenges constitute a research gap that requires a scholarly investigation. To narrow the research gap, the research looked into how organizational structure affected leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan.

Objective of the Study
To examine the relationship between institutional structures and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan.

HO1
We hypothesized that: There is no significant relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Wasike and Odhiambo (2016) discuss the role of theories in guiding the thrust of academic studies. They emphasize the importance of theories in offering compelling and incisive causal explanations with calculated precision. They buttress their argument by quoting Smith (1986) who asserts that theories play the role of predicting, prescribing and evaluating socio-political phenomena hence they cannot be ignored.

Theory Informing the Study
The investigation was based on Contingency theory which is a type of behavioural theory and a prominent theoretical lens for seeing organizations, with theorists Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) as proponents. It asserts that there may be no ideal way to organize a firm, lead it, make choices, or implement a strategy (Namada, 2017;Too & Makokha, 2016). Because there exists no general prescription of management policies and practices, this theory is also known as "situational", "circumstantial", or "best fit" theory (Namada, 2017;Too & Makokha, 2016). This viewpoint implies that suitable managerial action is dependent on the specific characteristics of the circumstance under which public leadership is being exercised, as some factors may be effective in some instances but not in others. It all depends on a variety of factors such as the organization's context, culture, organizational structure, leadership, decision-making style, and business strategy. According to Luthans, the theory believes that management effectiveness is contingent or depending on the interaction between the application of managerial behaviours and specific events (Luthans, 2011). In other words, your management style should alter based on the situation. It tries to question the "one-sizefits-all" management paradigm. It goes on to say that leaders must examine the contextual conditions so as to select the proper organizational structure, strategy, and design to achieve organizational goals (Ouma, Ombui, & Kagiri, 2013).
Leaders must consider all aspects of the current situation and act on those that are critical to the scenario at hand while making decisions. Contingency Theory was the basis for the analysis of the relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. This theory served as the foundation for the study and also served as the basis for the research hypotheses tests.

Conceptual Framework
In this study, independent variable was inter-organizational relations with the following measurable indicators: public private partnership, networking and collaboration. The dependent variable was leadership performance with two measure indicators: service delivery effectiveness and leadership succession effectiveness. Service delivery was measured using public service delivery effectiveness, policy execution effectiveness and decision-making effectiveness. Leadership succession effectiveness was measured using staff succession plan effectiveness and handover plans effectiveness. The researchers therefore hypothe-

Research Design
The study adopted descriptive quantitative survey design which according to Mugenda and Mugenda (2003), a descriptive research design determines and reports the way things are. According to Saunders et al. (2009) the descriptive study is concerned with finding out who, what, where, when, or how much. Therefore, the research design has the ability to produce information that was able to examine the relationship between political administrative interface and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Descriptive survey design was employed since it ensured the breadth of knowledge and precise descriptive analysis of the characteristics of the sample used to make population inferences (Orodho, 2004). The design is useful when a researcher needs to gather data on phenomena that cannot be directly observed. Its benefit is that it makes it possible to gather vast volumes of data from a large population in a highly efficient, simple and cost-effective manner, including using questionnaires. The

Sample and the Sampling Techniques
A sample size of about 10% to 30% is considered to be a reasonable representation of the intended population (Mugenda & Mugenda, 2012). The researcher employed Yamane's (1967) sampling technique to determine an appropriate sample size for the investigation, which included all personnel who was the target population of the study.  Petroleum. Subsequently, the researcher used simple random technique to distribute the questionnaires to each department (stratum) to ensure that every stratum is adequately represented to take off variation within in the population (Taherdoost, 2016).
The process of data collection included obtaining an introduction letter was sought from the Graduate School; Kisii University which enabled the researchers Open Journal of Political Science to seek a research permit for collecting data, from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Republic of South Sudan. The researcher used Google Forms as a means of collecting data online and also conducted telephone interviews. The relationship between political administrative interface and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan was tested with the Regression Model in Equation (1), where Y = Ministry of Petroleum Leadership Performance; α = constant; β 1 = parameter estimates; X 1 = Political administrative interface; ε = the error of prediction.

Descriptive Statistics of the Relationship between Inter-Organizational Relations and Leadership Performance
The results on the relationship between inter-organizational relations influencing leadership performance are presented in Petroleum compared to 29% who agreed and 14% who were undecided. On the representation of the ministry regional, the results revealed that the majority of the respondents 61% agreed that representation of the ministry in regional or- The findings on inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum indicated a mixed reaction indicating that there still non existence of a clear cut line on inter-organizational relations roles that can improve leadership performance in the Ministry. From this finding, it is clear that the employees in the Ministry of Petroleum do not understand the importance of inter-organizational relations which when well utilized can enhance the efficiency in the running of the government affairs. The findings on inter-government relation is supported by Spekman et al. (1998) who established that without an efficient inter-organizational connection as a basis, any attempt to manage the movement of information or materials across the supply chain is likely to fail. Long-term cooperative partnerships between supply chain partners require trust and dedication. The Influence of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance is in Table 2.
Findings on Public-Private-Partnership initiatives influencing leadership performance is supported by several authors who opine that inter-organizational ties connecting project network actors have been demonstrated to differ significantly (Manning & Sydow, 2011). Inter-organizational interactions between project network participants, for example, may be defined by trust and commitment or serve as sources of risk in project networks (Eloranta, 2007;Artto et al., 2016). The findings on executive network with other organizations is supported by Davis & Cobb (2010) and Drees & Heugens (2013) who observed that Organizations engage in inter-organizational arrangements to cope with interdependencies, strengthen their legitimacy and restore some degree of control or autonomy over their environments Collaborations with other institutions.

Inferential Statistics of the Relationship between Inter-Organizational Relations and Leadership Performance
Concerning inter-organizational relations, out of the twelve (12)

Conclusions, Recommendations and Implication of the Findings Conclusions
The second objective was to evaluate the relationship between inter-organiza- 2) Concerning strategic direction, the researcher recommends that there should be strategic direction for a wider vision of the Ministry. The leaders in the Ministry should also create accommodative work environment which encourage employees productivity. This will ensure the employees job security and equal employment for all the employees in the Ministry.

Implications of the Findings
The study investigated inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. The study bridged some of the conceptual, methodological and contextual gaps that had been identified in the literature review. The findings from this research present a number of issues that have implications for the theory used. In regard to Contegency Theory, the study recognizes the importance of inter-organizational relations in the running of not only the Ministry of Petroleum in the Republic of South Sudan but also the entire public services in South Sudan. This will achieve effective collaborations and network that improves service delivery for the citizen of South Sudan.
The study developed not only an empirical but also a structural model de-