The Relationship between Inter-Organizational Relations and Leadership Performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan ()
1. 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 “peace- dividend” 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 leadership succession plans. It was not until 2005 when the Chairman Dr John Garang died in a helicopter crash that the SPLM/A noticed existence of a leadership vacuum, and immediately started pointing figures to their late chairperson for not preparing them for leadership transition. The current political leadership crisis which transcends all realms of government including public sector organisations can be attributed to the ruling SPLM/A’s ingrained culture of ungrooming future leaders. This resulted in the loss of vision and of sense of direction and eventually in the current civil war.
While leadership may be regarded as the lifeblood of an organization, be it for-profit or not-for-profit, it is such a critical element of organizational functions—leadership development—that can in sustainable fashion positively shape organizational culture, thereby enhancing organizational performance. This can be achieved through robust leadership succession planning and management, which can be defined as a strategic process that minimizes leadership gaps for critical positions and provides opportunities for top talent to develop the skills necessary for future roles (Ciulla, 2020) .
It is believed that effective leadership succession and management policies enable organizations to react quickly to changes and endure more challenging times. If executed properly, leadership succession and management tend to merge employees’ capabilities and career aspirations with the organization’s long-term strategic objectives and talent needs. However, this is not the case when it comes to succession planning practices of public sector organizations in South Sudan, where reputable organizations have been characterized by leadership entrenchment and succession wrangles. This could be due to a lack of effective capacity building among a crop of leaders assuming leadership roles, resulting in collapsing or mismanaging of the organizational human and financial resources. 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) .
1.1. Statement of the Problem
South Sudan is the world’s most oil-dependent country with more than 98 percent of the state budget being of oil revenue (World Factbook, 2013) . National organizations in South Sudan, including the Ministry of Petroleum, are meant to deliver high-quality programmes and activities targeted at public beneficiaries. Nevertheless, many of their given interventions, if any, have been characterized by low quality and poor performance (SHF, 2016) .
Organization structure therefore is a managerial task that deals with formalizing and managing complexity through the division of labor and reporting structures within the hierarchy. Institutional structures and inter-organizational relationships with their external environment are crucial to the performance of such organizations. Thus, the organizational structure may influence the style of leadership that leads to good or poor service delivery.
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.
1.2. 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.
1.3. HO1
We hypothesized that: There is no significant relationship between inter-orga- nizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan.
2. Theory Informing the Study
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.
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-size- fits-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.
3. 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 hypothesized that effective implementation of the components of inter-organizational relations by the Ministry of Petroleum could led to effective leadership performance, in terms of effective service delivery and effective leadership succession plans. The relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan is shown in the Conceptual Framework in Figure 1.
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Figure 1. The relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Source: (Author, 2022).
4. Research Methodology
4.1. 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 target population comprises of; the 54 Procurement Officers who are custodians of inventories on behalf of the corporations, 582 Senior Managers who are the consumers of inventory in their respective departments and 270 Inventory Officers in charge of inventory management. Specifically, the unit of analysis of the study was; the Procurement Officers Senior Managers who are the consumers of inventory in their respective departments and Inventory Officers in charge of inventory management. The Ministry of Petroleum in the Republic of South Sudan has a total of 1973 employees working in the seven directorates, namely: Administration and Finance; Exploration and Production (E&P); Petroleum Economics; Petroleum Infrastructure; Policy, Training and Research; Planning; and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE). The researcher, therefore, targets 1973 employees working in the commission, NilePet, and seven directorates of the Ministry of Petroleum. These comprises of 345 employees from Administration and Finance; 323 from Exploration and Production; 295 employees from Petroleum Economics; 180 employees from Petroleum Infrastructure; and 108 employees from Policy, Training and Research; 60 employees from Planning; 105 employees from Health, Safety and Environment; 427 employees from NilePet; 130 employees from National Oil and Gas Commission. The map of study area which is south Sudan is Figure 2.
4.2. 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.
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Figure 2. Map of south Sudan. Source: https://www.un.org/geospatial/sites/www.un.org.geospatial/files/files/documents/2020/Apr/south_sudan_4450_r1.1_oct11_125.pdf.
where n = Minimum Sample Size; N = population size: −e = precision set at 95% (5% = 0.05)
1973 (Study population) × 0.5 =
The researcher adopted Yamane (1967) sampling formula to arrive at the sample size of 333 employees after rounding off 332.5748, out of the 1973-target population of the employees working for the government of South Sudan in the Ministry of Petroleum and its parastatals. The researcher then applied stratified sampling technique to proportionately select the working employees based on the strength of the numbers in each directorate or department in the Ministry of 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 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),
(1)
where Y = Ministry of Petroleum Leadership Performance; α = constant; β1 = parameter estimates; X1 = Political administrative interface; ε = the error of prediction.
5. Results
5.1. 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 Table 1. Findings on Public-Private-Partnership initiatives the study established that slightly less than half of the respondents 42% disagreed that Existing Public-Private-Partnership initiatives influencing leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 37% who agreed and 21% who were undecided. Concerning executive networks, the results revealed that 45% agreed that executive networks with other organizations influencing leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 37% who disagreed and 17% who were not sure.
Further findings concerning collaborations with other institutions, the study established that half of the respondents 50% agreed that existing collaborations with other institutions influencing leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 34% who disagreed and 16% who were not sure. On partnerships, the results revealed that the majority of respondents 57% agreed that existing partnerships influence leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 32% who disagreed and 11% who were not sure. Findings on Industry-Academic relations, the results revealed that about half of the respondents 52% disagreed that industry-academic relations influence leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 29% who agreed and 19% who were not sure. Further findings on active corporate relations, the study found that less than half of the respondents 46% disagreed that the active corporate relations department influences leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 37% who agreed and 17% who were undecided.
On industry-media relations, results revealed that the majority of respondents 62% disagreed that existing Industry-media relations influencing leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 31% who agreed and 7% who were undecided. Findings on industry-environment relations, the study established that the majority of respondents 57% agreed that existing industry-environment relations influence leadership performance in the Ministry of
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Table 1. The relationship between inter-organizational relations influencing leadership performance.
Source: Field data (2022).
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 organizations influences leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 36% who disagreed and 13% who were undecided.
Further findings on membership in oil marketing, the study established that less than half of the respondents 46% agreed that membership in oil marketing organizations influences leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 42% who disagreed and 12% who were undecided. Concerning relations with industry think tanks, the results revealed that half of the respondents 47% disagreed that relation with industry think tanks influences leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 30% who agreed and 13% who were not sure. Finally concerning corporate social responsibility relations, the study established that less than half of the respondents 43% disagreed that existing corporate social responsibility relations influence leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum compared to 41% who agreed and 16% who were undecided.
The overall mean response of 2.4 tending towards 2 implied that the sampled respondents disagreed with most of the statements regarding the relationship between inter-organizational relations influencing leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan while a standard deviation of 1.3 denoted that there was some variation the response on the statement on the relationship between inter-organizational relations from the employees’ point of view. This finding showed that there was evidence of the respondents being undecided in various constructs that were used to determine the relationship between inter-organizational relations influencing leadership performance.
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.
5.2. Inferential Statistics of the Relationship between Inter-Organizational Relations and Leadership Performance
Concerning inter-organizational relations, out of the twelve (12) variable measures of bureaucratic structures, five (5) variable measures influenced leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. First, the study established a positive significant influence of existing public-Private- Partnership initiatives which were the measures of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance (β = 0.147, p = 0.003 < 0.05). This significant positive influence made the researcher conclude that inter-organizational relations influenced leadership performance at the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on this finding, increase of existing public-Private-Partner- ship initiatives by 1 unit will lead to an increase of leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan by 0.147 multiple units.
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Table 2. Influence of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance.
Second, the study established a positive significant influence of executive networks with other organizations which was the measures of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance (β = −0.135, p = 0.023 < 0.05). This significant positive influence made the researcher conclude that inter-organizational relations influenced leadership performance at the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on this finding, an increase in executive network with other organizations by 1 unit will lead to a decrease in leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan by 0.135 multiple units.
Third, the study established a positive significant influence of existing collaborations with other institutions which were the measures of inter-organiza- tional relations on leadership performance (β = 0.129, p = 0.003 < 0.05). This significant positive influence made the researcher conclude that inter-organiza- tional relations influenced leadership performance at the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on this finding, an increase of Existing collaborations with other institutions by 1 unit will lead to an increase in leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan by 0.129 multiple units.
Four, the study established a positive significant influence of existing industry-environment relations which was the measures of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance (β = 0.130, p = 0.018 < 0.05). This significant positive influence made the researcher conclude that inter-organizational relations influenced leadership performance at the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on this finding, an increase of existing industry-environment relations by 1 unit will lead to an increase in leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan by 0.130 multiple units.
Five, the study established a positive significant influence of existing corporate social responsibility relations which was the measures of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance (β = 0.399, p = 0.000 < 0.05). This significant positive influence made the researcher conclude that inter-organizational relations influenced leadership performance at the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on this finding, an increase of existing corporate social responsibility relations by 1 unit will lead to an increase in leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan by 0.339 multiple units.
The null hypothesis HO that there is no significant relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan was rejected. This was based on the statistical test that established the significant influence of Existing Public-Private- Partnership, executive networks with other organizations, existing collaborations with other institutions, existing industry-environment relations, and existing corporate social responsibility relations. The researcher, therefore, concluded that Inter-Organizational Relations influenced leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan.
Further results from the inferential statistical test of the null hypothesis that HO that there is no significant relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan which having been rejected, the researcher therefore deduced statistical evidence to conclude that the poor leadership performance in the Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan was due to unstructured and inefficient inter-organizational relations which was one of the component of organizational structures affecting leadership performance.
6. Conclusions, Recommendations and Implication of the Findings
Conclusions
The second objective was to evaluate the relationship between inter-organiza- tional relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. The researcher rejected null hypothesis that H02there is no significant relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on the inferential statistical test of the rejected null hypothesis HO, the researcher therefore deduced statistical evidence to conclude that inter-organizational relations influenced leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan and that the poor leadership performance in the Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan was due to ineffective inter-organizational relations which was one of the element of organizational structures affecting leadership performance.
7. Recommendations
Based on the findings and the conclusions on the relationship between inter- organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan, the study came up with the following recommendations to improve leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan.
1) The study concluded that bureaucratic structures influenced leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. The researcher recommends that there should be clear division of labour to provide a platform for executive exercise of authority. In terms of hiring, the study recommends that there should be Merit-based hiring of bureaucrats, highly motivated for higher productivity.
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.
8. 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 depicting the relationship among the study variables. The model presents a useful framework for organisational structure and leadership performance. The study used a descriptive quantitative survey method to evaluate the influence of inter-organizational relations on leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan. This methodology therefore is expanded by the significant relationship between inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic Of South Sudan established. Secondly, the study contributes to the use of both descriptive and regression statistical analysis of the analysis of inter-organizational relations and leadership performance in the Ministry of Petroleum of the Republic of South Sudan.
At policy level, South Sudan’s Vision 2040 aspires to boost development through creating an enabling environment through economic, political and social pillar. In this regard, Vision 2040 aspires to build block in line with the government planning to its development agendas. A cardinal tenet of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the vision of the New Sudan is democratic transformation of the country is the basis for success of such Ministries like the Ministry of Petroleum in the Republic of South Sudan. This will entail the mainstreaming of democratic practices and processes which enjoin the active participation of the citizens in determining their destiny. The vision identifies some of the hallmarks of democracy as decentralization of institutions; regular, free and fair multiparty elections; as well as widening of the democratic space in which all citizens can enjoy their civic rights. The vision is to nurture a Southern Sudan which will have developed morally, ethically upright and educated society matched by exceptional leadership that provides a role model for the younger generation. The Government of the Republic of South Sudan should therefore focus on coming up with various policies that would aid in the realization of vision 2040 through organizational structures and effective leadership performance. These policies should be focused on strengthening inter-organizational relations in order to achieve effective leadership in public affairs.