MODERATING IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SUCCESSION PLANNING AND SURVIVAL OF BAKERIES OPERATING IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

This study on succession planning and organizational survival examines the relationship between succession planning and organizational survival of bakeries in Rivers State. This study was operationalized by succession planning  and organizational survival with leadership style as the moderating variable. This study adopted Cross-sectional survey research design. The population of the study consisted 380 respondents from the bakeries in Port Harcourt. The study adopted simple random sampling technique. The structured questionnaire was used for data collection for this study.  Descriptive tools such as the mean and standard deviation were used in assessing the univariate distributions for the three variables. The inferential statistical tool, the Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient (Rho), was used in the test for the bivariate hypotheses of the study, while the partial correlation technique was used in the test for the multivariate hypotheses of the study using SPSS version 22. The study revealed that there is a significant relationship between mentoring and measures of organizational survival of bakeries in Rivers State, there is a significant relationship between retention effort and measures of organizational survival of bakeries in Rivers State, there is a significant relationship between management development and measures of organizational survival of bakeries in Rivers State. Leadership style significantly moderates the relationship between succession planning and organizational survival of bakeries in Rivers State. The study concluded that there is a positive relationship between succession planning and organizational survival of bakeries in Rivers State. The study recommended among others that bakeries should implement formal mentoring programs to transfer knowledge and improve employee skills, thereby enhancing both production and financial stability.