Leadership styles, entrepreneurial orientation and family business growth in Ghana.

The research problem
While the number of family business abounds in Ghana, one sees lots of these slowly dying and some going bankrupt (Wolf, 2004). The lack of continuity and growth in family businesses is a major concern because of the primary contributory role that family businesses play in the world economy (Lansberg 1999: 1). It is perceived that entrepreneurial activities in Ghana lack the dynamism and competitive edge of those in more developed countries (Saffu, 2004). One reason that can be advanced is the lack of appropriate leadership style and competencies to manage the family business enterprises in Ghana (Wolf, 2004).
Researchers in the fields of organizational behavior and leadership have examined leadership styles and their effects on such variables as job satisfaction, job stress, role conflict, job performance and organizational commitment (Humphreys et al., 2003, MacKenzie et al., 2001 and Stock and Hoyer, 2002), in the context of the North American and other developed countries and has rarely been conducted in emerging economies with different cultural orientation (Fakhrul et al 2011), and the Ghanaian context is no exception in this regard. Globally, there is a dearth of research regarding the influence of leadership styles and entrepreneurial orientation on the growth of service sector businesses including private schools. According to (Kest, 2007) there is a lack of Leadership styles research within private educational institutions, and very little has been researched and publicly documented on leadership studies in Ghana (Zame & Hope, 2008). Societal culture also has impact on the leadership style of management and as such the leadership style in an organization may vary from society to society (Mujtaba et al, 2011).
Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO)