Dimensions of impactful presentations in business leaders

 

This study focuses on business presentations and explains why some managers are more articulate and deliver better presentations than others. Managers and leaders spend lot of time in creating and delivering presentations on a particular business objective. Progress of their careers and that of their companies depend a lot on how effectively they make presentations to their stakeholders.

This study brings three different theoretical perspectives together to explain this phenomena and has extended the literature by identifying gaps in them. The three theoretical lenses used in the study are namely: the classic transmission reception model combined with the constructivist theory and the action assembly theory of communication studies, theory of persuasion and finally, theory of rhetoric in charismatic and transformational leadership.

This study is qualitative in nature and finds its theoretical groundings in phenomenology and interpretivism. The epistemology comes from the constructionist paradigm of knowledge. The approach used for the study is both deductive and inductive depending on the research objectives and the methods to collect and analyse data are qualitative. Grounded Theory Methods of coding and constant-comparison were applied on the transcripts from eight semi-structured group interviews with 47 managers of medium to large enterprises of Bangalore selected through a non-probability purposive sampling technique. The study also uses written and non-written secondary data from the comments posted by viewers of the talk around the world of 50 talks from TED.com.

This analysis explains that there are four themes, six relationships and 54 dimensions that interplay together in a presentation process and determine the success of presentations in corporate contexts. The study extends literature by making a unique contribution to the theory of persuasion and the theory of rhetoric in charismatic and transformational leadership. The study finds that for a successful business presentation, a speaker's self-interest in the topic is a gap that is not covered in literature of charismatic and transformational leadership. The study also find that in a business presentation, more emphasis has to be given on the content and that the speaker should demonstrate his own credibility on the topic which was not covered in the theory of persuasion.

From a practical perspective, the study has also created a simple tool which can be used by managers in the corporate world to improve their presentations and make them more persuasive and charismatic. Finally, the study suggests opportunities for further research on this topic that would extend the understanding and enhance knowledge for future managers and academicians.