An Empirical Investigation of Relationship among Transformational Leadership, Affective Organizational Commitment and Contextual Performance

Abstract

The current study examines the relationship between transformational leadership and the followers’ affective organizational commitment and their contextual performance. Transformational leaders through their compelling vision and moral guidance arrest their follower’s commitment and motivate them to exert more effort and engage them in extra-role behaviours which are not explicit part of their job description. The follower’s commitment and decision to stay in the organization are guided by an emotional bond with the leader and the organization rather than by any logical reasoning. The study also explores the effect of affective organizational commitment on contextual performance. An individual who is firmly committed towards the goals of the organization will look beyond his/her vested interests and will demonstrate more of discretionary prosocial behaviours. These positive desirable behaviours otherwise called contextual performance will add to the overall performance of the organization. This cross-sectional study includes a sample of 480 software professionals working in several information technology (IT) companies across India. SPSS 18 and AMOS 16 were used for data analysis and result interpretation. Results suggested a significant positive influence of transformational leadership on the follower’s affective organizational commitment and their contextual performance. Affective organizational commitment is also found to have positive linkage with the contextual performance of the followers. The results are consistent with previous findings which also claimed positive and significant linkage among the transformational leadership, affective organizational commitment and contextual performance.