Abstract
Successful organizational change is an important factor for maintaining sustainable competitive advantage and growth in today‘s rapidly changing business environment. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between empowering leadership and the commitment to organizational change of Korean employees and also examine whether risk-taking behavior mediates the above relationship. Moreover, we attempt to address the moderating role and mediated moderating role of task complexity in the relationship between risk-taking behavior and commitment to organizational change. The main hypotheses were tested using a cross-sectional design, with questionnaires administered to 275 employees working in Korean firms. The results of the empirical analysis revealed that empowering leadership was positively related to commitment to organizational change. The results also showed that risk-taking behavior positively mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and employees’ commitment to organizational change. More importantly, we found that the indirect effect of empowering leadership on commitment to organizational change via risk-taking behavior was stronger when task complexity was high. Uncovering the relationship between empowering leadership and employees’ commitment to organizational change through the mediating role of risk-taking behavior and the mediated moderating role of task complexity has useful theoretical and practical implications. The limitations of the study are discussed along with suggestions for future research.
Highlights
It is important for firms to recognize the necessity of organizational change and proactively cope with environmental changes to secure sustainable competitive advantage and survive in today’s business environment
This study demonstrates that empowering leadership will have a positive effect on commitment to organizational change based on the following reasons
Commitment to organizational change was related to empowering leadership (r = 0.351, p < 0.001), risk-taking behavior (r = 0.442, p < 0.001), and task complexity (r = 0.490, p < 0.001)
Summary
It is important for firms to recognize the necessity of organizational change and proactively cope with environmental changes to secure sustainable competitive advantage and survive in today’s business environment. Due to this rapidly changing business environment and the continuous challenges facing organizations, the interest of management scholars, managers, and policy-makers in sustainability has increased [1]. Employees can be cynical and resist organizational change because they believe change threatens their stability and brings about an uncertain future [2]. Organizational change is driven by members, whose attitudes and involvement in the process are important factors for change management and the maintenance of sustainable competitive advantage [5]. Employees should be aware of the need for change for the development of the organization and help drive such change
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