Transactional Leadership Behaviors Research Articles

Effects of Transformational and Transactional Leadership on Employee’s Innovative Behavior: Mediating Effect of Employee’s Goal Orientations

Employee’s innovative behavior is increasingly recognized as an important driver for organization’s competitiveness and survival. Transformational and transactional leadership have been argued to be positively and negatively related to employee’s innovative behavior respectively. However, the empirical evidences for the arguments appear to be inconsistent, with some finding positive, negative, and even no effect. These findings suggest that the understanding of the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior may benefit from the identification of mediating and moderating variables that can provide a better understanding of “how” and “when” transformational and transactional leadership are effective or ineffective in influencing employee’s innovative behavior. Addressing this issue, based on the review of existing literatures, this study proposes a conceptual model underpinned by social cognitive theory to explore the direct effect of transformational and transactional leadership and the indirect effect through employee’s goal orientations on employee’s innovative behavior.

Leadership and Job Satisfaction: Adjunct Faculty at a For-Profit University

There is a lack of research in the for-profit sector of higher education in the United States. Likewise, there is a lack of research on the factors that affect the job satisfaction of adjunct faculty. To address these gaps in knowledge, a quantitative correlational study was performed to investigate the effect of administrative leadership on the job satisfaction of adjunct faculty who teach online classes at a for-profit university in the United States. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, which measures perceived leadership behaviors, and Spector’s Job Satisfaction Survey, which measures job satisfaction, were used to anonymously collect data from a sample of 77 adjunct faculty. The Full-Range Leadership, which is composed of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors, was the theoretical model for leadership. Pearson’s product moment correlational analyses were performed to investigate the bi-variate relationships between the variables. The dependent variable of total satisfaction had a statistically significant, direct and strong correlation with the independent variable of transformational leadership (r = .536, p < .0005). The strength and direction of the relationship indicated that increases in the scores of total satisfaction are associated with increases in scores in transformational leadership. Total satisfaction had a statistically significant, indirect and moderate correlation with the independent variable of laissez-faire leadership (r = -.372, p = .001). The strength and direction of the relationship indicated that lower total satisfaction scores are associated with higher laissez-faire leadership scores. There was no statistically significant relationship between transactional leadership and overall job satisfaction.

Sales force leadership during strategy implementation: a social network perspective

Many new marketing strategies falter in the execution phase where managers fail to make frontline employees fully committed to implementing the new initiatives. While formal managers can apply transformational and transactional leadership behaviors to increase salespeople’s strategy commitment, peers can also exert a great deal of informal influence on salespeople. Building on recent social network perspectives of leadership, this paper investigates the interplay between the sales manager’s leadership styles and peer effects during the implementation of a new strategy in a large sales organization. The authors find that salespeople with high network centrality but low strategy commitment not only lower their peers’ commitment but also hurt the effectiveness of a transformational manager. Specially, the influence of a central salesperson becomes stronger when the sales group has lower external connectivity. However, sales managers’ transactional leadership can decrease the non-committed central salesperson’s influence over peers.

Transformational and Transactional Leadership Behaviours and their Effect on Knowledge Workers' Propensity for Knowledge Management Processes

This paper seeks to raise the question as to why knowledge management (KM) initiatives adopted by organisations fail to achieve the intended outcomes. Based on literature, it is argued, first, that internal leadership is the most critical antecedent which leads knowledge workers (KWs) propensity to engage in KM processes and second, that, transformational and transactional leader behaviours are the key predictors of KM propensity. Consequently, four types of transformational leader behaviours and two types of transactional leader behaviours are conceptualised as energisers of KWs propensity to KM processes and thus bring the KM success. Accordingly, the paper extends current understanding of the association between KM and leadership considering the specific leader behaviours in both transformational and transactional leadership theory where neither the KM nor the leadership field provides a detailed explanation of specific leader behaviours.

Relationship between school administrators competence beliefs on innovation management and their leadership behaviors

Purpose- In this study, it was aimed to reveal the relationship between school principals' competence beliefs on innovation management and their leadership behaviors. Methodology- Teachers working at the high schools located in Uskudar district of Istanbul province constituted the sample of the study that was carried out with the relational screening method, one of quantitative research methods. In the study, data were collected with the school principals' leadership style inventory and innovation management at schools scale and analyzed using the SPSS program. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics such as arithmetic mean and standard deviation were calculated, and the t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Scheffe’s test, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient and simple linear regression analysis were used. Findings- According to the research results, it was observed that teachers' competence beliefs on innovation management were not significantly different between male and female teachers by the gender variable and age variable. On the other hand, the organizational culture and structure sub-dimension scores were in favor of teachers aged 40 and older.It was observed that they were not significantly different between teachers with different seniority levels by the seniority variable and between teachers with different educational levels by the educational status variable. Conclusion- It was determined that innovation management competencies consisting of four different sub-dimensions had a significant predictive effect on transactional leadership behaviors consisting of two sub-dimensions and transactional management sub-dimensions consisting of five sub-dimensions.

Promoting the continuing usage of strategic information systems: The role of supervisory leadership in the successful implementation of enterprise systems

Organizations face significant challenges in capturing value from their investments in strategic information systems such as enterprise systems (ES). Managers are a powerful source of influence shaping the post-adoption attitudes and behaviors of users and the success of ES. However, the extant IS literature has focused primarily on the role of top management and theoretical explanations of the role of supervisors in fostering continuing usage of ES are lacking. Drawing on transformational leadership theory and the IS continuance (ISC) model, this paper conceptualizes a theoretical model differentiating the influence mechanisms through which different types of leadership behaviors influence the success of ES. Data collected from 192 users of ES confirms our theorization. We find that transformational leadership behaviors of supervisors influence users’ evaluations of satisfaction and perceived usefulness, while their transactional leadership behaviors influence users’ ES continuance intention by moderating the effects of user satisfaction and perceived usefulness on ES continuance intention. This study advances research on the role of leadership behaviors of supervisors in capturing value from enterprise systems. The research also contributes to practice by suggesting effective strategies for promoting continued usage of mission critical systems such as enterprise systems and delivering value from firms’ IT investments.

Contextualizing leadership: Transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active in safety‐critical contexts

Within the existing leadership literature, the role of context for shaping the effectiveness of leadership is yet to be fully understood. One type of context that poses particular challenges for leaders is an environment where safety is highly critical (i.e., high exposure to risk and likelihood of an accident). We hypothesize that such environments call for specific transformational and transactional leadership behaviours, which differ from those behaviours most effective in less safety‐critical contexts. We tested for moderating effects of perceptions of hazard exposure and accident likelihood on the relationship between transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active with safety and job performance outcomes. The moderation effects of accident likelihood on the link between transformational/MBEA leadership and subordinate performance were supported, demonstrating variation in the effectiveness of leader behaviours dependent on followers’ perceptions about the likelihood for an accident. MBEA leadership was found to be more strongly linked to contextual performance and safety participation if accident likelihood was high, but not under low accident likelihood conditions. Transformational leadership was found to be less strongly related to these performance outcomes in contexts where safety was perceived as highly critical. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications, and call into question the universality of the transformational–transactional leadership framework. Practical considerations focus on the implications for managers and supervisors who operate in safety‐critical contexts.Practitioner points Safety‐critical contexts pose particular challenges to leaders. If safety is perceived as highly critical, leaders and/or followers may hold different expectations about leadership and different leadership styles could be required compared to contexts where safety is not critical. Perceived effectiveness of transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active for employees’ safety participation and contextual performance is influenced by employees’ perceptions of the risk for an accident within their work context. Management‐By‐Exception‐Active is effective for enhancing team members’ extra effort for safety and contextual performance if the perceived risk of an accident is high, but less effective if perceptions of accident likelihood are low. Managers and supervisors should therefore pay attention to employees’ perceptions of risk of an accident and the factors that determine how employees perceive their context.

Follower moral reasoning influences perceptions of transformational leadership behavior

Transformational leadership reflects charismatic, but ethical, influence on followers. However, leadership ultimately occurs through the perceptual and attribution processes within followers. Accordingly, the perception and evaluation of transformational leadership is likely to be influenced by followers' moral reasoning, which is the ability that allows individuals to identify and interpret ethically-salient issues in social environments. As predicted by social-cognitive principles of self-schemas, observers' moral reasoning positively related to the perception and positive evaluation of transformational leadership behavior, but not to positive affective reactions towards that behavior. These same relationships did not occur for the perception and evaluation of transactional leadership behavior. Implications for whistle-blowing behavior, organizational ethics, and the measurement of transformational leadership are discussed.

Next Generation Leadership: The Changing Culture of Leadership in the Senior Student Affairs Officer (SSAO) Position

The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify and compare differences in leadership behaviors of senior student affairs officers (SSAOs) based on their generational cohort (Baby Boomer, Generation X, Millennial). The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was used to measure nine leadership behaviors and three leadership outcomes. Surveys were administered electronically to 3,361 individuals identified as a chief student affairs officer or director of student affairs in the Higher Education Online Directory (2014). There were 449 respondents including 246 Baby Boomers, 192 Generation Xers, and 11 Millennials. The findings showed that whereas generation x SSAOs exhibited more transactional leadership behavior, baby boomers were more transformational. The results of this study have implications for the field of student affairs as research and practice support the need for more transformational leaders in senior administrative positions in higher education.

Transformational and transactional leadership and employee’s entrepreneurial behavior in knowledge–intensive industries

Leaders play a vital role in encouraging and supporting the initiatives of individual employees to explore new opportunities, to develop new products or to improve work procedures for the benefit of the organization. Entrepreneurial behavior is imperative for innovation, growth, and organizational success. Transformational leadership, in contrast to transactional leadership, has been argued to be particularly effective in engendering entrepreneurial behavior. However, empirical evidence for this relationship is scarce and inconsistent. Addressing this issue, the current study examines the moderating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and entrepreneurial behavior. Data were gathered from a cross-industry sample of 557 employees and 64 leaders from eight different knowledge-intensive organizations. The results show that transformational leadership is positively related to entrepreneurial behavior, whereas transactional leadership negatively influences it. We found that transformational leadership is positively related to entrepreneurial behavior only when psychological empowerment is high, whereas transactional leadership has a negative relationship with entrepreneurial behavior only under these conditions.

What is happening just below the CEO?

Purpose The executives, just below the chief executive officers represent an important but rarely investigated senior executives. The purpose of this paper is to investigate their need for social acceptance and the impact of culture on the perceived use of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional, multi-instrument design was used to investigate 439 Australian executives at the apex of their organization. Findings The results suggest that these executives identified a prominent need to self-deceive themselves when assessing their perceived use of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. In addition, the cultural dimensions, such as supportiveness and performance orientation, were identified as influencing specific leadership behaviors, in order to produce competitive advantages. However, the cultural dimension of emphasis on rewards uniquely decreased the perceived use of several leadership behaviors (i.e. articulates vision, fosters the acceptance of group goals, and provides an appropriate role model). Research limitations/implications The study provides further evidence of how the social context impacts on leadership behaviors and thinking Practical implications The development of executive requires insights into how their personal need for social acceptance and culture alter their use of leadership. Originality/value Social desirability and specific culture dimensions do not uniformly influence the perceived use of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors.

Working relationships between obstetric care staff and their managers: a critical incident analysis.

BackgroundMalawi continues to experience critical shortages of key health technical cadres that can adequately respond to Malawi’s disease burden. Difficult working conditions contribute to low morale and frustration among health care workers. We aimed to understand how obstetric care staff perceive their working relationships with managers.MethodsA qualitative exploratory study was conducted in health facilities in Malawi between October and December 2008. Critical Incident Analysis interviews were done in government district hospitals, faith-based health facilities, and a sample of health centres’ providing emergency obstetric care. A total of 84 service providers were interviewed. Data were analyzed using NVivo 8 software.ResultsPoor leadership styles affected working relationships between obstetric care staff and their managers. Main concerns were managers’ lack of support for staff welfare and staff performance, lack of mentorship for new staff and junior colleagues, as well as inadequate supportive supervision. All this led to frustrations, diminished motivation, lack of interest in their job and withdrawal from work, including staff seriously considering leaving their post.ConclusionsPositive working relationships between obstetric care staff and their managers are essential for promoting staff motivation and positive work performance. However, this study revealed that staff were demotivated and undermined by transactional leadership styles and behavior, evidenced by management by exception and lack of feedback or recognition. A shift to transformational leadership in nurse-manager relationships is essential to establish good working relationships with staff. Improved providers’ job satisfaction and staff retentionare crucial to the provision of high quality care and will also ensure efficiency in health care delivery in Malawi.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1694-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

CEO transformational and transactional leadership and organizational innovation

Purpose– Organizational innovation is critical for firm competitive advantage. Yet, we do not know enough about the relationship between leadership and organizational innovation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of chief executive officer (CEO) transformational and transactional leadership on organizational innovation. The authors examine the moderating role of environmental dynamism.Design/methodology/approach– The authors collected survey-based data from top management team members in 163 companies in services, construction, manufacturing and other industries in the USA. The authors used multiple regression analyses to test the study hypotheses.Findings– The empirical findings indicate that CEO transformational and transactional leadership behaviors positively influence organizational innovation. However, organizations benefit more from transformational leadership in dynamic environments.Originality/value– This study highlights the role of CEO leadership behavior in the pursuit of organizational innovation. Significantly, the study shows that both transformational and transactional leadership can enhance organizational innovation. However, their effectiveness is contingent on environmental dynamism. This contributes to the firm innovation literature by clarifying how specific types of CEO leadership influence organizational innovation in different environmental conditions.

Leadership, trust, and job satisfaction in the public sector: A study of US federal employees

This study employs survey data on US federal employees to investigate whether employee perceptions of trust in leaders mediate the relationship between employee perceptions of transaction a land transformational leadership behaviors and employee perceptions of job satisfaction. The findings suggest that both transactional and transformational leadership behaviors and employee trust in leaders are positively related to employee job satisfaction. Also, while trust marginally mediates the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and job satisfaction, it plays a more significant role in the relationship between individualized consideration and job satisfaction. Further, the study finds that transformational leadership and individualized consideration have a significantly larger positive impact on satisfaction compared to transactional leadership. Thus, the study suggests that public organizations, especially those managed by transactional leaders, need to focus on developing the transformational and individualized consideration leadership competencies of their leaders to build a more satisfied and productive workforce for serving the public.

Comparing the Effectiveness of Individual Coaching, Self-Coaching, and Group Training: How Leadership Makes the Difference

Few empirical studies have used a randomized controlled design to evaluate the impact of coaching, and there are even fewer that have compared coaching with other interventions. In the current field study, we investigated the relative effectiveness of coaching as an intervention to reduce procrastination. In a randomized controlled study, participants (N = 84) were assigned to an individual coaching, a self-coaching, a group training, or a control group condition. Results indicate that individual coaching and group training were effective in reducing procrastination and facilitating goal attainment. Individual coaching created a high degree of satisfaction and was superior in helping participants attaining their goals, whereas group training successfully promoted the acquisition of relevant knowledge. The results for the self-coaching condition show that independently performing exercises without being supported by a coach is not sufficient for high goal attainment. Moreover, mediation analysis show that a coach’s transformational and transactional leadership behavior influenced participants’ perceived autonomy support and intrinsic motivation, resulting in beneficial coaching outcomes. The results may guide the selection of appropriate human resource development methods: If there is a general need to systematically prepare employees to perform on specific tasks, group training seems appropriate due to lower costs. However, when certain aspects of working conditions or individual development goals are paramount, coaching might be indicated. However, further research is needed to compare the relative effectiveness of coaching with other interventions in different contexts.

English

Organizational deviant behaviors can be defined as behaviors that have deviated from standards and uncongenial to organization's expectations. When such behaviors have been thought to damage the organization, it can be said that reducing the deviation behaviors at minimum level is necessary for a healthy organization. The aim of this research is to determine the level of teachers' organizational deviant behaviors to show the relationship between deviant behavior level and principal's leadership styles. Research's data were collected from 557 secondary school teachers working in Izmir province by using scales named as “Organizational Deviance Scale for Schools” and “Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire”. According to the findings, teachers have displayed organizational deviant behaviors at low level and principals have absorbed transformational and interactional leadership. According to correlation analysis, there has been a negative relationship between organizational deviant behaviors and transformational and interactional leadership styles, and a positive relationship between organizational deviant behaviors and laissez-faire leadership. Findings have explained the effect of principals' leadership styles on deviant behavior. As a recommendation, to decrease these deviant behaviors, principals who tend to show transactional and transformational leadership behaviors can be guided and trained about the reasons of deviant behaviors, and how to reduce these deviant behaviors. Key words: Organizational deviance, multi-factor leadership, education.

The influence of CEO values and leadership on middle manager exchange behaviors

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which chief executive officer (CEO) transactional and transformational leader behaviors as well as CEO self-enhancing versus self-transcendent values permeate through the organization to influence middle-level managers.Design/methodology/approach– Using a multi-level longitudinal design, the authors collected self-reported value data from 32 CEOs and 119 top management team (TMT) members rated their CEOs on transactional and transformational leader behaviors at Time 1; 18 months later, TMTs rated the in-role behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) of 331 mid-level managers. Also, at Time 2, mid-level managers evaluated their relationship with the organization in terms of economic and social exchange. HLM was used to analyze the data.Findings– The authors found the positive relationship between transactional CEO leader behaviors and mid-level manager in-role behaviors to be enhanced when CEOs hold self-transcendent values, whereas this relationship was weakened by CEO self-enhancing values. Similarly, the relationship between CEO transformational leader behaviors and mid-level manager OCBs was found to be strengthened when leaders espoused self-transcendent values. Finally, the authors found that economic exchange mediated the relationship between the transactional leadership * self-enhancing values interaction term and mid-level manager in-role behaviors. Similarly, social exchange mediated the relationship between the transformational leadership * self-transcendent values interaction term and mid-level manager OCBs.Originality/value– Leadership/OB.

Leadership Behaviors and Trust in Leaders: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Government

This study contributes to our knowledge about the effectiveness of different leadership behaviors in building interpersonal trust within public organizations. It employs survey data on U.S. federal employees to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of transactional and transformational leadership behaviors and employee perceptions of trust in leaders. Findings from OLS multivariate regression analysis indicate that both transactional and transformational leadership behaviors are positively related to employee trust in leaders. On average, transformational leadership behaviors were found to build higher levels of interpersonal trust. Thus, given the fundamental differences between private and public organizations, this study suggests that public sector leaders need to emphasize transformational leadership behaviors to build higher levels of interpersonal trust within their organizations. Since doing so is crucial for motivating employees and thus for increasing organizational performance, in their leadership development programs, public agencies—particularly those managed by transactional leaders—need to invest more in improving the transformational leadership competencies of their executives, managers, and supervisors.

An Analysis of the Relationship between School Managers’ Change Leadership Style and Multi-Factorial Leadership Styles from the Views of Teachers

<p style="text-align: justify;">The aim of this study has been to identify school managers’ leadership styles and levels in terms of teachers’ perceptions. The focus of the study includes primary, secondary and high schools in Şahinbey and Şehitkamil districts of Gaziantep. In the study, the selection of the sample, which consists of 228 teachers, was carried out by using the disproportionate cluster sampling method. The data have been collected via change leadership scale and multi-factorial leadership scale. For analysis of data Pearson Correlation coefficients have been used. According to the research results, teachers believe that among the multi-factorial leadership styles their managers show mostly transformational, transactional and change leadership behaviors, while they show laissez-faire leadership behaviors less frequently. It was also found out that there is a moderate relation between transformational and change leadership styles; a low-level weak relation between transformational and transactional leadership; and a low-level relation between transformational and laissez-faire leadership. On the other hand, there is a respectively low and meaningful relationship between change leadership and transactional leadership; a negative and very low relationship between change leadership and laissez-faire leadership. Finally, a low level relation has been detected between transactional leadership and laissez-faire leadership.</p>

The Role of Humor in the Relationship Between Transactional Leadership Behavior, Perceived Supervisor Support, and Citizenship Behavior

This study, building on uncertainty management theory, examines the role of humor use by the supervisor and team members in the relationship between leader behaviors, perceived supervisor support, and citizenship behavior. Data were collected from a sample of 284 employees working in nine small organizations. The results show that weak contingent reward leaders are viewed as more supportive when they use constructive and self-defeating humor styles extensively as opposed to aggressive humor, whereas skillful contingent reward leaders are perceived as less supportive when they use constructive and self-defeating humor extensively, and more supportive when they favor an aggressive humor style. Laissez-faire leaders are viewed as less supportive when they use aggressive humor extensively. The results provide only partial support for the buffer effect of constructive humor and the undermining influence of aggressive humor style. Finally, whereas offensive coworker humor is negatively related to organizational citizenship behavior, the results do not provide significant evidence that coworker humor moderates the influence of perceived supervisor support on organizational citizenship behavior. We conclude by discussing the theoretical contributions and practical implications of our findings.