Leveraging transformational and transactional leadership to cultivate the generation of organization-focused ideas

Transformational Leadership and Followers' Innovative Behavior: Roles of Commitment to Change and Organizational Support for Creativity

This study aims to investigate the relationships among transformational leadership, followers' innovative behavior, commitment to change, and organizational support for creativity. First, we examine the mediating role of commitment to change in the relationship between transformational leadership and followers' innovative behavior, using both objective and subjective measures. Our results reveal that commitment to change indeed mediates this relationship. Second, we analyze whether the link between commitment to change and followers' innovative behavior is moderated by organizational support for creativity. We find that this relationship is stronger for individuals with high organizational support for creativity compared to those with low support. Empirical analysis was conducted using data collected from 535 managers in 11 subsidiaries of a financial institution in South Korea. This study contributes to the management discipline by resolving mixed outcomes between transformational leadership and followers' innovation and highlighting the influence of commitment to change and perceived organizational support for creativity on innovative behavior.

Nurses' work engagement: The influences of ambidextrous leadership, clinical nurse leadership and workload

AIM

To test the relationships among staff nurses' work engagement, nurse managers' ambidextrous leadership and staff nurses' clinical leadership and workload.

DESIGN

A multicentre cross-sectional survey design was used.

METHODS

The study was conducted in eight medical centres from six representative provinces of China in October 2019. The participants completed electronic questionnaires that measured ambidextrous leadership, clinical nurse leadership, workload and work engagement. We used structural equation modelling to test a hypothetical model.

RESULTS

The hypothetical model had a good fit to the actual data. Ambidextrous leadership was positively associated with clinical nurse leadership and work engagement, and clinical nurse leadership had a significant positive relationship with work engagement, which partially mediated the path from ambidextrous leadership to work engagement. In addition, workload moderated the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership.

CONCLUSION

This study makes a timely contribution to the nursing literature by demonstrating that nurse managers' ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership are important determinants of work engagement. Improving the level of ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership helps to enhance work engagement.

IMPACT

This study provides a new strategy to increase nurses' work engagement from a new perspective of nursing leadership. Enhancing nurse managers' ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership can increase work engagement. Nurse managers should value the role of ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership in promoting work engagement, especially when nurses perceive they have a low workload.

Factors Affecting Employee’s Retention: Integration of Situational Leadership With Social Exchange Theory

Sketching on the Social Exchange Theory (SET), the present study aims to investigate the direct relationship between training and development, work environment, and job satisfaction with employee retention. The contingent role of transformational leadership was also analysed under the Situational Leadership Theory (SLT). Accordingly, we collected data from 287 employees of SMEs in northern China by employing a convenience sampling approach, exhibiting a response rate of 57.40 percent. The Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis was then run to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings revealed a significant positive impact of training and development, work environment, and job satisfaction on employee retention. However, no moderating effect of transformational leadership was indicated on their direct relationship. This study has enriched the literature on employee retention and the leadership arena. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no prior evidence concerning the study’s integrated relationship of the continuous variables. The implications and limitations were finally expressed at the end of this manuscript.

Enhancing Employee Creativity in the Banking Sector: A Transformational Leadership Framework

Despite the growing academic interest in transformational leadership and employee creativity, the banking sector has not yet received enough consideration. Mostly, the banking sector was assumed to be an inappropriate setting for employee creativity as it is a tightly supervised and controlled segment of an economy. Nevertheless, some research studies in advanced nations emphasized the significance of employee creativity in a banking context. However, the case of developing countries (e.g., Pakistan) has remained an understudied area. Against this background, the objective of this study was to examine the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), perceived organizational support (POS), and employee creativity (EC) through work engagement (WE). Some private banks were selected, situated in a large metropolitan city, with data collected for the present research by a self-administered questionnaire. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was employed to analyze data. It was observed that TL and POS induce EC, whereas WE mediated these relationships. These findings may help policymakers of the banking industry to improve employee creativity through WE.

In Loving Hands: How Founders' Affective Commitment Strengthens the Effect of Organizational Flexibility on Firms' Opportunity Exploitation and Performance

Is flexibility or formality more useful for organizations that are pursuing improved performance? Organizational structure scholars offer opposing answers to this question, and empirical results have been mixed. Our study contributes to this research by describing a mediational model that links organizational flexibility to performance via opportunity exploitation. Specifically, we argue that flexible firms are able to exploit a greater number of opportunities, which, in turn, can improve performance. We also argue that the indirect effect of flexibility on performance via opportunity exploitation is stronger when top executives display higher affective commitment for their firms, meaning that they have a positive emotional attachment to their firms. Top executives with higher affective commitment can mitigate the downsides experienced by the staff of flexible firms, such as uncertainty and negative affect, which improves the outcomes of flexibility. Drawing on a sample of 211 firms and their founders, we find support for our hypotheses.

Leadership styles and employee knowledge sharing: Exploring the mediating role of introjected motivation

Drawing on Social Exchange Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study examines the impact of three leadership styles (ethical, transformational, and passive avoidant) on employee knowledge sharing. Further, this study explores the mediating effect of introjected motivation in the relationship between three leadership styles and employee knowledge sharing. Using time lag data this study employed a sample of 254 faculty members of public sector universities in Pakistan. Results supported the positive relationship between three styles of leadership and employee knowledge sharing. Moreover, our findings confirmed the mediating role of introjected motivation in the relationship between three leadership styles and employee knowledge sharing. Our study is unique, as it simultaneously examines how various styles of leadership predict introjected motivation and employee knowledge sharing. Implications along with limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Improving high lean team performance through aligned behaviour-value patterns and coactive vicarious learning-by-doing

Purpose

Why are some lean workfloor teams able to improve their already high performance, over time, and others not? By studying teams' and leaders' behaviour-value patterns, this abductive field study uncovers a dynamic capability at the team level.

Design/methodology/approach

Various methods were employed over three consecutive years to thoroughly examine five initially high-performing lean workfloor teams, including their leaders. These methods encompassed micro-behavioural coding of 59 h of film footage, surveys, individual and group interviews, participant observation and archival data, involving objective and perceptual team-performance indicators. Two of the five teams continued to improve and perform highly.

Findings

Continuously improving high lean team performance is found to be associated with (1) team behaviours such as frequent performance monitoring, information sharing, peer support and process improvement; (2) team leaders who balance, over time, task- and relations-oriented behaviours; (3) higher-level leaders who keep offering the team face-to-face support, strategic clarity and tangible resources; (4) these three actors' endorsement of self-transcendence and openness-to-change work values and alignment, over time, with their behaviours; and (5) coactive vicarious learning-by-doing as a “stable collective activity pattern” among team, team leader, and higher-level leadership.

Originality/value

Since lean has been undertheorised, the authors invoked insights from organisational behaviour and management theories, in combination with various fine- and coarse-grained data, over time. The authors uncovered actors' behaviour-value patterns and a collective learning-by-doing pattern that may explain continuous lean team performance improvement. Four theory-enriching propositions were developed and visualised in a refined model which may already benefit lean practitioners.

Leadership styles and organisational innovation in Vietnam: does employee creativity matter?

Purpose

This paper aims to look into the role of transformational leadership and transactional leadership as predictors of employee creativity and organisational innovation. Employee creativity is examined as a potential mediator in the leadership styles–organisational innovation relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional, quantitative design was adopted and structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques were used to analyse data collected from 369 employees working in 39 public coffee enterprises in Vietnam.

Findings

Transformational leadership and transactional leadership were significant predictors of employee creativity and organisational innovation. Specifically, transformational leadership was instrumental to employee creativity and organisational innovation while transactional leadership was detrimental to these two variables. Additionally, employee creativity partially mediated the relationships between the two leadership styles and organisational innovation.

Practical implications

Results of this study benefit the management of organisations and policy makers by providing an insight of which leadership style will effectively suit public enterprises to promote employee creativity and foster organisational innovation.

Originality/value

While there is a lack of studies investigating organisational innovation in organisational methods and that the interrelationships between leadership styles, employee creativity and organisational innovation are not fully understood, this study pioneers in examining relationships between leadership styles and organisational innovation that is being mediated by employee creativity. Figuring out that organisational innovation is more likely to be fostered by the positive influence of leadership behaviours and the improvement of employee creativity, in particular, the significant role of employee creativity represents important contributions of the current study.

Using Stretch Goals for Idea Generation Among Employees: One Size Does Not Fit All!

This study explores heterogeneity in the efficacy of stretch goals for engaging employees in innovation, as stretch goals may both boost norm-breaking creativity and hamper fruitful ideation by overwhelming employees. Through a multilevel perspective, we demonstrate that stretch goals motivate more capable employees (successful, experienced, senior) to submit useful innovative ideas by combining the motivation of stretch goals with these employees' ability to discern fruitful from futile ideas. Other employees, meanwhile, may “spin their wheels” and submit lower-quality ideas based on their inability to apply useful knowledge. Empirically, we leverage idea generation data from a Fortune 500 firm. We contribute to stretch goals research by demonstrating both the intended and the unintended consequences that shape employee behavior and to the innovation literature by articulating when stretch goals can and cannot motivate valuable innovation from employees.

Bevorderen van innovatief werkgedrag door transformationeel leiderschap: de mediërende rol van psychologische veiligheid en teamleren

Deze studie onderzoekt op individueel niveau en teamniveau de mediërende rol van psychologische veiligheid en teamleren in de relatie tussen transformationeel leiderschap (TFL) en innovatief werkgedrag (IWG). Er werd een cross-sectioneel surveyonderzoek uitgevoerd onder medewerkers van drie media- en marketingbedrijven in Nederland, waaraan in totaal 164 medewerkers participeerden, afkomstig uit 39 werkteams. Door middel van multilevel padanalyse werden de data op zowel individueel niveau als teamniveau geanalyseerd. De onderzoeksresultaten tonen aan dat TFL positief samenhangt met IWG en haar dimensies ideeëngeneratie, ideeënpromotie en ideeënimplementatie, op zowel individueel niveau als teamniveau. Op individueel niveau werd sequentiële mediatie door psychologische veiligheid en teamleren vastgesteld in de relatie tussen TFL en ideeënpromotie en ideeënimplementatie. Op teamniveau werd sequentiële mediatie door psychologische veiligheid en teamleren vastgesteld in de relatie tussen TFL en ideeënpromotie. Door het multilevel design en de keuze voor mediatoren die het sociale proces onderliggend aan IWG reflecteren, draagt deze studie bij aan het beter begrijpen van de manier waarop TFL innovatief gedrag in de werkcontext kan bevorderen.

Linking Entrepreneurial Orientation with Innovation Performance in SMEs; the Role of Organizational Commitment and Transformational Leadership Using Smart PLS-SEM

Entrepreneurial orientation has become an enormously significant construct in the innovation studies literature. Predominantly for SMEs, its role has been widely recognized in almost all regional contexts across the globe. The present study is aimed at investigating the effects of entrepreneurial orientation, transformational leadership and organizational commitment on innovation performance. The data for the present study were collected from 1095 employees working at various levels in SMEs. The present study used partial least square structural equation modeling to examine the constructed hypotheses. The findings suggested the significantly positive direct relationships among entrepreneurial orientations, organizational commitment and innovation performance. Besides, organizational commitment positively mediated the relationships between entrepreneurial orientation and innovation performance. Additionally, this study also found the significant moderation of transformational leadership among entrepreneurship orientation and organizational commitment. Leaders of small and medium-sized enterprises should practice entrepreneurial orientation (innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking) and transformation leadership (articulating a compelling vision, focus on goal achievement, and creative problem solving) to enhance the innovation performance of their firms. Moreover, this study provides a robust mechanism for leaders at SMEs to develop strategies for enhancing the willingness of the firms to bring innovation and offer new products and services. The policymakers should enhance the emotional attachment of employees with their firms, sense of moral obligation to remain with the firm which will, in turn, increase the organizational commitment of employees for innovation performance. The study provides empirical evidence to the resource-based view in the context of SMEs. The study delivers solid theoretical and practical implications to experts, leaders and policymakers.

Examining How Ambidextrous Leadership Relates to Affective Commitment and Workplace Deviance Behavior of Employees: The Moderating Role of Supervisor-Subordinate Exchange Guanxi

How to regulate employee conduct and engage them in high performance works actively and continuously has always been the important topic for organizations. Based on affective events theory and social exchange theory, a moderated mediating model was constructed with the affective commitment as mediator and the supervisor-subordinate exchange guanxi as moderator. Regression analyses and conditional indirect effects were tested by SPSS and PROCESS with 374 matched supervisor-subordinate pairs. The paper explores the moderated mechanism of supervisor-subordinate guanxi to the chain of "ambidextrous leadership-employee's affective commitment-workplace deviance behavior." The results showed that the affective commitment mediated the effect between ambidextrous leadership and employees' workplace deviance behavior, and supervisor-subordinate exchange guanxi moderated the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employees' workplace deviance behavior but also moderated the mediating effect of affective commitment. The results have significances to improve human resource management practices and reduce the workplace deviance behavior of employees.

The Impact of Transformational Leadership on Employee Retention: Mediation and Moderation Through Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Communication

This study investigates the impact of transformational leadership on employee retention in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and probes the mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and the moderating role of communication. Data were collected using convenience sampling from 505 employees of SMEs. A Smart PLS structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to estimate the various relationships. The findings of the study reveal a positive and significant relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. Similarly, this study finds a positive and significant relationship in OCB and employee retention. In addition, OCB had a positive mediating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and employee retention. Furthermore, communication positively moderates the transformational leadership- OCB and OCB-employee retention relationships. Leaders at SMEs should implement the traits of transformational leadership such as developing a compelling vision for employees, focusing on goal achievement, having problem-solving techniques, having a sense of purpose, and spending time on the training and development of the team to enhance OCB and employee retention.

“You get what you appreciate”

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the influences of transactional and transformational leadership styles on employee job satisfaction, employee affective commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) within Moroccan organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were gathered from a sample of 219 employees working in seven different industries in Morocco and analysed using Structural Equations Modelling (SEM).

Findings

SEM analyses reveal that employee job satisfaction, affective commitment and OCB are only impacted by the personal recognition dimension of the transformational leadership style. The study indicates that charisma and intellectual stimulation (transformational leadership) as well as contingent reward and management-by-exception (transactional leadership) did not yield significant results.

Research limitations/implications

The use of a cross-sectional research design limits establishing cause-and-effect relationships.

Practical implications

The results of the current study may be of use and interest for organisations in designing effective leadership training programs, as it takes into account how managers and/or practitioners tap into their subordinates’ effective behaviour.

Originality/value

With insights derived from a non-Western perspective, the major theoretical contribution of the present study lies in exploring the effects of transactional and transformational leadership styles on employee job satisfaction, employee affective commitment and OCB in Morocco.

Principals’ leadership styles: the role of emotional intelligence and achievement motivation

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) and achievement motivation (AM) on elementary school principals’ leadership styles. This study investigates the contribution of EI and AM on the two major leadership categories: the task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is a quantitative study with the implementation of correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. The surveys (i.e. EI scale, AM scale, leadership style questionnaire) were sent randomly to 280 elementary school principals in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and 90 of them completed the survey (mostly male=77.78 percent).

Findings

Principals’ EI significantly predicted both task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership. In contrast, the principals’ AM yielded non-significant results in predicting both task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership style. The results also suggested that the effect of EI on two major leadership styles (i.e. task- and relationship-orientation) outperformed the leader’s AM.

Research limitations/implications

This study did not consider the principals’ performance in the analysis. Future studies should also address this issue by considering leadership performance as well as different culture and context. On the other hand, the authors developed new measures rather than using preexisting measures. Although the measures have been constructed according to the scale construction principles and reached an acceptable standard, future research should advance the psychometric property of the scales.

Originality/value

This study discusses the effect of EI and AM on task- and relationship-orientation leadership. In addition, this study has also brought a new insight into understanding leadership styles in collective culture such as Indonesia.

Do leadership styles promote ambidextrous innovation? Case of knowledge-intensive firms

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the transformational and transactional leadership styles and its sub-dimensions on exploitative and exploratory innovations. The authors deepened the analysis by highlighting the contribution of ambidextrous leadership on ambidextrous innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

The conceptual model defined through a thorough review of the literature is tested empirically on a sample of 265 senior managers working in Tunisian knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs). A quantitative analysis is performed via a questionnaire. The analysis of the data collected is carried out using the partial least squares method.

Findings

Results show that exploratory innovation is linked to transformational leadership and in particular to individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation. Moreover, exploitative innovation is promoted by transformational and transactional leadership styles and particularly by attributed idealized influence and contingent rewards. Also, ambidextrous leadership affects positively ambidextrous innovation.

Originality/value

While little studies have investigated how the transformational and transactional leadership styles as constructs of second-order influence differently exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation, this research deepens the analysis by focusing on sub-dimensions of leadership styles that promote each type of innovation within KIFs. It also pioneers the investigation of the effect of ambidextrous leadership on ambidextrous innovation that has never been explored. This research provides important insights for leaders of KIFs and sheds the light on the key aspects of leadership that boost ambidextrous innovation.

The Formation and Effects of Exploitative Dynamic Capabilities and Explorative Dynamic Capabilities: An Empirical Study

Although previous studies have explored the formation and effects of dynamic capabilities, much remains to be learned on this topic. There has been little research on the formation and effects of exploitative dynamic capabilities and explorative dynamic capabilities. This paper provides an explanation of how entrepreneurial leadership style and slack resources affect the formation of exploitive dynamic capabilities and explorative dynamic capabilities and evaluates the effects of exploitive dynamic capabilities and explorative dynamic capabilities on competitive advantage. Based on a sample of 382 Chinese firms, the empirical results show that a transactional leadership style and absorbed slack resources can encourage the formation of exploitative dynamic capabilities, and that a transformational leadership style and unabsorbed slack resources are conducive to the development of explorative dynamic capabilities. Furthermore, exploitative dynamic capabilities and explorative dynamic capabilities can reinforce and complement each other. Exploitative dynamic capabilities positively impact explorative dynamic capabilities, and explorative dynamic capabilities enhance exploitative dynamic capabilities. In particular, exploitative dynamic capabilities have an important effect on short-term financial performance, and explorative dynamic capabilities lead to a significant long-term competitive advantage. The results show that explorative dynamic capabilities surpass exploitative dynamic capabilities in terms of competitive advantage, even if both have a positive influence on competitive advantage. This study validates and develops the theory of dynamic capabilities.

“Judging a Book by Its Cover”: The Dominance of Delivery Over Content When Perceiving Charisma

Perceived charisma is an outcome of message content and delivery, where the latter dominates the former. Framing perception of charisma within dual-process theories, we suggest a rapid processing of delivery and a slow processing of content. We aimed to track the differential processing speed of content and delivery that accounts for the delivery dominance. In two laboratory experiments, we manipulated content and delivery. Participants reported perceived charisma after viewing a presentation (Experiment 1) or moment-by-moment during the presentation (Experiment 2). The results confirmed the immediate influence of delivery on perceived charisma that was later either supported or revised by the content. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Leadership Styles, Absorptive Capacity and Firm's Innovation

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between leadership styles, absorptive capacity and firm's innovation in the Jordanian Pharmaceutical sector. It is a knowledge-intensive industry and one where effective leadership has been very substantial. Findings reveal that transformational leadership style and transactional leadership style are antecedents to absorptive capacity and a firm's innovation. The results confirm a significant and direct relationship between both leadership styles and firm innovation, and indirectly through absorptive capacity. Overall, the research's findings provide valuable insights for managers to foster absorptive capacity and innovation of their firms.

Lean-team effectiveness through leader values and members’ informing

Purpose

Although empirical tests of effective lean-team leadership are scarce, leaders are often blamed when lean work-floor initiatives fail. In the present study, a lean-team leader’s work values are assumed to affect his or her team members’ behaviors and, through them, to attain team effectiveness. Specifically, two of Schwartz et al.’s (2012) values clusters (i.e. self-transcendence and conservation) are hypothesized to be linked to team members’ degree of information and idea sharing and, in turn, to lean-team effectiveness. The paper aims to report the examination of these hypotheses.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey responses (n=429) of both leaders and members of 25 lean-teams in services and manufacturing organizations were aggregated, thereby curbing common-source bias. To test the six hypotheses, structural equation modeling was performed, with bootstrapping, linear regression analyses, and Sobel tests.

Findings

The positive relationship between lean-team effectiveness and leaders’ self-transcendence values, and the negative relationship between lean-team effectiveness and leaders’ conservation values were partly mediated by information sharing behavior within the team.

Research limitations/implications

Future research must compare the content of effective lean-team values and behaviors to similar non-lean teams.

Practical implications

Appoint lean-team leaders with predominantly self-transcendence rather than conservation values: to promote work-floor sharing of information and lean-team effectiveness.

Originality/value

Human factors associated with effective lean-teams were examined, thereby importing organization-behavioral insights into the operations management literature: with HRM-type implications.