A Research on the Influence of Leadership Style and Job Characteristics on Job Performance among Accountants of County and City Government in Taiwan

• Date: 01 June 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/009102601104000202
• Author: Chun-Che Lai,Li-Chuan Chu
• Published date: 01 June 2011
• Subject Matter: Article

A Research on the
Influence of Leadership
Style and Job
Characteristics on Job
Performance among
Accountants of County
and City Government in
Taiwan
By Li-Chuan Chu, PhD, and Chun-Che Lai
The objectives of this paper are to explore the effect of leadership style and job
characteristics on job performance and examine the mediating effect of
organization commitment on the leadership style, the job characteristics and the
job performance as well as to provide the management suggestions according the
research findings.
The questionnaires are applied to the accountants of county/city government in
Taiwan, and the convenience sampling is adopted. The following research findings
are described after conducting the statistical analyses. Firstly, this research finds
that the more idealized influence for the county/city mayor is, the stronger ability
of problem solving for the associated accountants are. In addition, the better
management by exception conducted by the mayor, the more ability of problem
solving for accountants exists, and therefore the higher passion of innovation
happens. Secondly, this research also reveals that the more job autonomy, job
importance, and job diversity happen, the stronger ability of problem solving for
the accountants are. Besides, the higher job autonomy for accountants exists, the
higher passion of innovation happens. The mediating effect of organization
commitment was found between transformational leadership and job performance.
It indicates that organization commitment would be a mediator between
transactional leadership and job performance.
Key words: Leadership Style, Job Characteristics, Organizational Commitment,
Job Performance, Accountants
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Introduction
Due to the quick change in political environment and diversity of the society lately, the
public is eager for high quality of the administration of government affairs. Moreover,
the extension of government function and an increase in consecutive public
expenditure as well as a strong demand for social welfare have resulted in a heavy debt
that cause the government to face constant threats of financial unbalance.
Hence, BAS system (Budgetary, Accounting and Statistics agencies) ruling the
primary national financial affairs surely have the obligation to be in charge. The main
goal for BAS agencies is to make the operation of national resource more efficient and
rational. The BAS system consists of budget, accounting and statistics. The function of
budget is to arrange budget for the most efficient distribution of the budget. The
function of accounting is to implement budget and record financial affairs for knowing
financial status and performance as well as preventing the abuse and wastes through
the internal auditing. The function of statistics is to give the government vital and
helpful advices for policy making and consultation. These advices are acquired through
governmental data collection, investigation, and analysis.
The accountants are in charge of budgeting, accounting processing, internal
auditing, final accounting, statistical analysis, and data compilation. Since the fiscal
expenditure reflects overall policy practice as well as the performance of policy
implementation, national economy and the development of general affairs can be
affected if the role of BAS agencies could be well done.
The duties of accountants affect their behaviors and physical response. They are
responsible for amending official affairs, correcting abuse, stabilizing finance and
developing economy. They have to comply with the orders from the superiors as well
as monitor the policies they made, and therefore often face the dilemma of
implementing the business or breaking the official procedure and norm. Moreover, the
law and regulations of accountant affairs are highly specialized and complicated so that
accountants usually think it a heavy workload. Consequently, the failure in perception
of organizational identification and the centripetal force usually cause a high turnover
of the staff and a serious strike to job performance.1 Thus governmental policy
implementation relies on the adequate leadership skills to make crews successfully
completing the policy as well as identifying and committing themselves to
organization. The reason is there is a high correlation between organizational
commitment and personnel devotion to organization, which is very helpful to human
resources management.
The accountants are directly in charge of the county/city mayor, and thus the
effects among the leadership style of the mayor, the job characteristics of accountants,
the organizational commitment, and the job performance are the major issue for this
study. The former researches focused on job stress, Turnover intention, organizational
commitment, role conflict and job satisfaction among the accountants.2 This research
targeted on the accountants of county and city government to examine the influence of
leadership style and job characteristics on job performances as well as the mediating
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effect of organizational commitment on the relationship between leadership style and
job performance as well as job characteristics and job performance.
Literature Review
Leadership Style
To achieve the goal of organizational lasting operation, leaders the key roles of the
organization must be able to measure external circumstance and guide employees to
face challenges as well as establish organizational superiority for constant progression
and development. Fielder thought leaderships are the interactions among people.
People who are controlled under unequal power and influence are induced toward
expected goals of organizations.3
The earlier theory of leadership focused on characteristics theory, behavior
theory and contingency theory, and the late trend in leadership studies is distinguished
into transformation leadership and transaction leadership.4 From Yulk’s study5, the
majority of related leadership theories were grouped into two core concepts,
transformational leadership and transactional leadership, Since 1980. Transformational
leadership has become the mainstream of leadership models.6 The most representative
persons are Bill Gates, Microsoft; Jeff Beoze, Amazon; and the former GE chairman,
Jack Welch.7
This research emphasized on the transformational leadership and transactional
leadership and followed the definition made by Bass and Avolio accordingly.8,9 The
statements are as follows:
1. Transformational leadership
Burns pointed out that in the process of organizational reformation, leaders offer a
sublime vision and value to evoke members’ awareness of the change as well as switch
the original value, human relationship, organization culture, and behavior models to
achieve the reformation.10 The leaders, who are able to activate innovation, cultivate
staffs as leaders, and push reformation forward, are called transformation leaders.11,12
The transformation leaderships are divided into four parts, which are defined as
follows:
(1) Idealized influence: Employees trust in and respect leaders with provident idea
and excellent determination and are willing to accept missions to achieve
organizational goals.
(2) Individualized consideration: Respect the uniqueness of employees’ nature, give
them care and meet their needs, and make them to be valued and happy to
contribute themselves to organization.
(3) Inspirational motivation: Inspire employees’ working motivation, encourage
them to confront challenge and accomplish orders through sincere interaction
and mutual respect for the achievement of organizational missions.
(4) Intellectual stimulation: Encourage staffs to learn more knowledge, develop
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diverse thinking, stimulate their creativity as well as train ability of problem-
solving.
2. Transactional leadership
The foundation of the relationship between leaders and employees is established on
the transactional and potential negotiation. Employees should be rewarded with a
valuable prize if they accept orders from leaders and complete them.13 Transactional
leadership was studied in two types, which are contingent reward and management by
exception.
(1) Contingent reward: It is a kind of interaction with positive reinforcement between
leaders and employees. Reward and praise for staffs with a great performance
should be offered.
(2) Management by exception: It is composed of positive type and negative type in
management by exception. In positive one, leaders actively supervise employees’
performance and immediately amend the errors the staffs made. In negative one,
leaders passively intervene in the errors have occurred.
3. A comparison between transactional leadership and transformational leadership
The two types of Leaderships Style are not conflicted with each other. Transformational
leadership should be based on transactional leadership to increase productivity and
satisfaction of staff.14 In other words, transformational leadership presented through
morality can make employees automatically to accomplish their duties by the way of
encouragement, Concern, inspiration and influence. Nevertheless, transactional
...