Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment: The Mediating Role of Job Characteristics

• Author: Christian Vandenberghe,Nicolas Gillet
• Date: 01 September 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21192
• Published date: 01 September 2014

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 25, no. 3, Fall 2014 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21192 321

ARTICLES

Transformational Leadership

andOrganizational Commitment:

The Mediating Role of Job

Characteristics

Nicolas Gillet, Christian Vandenberghe

Although the contribution of transformational leadership to employee

organizational commitment is well documented, the mechanisms that

explain such relationship remain unclear. In the present research, we

propose that transformational leadership can infl uence organizational

commitment through impacting followers’ perceptions of job characteristics

(i.e., feedback from job, task variety, and decision-making autonomy).

Structural equation modeling analyses conducted on a sample of

employees from multiple organizations in France (N = 488) found the

relationships between transformational leadership and four components of

organizational commitment (i.e., affective, normative, perceived sacrifi ce,

and few alternatives commitment) to be partly mediated by followers’

perceptions of task characteristics. We discuss the relevance of these

fi ndings for theory and human resource development.

Key Words: transformational leadership, job characteristics, organizational

commitment, mediation

The fast-changing environment that most organizations face has directed the

attention of human resource development professionals to the need to build

programs of leadership development that are able to infl uence business per-

formance, service quality, and manager retention (Barling, Weber, & Kelloway,

1996; Parry & Sinha, 2005; Sirianni & Frey, 2001). Evidence has been pro-

vided that leadership development programs which focus on mentoring,

job assignments, feedback systems, goal setting, coaching, or formal train-

ing can help managers adopt better leadership practices that favorably infl u-

ence subordinates’ extra effort and satisfaction at work (Parry & Sinha, 2005).

322 Gillet, Vandenberghe

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

Although various ingredients are relevant to the effectiveness of leadership

development programs (Goldman, Wesner, & Karnchanomai, 2013; Kennedy,

Carroll, & Francoeur, 2013), authors have namely suggested that learning is

particularly encouraged through the critical appraisal of the organizational

context (e.g., understanding the cultural and political aspects of the orga-

nization) (Trehan, 2007) and the capability of managers to critically refl ect

on their previous behaviors and share this knowledge with others (including

followers) (Elkins, 2003). Thus, the development of leadership competencies

seems to emerge from a dynamic appraisal of the context of leadership and

self-refl ections about one’s actions. This process may contribute to managers’

renewing their leadership practices, developing team creativity, and stimulat-

ing innovative efforts among followers (Gilley, Shelton, & Gilley, 2011; H. H.

Johnson, 2008; Shuck & Herd, 2012).

Although various theories of leadership focusing on leader–follower

relationships have been proposed (e.g., leader–member exchange theory; see

Ardichvili & Manderscheid, 2008), transformational leadership has some

unique features that explain its emergence as a popular topic of research for

the past 20 years (e.g., Bass, 1990; Bass & Avolio, 1994; Bass & Riggio, 2006).

In effect, the unique effect of transformational leaders is to “broaden and

elevate the interests of their employees, (…) generate awareness and accep-

tance of the purposes and mission of the group, and (…) stir employees to

look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group” (Bass, 1990,

p. 21). The direct effects of transformational leadership has been examined

in relation to outcomes of interest to human resources development such

as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job performance (e.g.,

Aryee, Walumbwa, Zhou, & Hartnell, 2012; Munir, Nielsen, Garde, Albertsen,

& Carneiro, 2012; Yang, 2012). However, it is only recently that research-

ers have begun to unravel the psychological mechanisms that underlie such

relationships (e.g., Song, Kolb, Lee, & Kim, 2012; Zhu, Newman, Miao, &

Hooke, 2013). Some studies focused on the mediating role of followers’ atti-

tudes such as psychological need satisfaction (e.g., Kovjanic, Schuh, Jonas,

Van Quaquebeke, & Van Dick, 2012), while others demonstrated that trans-

formational leaders exert their influence through collective efficacy, self-

effi cacy, and moral reasoning (e.g., Nielsen, Yarker, Randall, & Munir, 2009;

Turner, Barling, Epitropaki, Butcher, & Milner, 2002). Another study (Song

etal., 2012) found employees’ work engagement to act as a mediator between

transformational leadership and organizational knowledge creation practices.

In the present study, we explore employee perceptions of job charac-

teristics as potential mediators in the relationship between transformational

leadership and organizational commitment. This research endeavor has the

potential to contribute to human resource development practice and research.

First, there is a resurgence of the interest in the infl uence of job characteristics

on employee growth and development, particularly the intrinsic factors that

instill a sense of meaning and purpose at work (Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009).