Does Transformational Leadership Facilitate Follower Beliefs in Corporate Social Responsibility? A Field Study of Leader Personal Values and Follower Outcomes

The authors tested an integrated model of transformational leadership consisting of leader personal values, follower beliefs in corporate social responsibility, and leadership performance outcomes. Data from 110 managers and 472 of their direct reports demonstrated strong support for the integrated model. As predicted, leader openness to change, self-transcendent, and collectivistic work values were positively associated with transformational leadership, whereas self-enhancement values were negatively associated with transformational leadership. Follower beliefs in corporate social responsibility partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and follower extra effort, which was strongly associated with leadership effectiveness. Implications for leadership theory, practice, and future research are discussed.

[1]  Philippe Jacquart,et al.  On making causal claims: A review and recommendations , 2010 .

[2]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Toward a Behavioral Theory of Charismatic Leadership in Organizational Settings , 1987 .

[3]  Edwin P. Hollander,et al.  Principles and methods of social psychology , 1967 .

[4]  Ronald F. Piccolo,et al.  Transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic test of their relative validity. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[5]  B. Bass,et al.  Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior , 1999 .

[6]  C. Egri,et al.  Leadership in the North American Environmental Sector: Values, Leadership Styles, and Contexts of Environmental Leaders and their Organizations , 2000 .

[7]  S. Schwartz.  Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries , 1992 .

[8]  Bruce J. Avolio,et al.  Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead , 2002 .

[9]  L. Atwater,et al.  The Transformational and Transactional Leadership of Men and Women , 1996 .

[10]  Jun Liu,et al.  Pursuit of Whose Happiness? Executive Leaders' Transformational Behaviors and Personal Values , 2010 .

[11]  M. Seligman,et al.  Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification , 2004 .

[12]  B. Bass,et al.  Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[13]  John J. Sosik.  The role of personal values in the charismatic leadership of corporate managers: A model and preliminary field study , 2005 .

[14]  M. Arthur,et al.  The Motivational Effects of Charismatic Leadership: A Self-Concept Based Theory , 1993 .

[15]  Peng Wang,et al.  Mediating Role of Creative Identity in the Influence of Transformational Leadership on Creativity: Is There a Multilevel Effect? , 2011 .

[16]  Jay A. Conger,et al.  Charismatic leadership in organizations: Perceived behavioral attributes and their measurement , 1994 .

[17]  James G. Hunt,et al.  Leadership: The Cutting Edge. , 1979 .

[18]  Michelle C. Bligh,et al.  Was Gandhi “charismatic”? Exploring the rhetorical leadership of Mahatma Gandhi , 2010 .

[19]  Abraham Carmeli,et al.  The Role of Perceived Organizational Performance in Organizational Identification, Adjustment and Job Performance , 2007 .

[20]  Bruce J. Avolio,et al.  A Meta-Analysis of Transformational and Transactional Leadership Correlates of Effectiveness and Satisfaction: An Update and Extension , 2013 .

[21]  Sanford B. Ehrlich,et al.  The Romance of Leadership and The Evaluation of Organizational Performance , 1987 .

[22]  Kevin S. Groves.  Linking Leader Skills, Follower Attitudes, and Contextual Variables via an Integrated Model of Charismatic Leadership , 2005 .

[23]  Michelle C. Bligh,et al.  Presidential Charismatic Leadership: Exploring the Rhetoric of Social Change , 2008 .

[24]  G. Yukl,et al.  Leadership in Organizations , 1981 .

[25]  P. Bentler,et al.  Covariance structure analysis: statistical practice, theory, and directions. , 1996, Annual review of psychology.

[26]  M. Taccetta-Chapnick.  Transformational leadership. , 1996, Nursing administration quarterly.

[27]  S. Schwartz,et al.  Toward a theory of the universal content and structure of values: Extensions and cross-cultural replications. , 1990 .

[28]  Kenneth L. Kraft,et al.  The perceived role of ethics and social responsibility: A scale development , 1996 .

[29]  S. Carless.  Gender Differences in Transformational Leadership: An Examination of Superior, Leader, and Subordinate Perspectives , 1998 .

[30]  Cheng-Chen Lin,et al.  Cultural and leadership predictors of corporate social responsibility values of top management: a GLOBE study of 15 countries , 2006, Journal of International Business Studies.

[31]  John J. Sosik,et al.  Beneath the mask , 2002 .

[32]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Charismatic leadership in organizations , 1998 .

[33]  M. Sobel.  Asymptotic Confidence Intervals for Indirect Effects in Structural Equation Models , 1982 .

[34]  M. Friedman,et al.  Capitalism and Freedom , 1963 .

[35]  Thomas Sy,et al.  What do you think of followers? Examining the content, structure, and consequences of implicit followership theories , 2010 .

[36]  L. James,et al.  Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. , 1984 .

[37]  Fred O. Walumbwa,et al.  Leadership: current theories, research, and future directions. , 2009, Annual review of psychology.

[38]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[39]  Fritz Rieger,et al.  A Study of the Relationship Between Personal Values and Moral Reasoning of Undergraduate Business Students , 2008 .

[40]  P. Costa,et al.  Personality in adulthood , 1990 .

[41]  S. Premeaux.  The Current Link Between Management Behavior and Ethical Philosophy , 2004 .

[42]  M. Rokeach.  The Nature Of Human Values , 1974 .

[43]  Y. Sankar.  Character Not Charisma is the Critical Measure of Leadership Excellence , 2003 .

[44]  B. Bass,et al.  Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire , 2011 .

[45]  B. Bass.  LEADERSHIP AND PERFORMANCE BEYOND EXPECTATIONS , 1985 .

[46]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[47]  Mansour Javidan,et al.  Components of CEO Transformational Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility , 2006 .

[48]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Charismatic leadership and follower effects , 2000 .

[49]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models , 2008, Behavior research methods.

[50]  Nathan T. Washburn,et al.  Unrequited Profit: How Stakeholder and Economic Values Relate to Subordinates' Perceptions of Leadership and Firm Performance , 2008 .

[51]  R. Lord,et al.  Leadership, values, and subordinate self-concepts , 2001 .

[52]  B. Avolio,et al.  Impact of Transformational Leadership on Follower Development and Performance: A Field Experiment , 2002 .

[53]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  Ethical dimensions of leadership , 1995 .

[54]  S. Schwartz,et al.  Evaluating the structure of human values with confirmatory factor analysis , 2004 .

[55]  L. Beach,et al.  “… Do i love thee? Let me count …” toward an understanding of intuitive and automatic decision making , 1990 .

[56]  P. Bentler,et al.  Fit indices in covariance structure modeling : Sensitivity to underparameterized model misspecification , 1998 .

[57]  Thomas Dietz,et al.  A Brief Inventory of Values , 1998 .

[58]  Seymour Epstein,et al.  The stability of behavior: I. On predicting most of the people much of the time. , 1979 .

[59]  Kevin B. Lowe,et al.  Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic review of the mlq literature , 1996 .

[60]  S. Schwartz,et al.  Toward A Universal Psychological Structure of Human Values , 1987 .

[61]  Jay A. Conger,et al.  The dark side of leadership , 1990 .

[62]  Ronald F. Piccolo,et al.  The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm , 2009 .

[63]  Brown,et al.  Understanding the Dynamics of Leadership: The Role of Follower Self-Concepts in the Leader/Follower Relationship. , 1999, Organizational behavior and human decision processes.