Transformational leadership,

psychological
empowerment, and the moderating
role of
mechanisticorganic contexts
Authors:
SCOTT B. DUST, CHRISTIAN J. RESICK AND MARY BARDES MAWRITZ

Received 13 July 2012

Revised 15 May 2013, Accepted 30 September 2013
Journal of Organizational Behaviour

Conceptual Framework

Objectives
To determine the empowering effects of
transformational leaders
To determine the extent to which these effects differ
across mechanisticorganic organizational contexts

Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: Psychological empowerment mediates the
relationship between supervisor transformational
leadership and employee task performance.
Hypothesis 2: Psychological empowerment mediates the
relationship between supervisor transformational
leadership and employee (a) interpersonal-focused
organizational citizenship behavior (OCBI; H2a) and (b)
organization-focused organizational citizenship behavior
(OCBO; H2b)

Hypothesis Cont..
Hypothesis 3: Organizational structure moderates the mediated relationship
between transformational leadership and employee task performance such
that relationships are stronger in organically structured organizations.

Hypothesis 4: Organizational structure moderates the mediated relationship

between transformational leadership and employee (a) interpersonalfocused organizational citizenship behavior (OCBI; H4a) and (b) organization
focused organizational citizenship behavior (OCBO; H4b) such that
relationships are stronger in organically structured organizations.

Methodology
Sample 306 (153 matched pairs of Supervisor and Employees)
Variety of industries (27% service, 19% financial/insurance,
13% education, 12% retail, 10% health care, 8%
manufacturing,11% other)

 Employees Job titles (e.g., administrative assistant, assistant

project manager, communications associate, loan officers
assistant, network engineer, pharmacy technician, software
tester, and teller)
Participants were recruited from an upper-level, undergraduate
organizational behavior course from a University
Eligible Respondents:
Work 20 hours or more per week
Working with the current supervisor from minimum 6 months

 480 employees were invited

167 Participated
174 responses from Supervisors received
Complete set of valid responses were 153
Response rate 31.9%

Analytical Approaches and

Results
Correlation to test the Hypothesis 1 and 2.

 Results indicated that transformational leadership was positively related to

psychological empowerment ( = .39, p < .01; R2 = .19), task performance
( = .16, p < .01; R2 = .03), OCBI ( = .28, p < .01; R2 = .07), and OCBO
( = .40,

p < .01; R2 = .08)

we tested the relationship between employee psychological empowerment

and task performance or OCBs. Results indicated that psychological
empowerment was positively related to task performance ( = .26, p < .01,
R2 = .05),
OCBI ( = .29, p < .01, R2 = .04), and OCBO ( = .38, p < .01, R2 = .05)

 Sobel Test to check mediation effect

For task performance and OCBI Sobel tests indicated that
transformational leadership had statistically significant
indirect effects and provide evidence of full mediation.
For OCBO it indicates Partial mediation

 Bootstrapping Analysis to check indirect effects

The confidence intervals for the indirect effect of transformational
leadership on task performance (point estimate = 0.10, 95%CI
[0.04, 0.18]), OCBI (point estimate = 0.11, 95%CI [0.03, 0.22]),
and OCBO (point estimate = 0.15, 95%CI [0.05, 0.29]) through
psychological empowerment did not include zero.
Therefore, we concluded that the pattern of results provided
support for Hypotheses 1 and 2.

 To check Hypothesis 3 and 4 moderation Analysis

Results indicates Transformational Leadership and OS
significant
Regression Analysis

 Consistent with the hypothesized relationships, results indicated

that transformational leadership was more strongly related to
employee psychological empowerment in organizations with
more organic ( = .20, t = 5.94, p < .01) as opposed to
mechanistic structures ( = .10, t = 3.55, p < .01)
Therefore, they concluded that Hypotheses 3 and 4 were
supported

Theoretical Implications
Study provides evidence that employees work their best when
leaders empowers them psychologically.
Influence of leaders is stronger when environment support it
accordingly
Organizational environment which prevent psychological
empowerment diminish the influence of leader on employees.

Future Research
Future Research may include broader Sample, because
current study sample may not represent entire large
population
Employee participants provided ratings of both
transformational leadership and psychological
empowerment. A related concern is that the quality of
the relationship between the supervisor
and the employee may influence employees ratings of
their supervisors. We did not measure or control for
relationship quality.

 We used a key informant approach to assess organization

structure, which relies on the ratings of a single organizational
member who understands the nuances and features of the
organizations structure. Future research should consider using
multisource ratings of organizational structure
As this study focused exclusively on individual-level relationships,
the linkages between unit transformational leadership and
team-level empowerment are unclear. Future research should
examine the extent to which the empowering
influence of transformational leaders extends across individuals
and across levels.

Conclusion
This study demonstrates that psychological
empowerment is important component in order to
increase motivation.
Study concludes that Organic Structure is the most
suitable structure for Transformational leaders to
Empower employees psychologically.
In Mechanistic structure Transformational leaders have
fewer opportunities to empower employees