Transformational
leadership in times of
economic downfall
Made by: Martyn Wielemaker
Master: MSc in Human Resource Management
Coach: Prof. Dr. Daan van Knippenberg - Department of Organisation and Personnel management
Co-reader: Dr. Daan Stam – Department of Management of Technology and Innovation
Date: August 23rd, 2012
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TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN RELATION TO
JOB PERFORMANCE: HOW A SET OF SIX MODERATORS
AFFECTS THIS RELATIONSHIP IN TIMES OF ECONOMIC
DOWNFALL
MARTYN WIELEMAKER
RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam
Presented in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science in
Business Administration, Human Resource Management at the Rotterdam School of
Management, Erasmus University
Key words: transformational leadership, job stress, job insecurity, organizational commitment,
organizational identification, leader group prototypicality, openness to experience, job motivation,
job performance
Many leadership theories agree that a transformational leader is the key to increase the job
performance of his followers. However, the purpose of this research is to investigate if this
relationship is influenced by a set of moderators, job stress and job insecurity in particular during
times of economic downfall. The four other moderators used in this study are leader group
prototypicality, the personality dimension ‘openness to experience’ of followers, organizational
commitment and organizational identification. Results among eight supervisors and seventy-three
employees of eight Dutch companies showed an interaction effect of two of our moderators; job
insecurity and organizational commitment. Organizational commitment and transformational
leadership interacted in predicting job performance, such that transformational leadership was
more strongly related to job performance for employees who experiencing less organizational
commitment. Job insecurity and transformational leadership interacted in predicting job
performance, such that transformational leadership was more strongly related to job performance
for employees who experiencing greater job insecurity.
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PREFACE
The Master Thesis that is lying in front of you is the result of months of research into the topic
transformational leadership. This report is the conclusion of my Master program Human Resource
Management at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Hereby, I declare that the submitted work has been prepared independently and without the use of
other than the specified sources. Rotterdam School of Management is only responsible for the
educational coaching and beyond that cannot be held liable for the content of it.
First of all, I would like to thank my coach Daan van Knippenberg and co-reader Daan Stam for their
support during the writing of this thesis. Despite their busy schedule, they assisted and supported
me in a pleasant way whenever I needed it.
Secondly, I would like to thank the participating organizations and members of these organizations
for their cooperation. Without them, I could not have collected my data for this research.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for the mental support when I needed it.
I hope you enjoy reading this master thesis!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE .................................................................................................................................................. 2
CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 5
CHAPTER TWO- THEORY ......................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Job Performance ........................................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Transformational Leadership ...................................................................................................... 10
2.3 Job Performance, Transformational Leadership & Job Motivation ............................................ 12
2.4 Job Stress Level ........................................................................................................................... 13
2.5 Job Insecurity .............................................................................................................................. 14
2.6 Organizational Commitment....................................................................................................... 16
2.7 Organizational Identification ...................................................................................................... 17
2.8 Leader Group Prototypicality ...................................................................................................... 19
2.9 Openness to Experience ............................................................................................................. 21
2.10 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................. 22
CHAPTER THREE – METHODS................................................................................................................ 24
3.1 Introduction / Research Design .................................................................................................. 24
3.2 Sample & Data Collection ........................................................................................................... 24
3.3 Measurement of the independent variables .............................................................................. 26
3.3.1 Transformational Leadership Behavior of the Leader ......................................................... 26
3.3.2 Organizational Identification ............................................................................................... 26
3.3.3 Organizational Commitment................................................................................................ 27
3.3.4 Openness to Experience of followers .................................................................................. 27
3.3.5 Job Insecurity ....................................................................................................................... 27
3.3.6 Job Stress Level .................................................................................................................... 28
3.3.7 Leader Group Prototypicality ............................................................................................... 28
3.4 Measurement of the dependent variables ................................................................................. 28
3.4.1 Job Motivation ..................................................................................................................... 28
3.4.2 Job Performance .................................................................................................................. 29
CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS ........................................................................................................................... 30
4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 30
4.2 Descriptives ................................................................................................................................. 30
4.3 Hierarchical multiple regression analysis.................................................................................... 32
4.4 Mediation of job motivation ....................................................................................................... 38
4.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 39
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CHAPTER 5 – GENERAL DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................... 40
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 40
5.2 Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 40
5.3 Theoretical and practical implications ........................................................................................ 41
5.4 Limitations and future directions................................................................................................ 44
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 47
Appendices............................................................................................................................................ 54
Appendix 1 – Questionnaires ............................................................................................................ 54
A. Transformational Leadership Behavior of the Leader - Rafferty and Griffin (2004) ................ 54
B. Organizational Identification - Mael and Ashworth’s (1992) OI measure: ............................... 54
C. Organizational Commitment - Allen & Meyer (1990) ............................................................... 54
D. Job Motivation – (Motivation at Work Scale: Gagné et al. (2010)) .......................................... 55
E. Job Insecurity Scale – Ashford, Lee, & Bobko (1989) ................................................................ 56
F. Job Stress – Parker & DeCotiis (1983) ....................................................................................... 56
G. Leader Group Prototypicality – van Knippenberg (2011) ......................................................... 56
H. Openness to Experience – Costa & McCrae (1985) .................................................................. 57
I. Job Performance – Kearney & Gebert (2001) ............................................................................ 57
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CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION
When the Chrysler Corporation was on the brink of bankruptcy at the end of the seventies, there
was a man called Lee Iacocca, who is credited for saving the Chrysler Corporation. Mr. Iacocca took
over Chrysler and he transformed the ideals and attitudes of his closest subordinates. As a result of
his actions, the corporation’s culture began to reshape. This is what made Lee Iacocca a well-known
successful transformational leader. A transformational leader gain follower trust by demonstrating
faith in followers by empowering them, and through self-sacrificial behaviors (Conger & Kanungo,
1998; House & Shamir, 1993). A self-sacrificial behavior of Lee Iacocca is the fact that he decided to
work for $ 1 a year, just like Apple’s Steve Jobs (Choi & Mai-Dalton, 1999). Mr. Iacocca managed to
create an organization filled with effective leaders, and in today’s world, the most successful
organization are those with transformational leaders throughout all levels of management (Joyce,
1999).
There are many theories and notions about leadership in organizational and non-organizational
settings. Since the publication of James MacGregor Burns’s seminal Leadership, a new type of
leadership has rapidly become the approach of choice for much of the research and application of
leadership theory; transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2008).
Since this research aims at the effects of transformational leadership during crisis, it is interesting to
see what scholars have investigated about this connection. According to Bass (1985), a charismatic
leader is seen as a savior, and a transformational leader is seen as most effective during crisis or
distress situations. But the question is: “Is a transformational leader always the key solution in crisis
or distress situations to increase job performance or are there other factors which influence this
relationship?” This is what we are going to investigate by means of six components; organizational
commitment, organizational identification, openness to experience, job motivation, leader group
prototypicality, job stress and job insecurity. We will elaborate on these components later on.
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Inspired by Burns, Bass and his colleagues developed the model of transformational leadership.
Although, Burns introduced the term transformational leadership, Bass is called the driving force of
transformational leadership theory after doing research and development for more than 20 years.
This brings us to the main purpose of our research: “The effect of a set of moderators, job insecurity
and job stress in particular, on the relationship between transformational leadership and job
performance of followers through job motivation in times of economic downfall.”
The first moderator we want to explain is organizational commitment. To date, it is more difficult for
organizations to keep their employees within their organizations for a long time than it used to be.
This means, organizations have to find a way to encourage, empower, motivate and develop
employees in such a way that they are getting more committed to the organization for which they
work. Previous research has shown that transformational leadership is known for its positive effect
on followers’ attitudes and their commitment to the leader and organization (Bass & Riggio, 2008,
Zohar, 2002, Brown & Moshavi, 2002, Rai & Sinha, 2000). Since lots of organizations live in
uncertainty about the future nowadays, it is likely that employees within organizations are less
committed to the organization for which they work, considering the degree of job stress and job
insecurity in times of crisis. Therefore the importance of transformational leadership in relation to
job performance of followers may decrease.
If we look at the relationship between transformational leadership and job motivation, and
leadership effectiveness, previous research mainly focused on the leader traits and behavior (Bass,
1990; Yukl, 1998) and not so much – rarely – on the psychological effects on followers (Hunt, 1999;
Lord & Brown, 2004). Therefore, this research aims at organizational identification and its
moderating effect on followers’ behavior. Social identification is an aspect of one’s identity under
the ‘self-concept’ as espoused by different scholars (e.g. van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). The selfconception can be viewed as the knowledge a person has about him or herself. The self-concept
consists of ‘self-construal’, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-consistency (van Knippenberg, et al.
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2004). An important part of the self-construal is the collective self; the self is not only dependent on
individual factors, but also on collective factors (Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Hogg & Williams, 2000).
We can assume that followers are more motivated to work for an organization, if leaders can
cultivate the collective self, so that the well-being of a company becomes a part of the collective self
of followers (Van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003).
As we stated before, most research on the topic of leadership theory has focused almost exclusively
on the impact of leader traits and behaviors on followers’ attitudes and behaviors (Howell & Shamir,
2005). This is a remarkable notion, because leadership is a social and interactive process between
leaders and followers. Therefore, one of the gaps we tried to fill with this research is the moderating
role of openness to experience of followers on the relationship between transformational leadership
and job motivation and in the end, job performance. The following findings strengthen our
proposition. “The follower remains an unexplored source of variance in understanding leadership
processes” (Lord, Brown, and Freiberg (1999, p.167). “Bass (1985) and Conger and Kanungo (1998)
have suggested that transformational leadership may be more effective for some followers than for
others”.
The fourth moderated used in this research is leader group prototypicality, defined as “how far a
leader is perceived as embodying the group’s identity” (Giessner & van Knippenberg, 2008).
Characteristics of the leader as a group member play a key role in leadership endorsement, because
leadership processes are enacted in the context of shared group membership. Leaders, as group
members, ask followers, as group members to exert themselves on behalf of the collective (Hogg,
2001; van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). According to Giessner & van Knippenberg (2008), a
prototypical leader receives more follower endorsement and positive evaluations of leadership
effectiveness than more non-prototypical leaders. In this research we wanted to examine in what
way leader group prototypicality moderates the relationship between transformational leadership
and job performance, considering the other moderators we used.
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The last two moderators we used in this study are job stress – ‘the extent to which employees feel a
tension or anxiety caused by their jobs’ (Dubinsky et al., 1995) - and job insecurity - ‘an overall
concern about the continued existence of the job in the future’ (De Witte, 1999). Both constructs are
of great importance in times of uncertainty. Many theories agreed that a transformational leader
can reduce job stress of his followers (Bass, 1999; Dubinsky et al., 1995). To arouse and motivate his
followers, a transformational leader can use his inspirational appeals. Charismatic and inspirational
leadership has been shown to reduce feelings of burnout and symptoms of stress in professionals
(Seltzer, Numerof, & Bass, 1989). In many studies, job insecurity is related to negative consequences
for job attitudes, organizational attitudes, employee health, and work-related behavior (Sverke,
Hellgren, and Näswall, 2002), but there is no clear picture regarding the consequences of job
insecurity and individual studies found contradictory findings in relation to organizational outcomes.
Therefore, we want to address job stress and job insecurity and examine the effect of these
constructs on the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance,
considering the other four moderators used in this study.
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CHAPTER TWO- THEORY
2.1 Job Performance
One of the main challenges for organizations is to optimize the job performance of their members.
Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that influence this job performance. Job
performance is quite an indefinite term in the literature. Despite the confusion about a clear
definition, it is a critical aspect that relates to organizational outcomes and success. A simple
definition of the concept is whether someone is performing well, or not. Other definitions also
focused on behaviors that affect the goals of the organization and are under the control of an
individual (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). According to Campbell (1990), job performance is a behavior,
done by an individual, this differentiates performance from outcomes. Job performance is stated as
a key predictor for the organizational outcomes. Job performance is also a predictor for the success
of the organization. It cannot be stated that job performance is the only reason of a certain
outcome, there are much more influences which determines the outcome (Sackett et al, 1988;
Campbell, 1990).
There are different kinds of performances; the task performance which describes the performance
about the expected and obligated behavior, the tasks is one kind of performance. Another kind of
performance is the extra-role behavior; this is not about the obligated behavior but about the
behavior outside the job requirements (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). In this research we define job
performance as ‘those actions and behaviors that are under the control of an individual and
contribute to the goals of the organization’ (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). One crucial aspect that
influences the job performance is the type of leadership. This brings us to the main purpose of this
research; to investigate the relationship between leadership and job performance, transformational
leadership in particular.
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2.2 Transformational Leadership
The last decades, much research is done about the examination of the relationship between
transformational leadership and performance outcomes (Bass, 1997; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Lowe &
Gardner, 2000; Sosik, 2006). But past research has focused exclusively on the impact of leader traits
and behaviors on followers’ attitudes and behaviors (Howell & Shamir, 2005). This is a remarkable
notion, because leadership is a social and interactive process between leaders and followers.
Leadership is conceptualized by James MacGregor Burns (1978) as either transactional or
transformational. Transactional leaders are those who lead through social exchange.
Transformational leaders, on the other hand, are those who stimulate and inspire followers to both
achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity.
Transformational leaders help followers grow and develop into leaders by responding to individual
followers’ needs by empowering them and by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual
followers, the leader, the group, and the larger organization (Burns, 1978). Bass (1985) mentioned
that transformational leaders emphasize higher motive development, and arouse followers’
motivation and positive emotions by means of creating and representing an inspiring vision of the
future (Bass, 1985). Transformational leadership is also called “charismatic”, “visionary”, or
“inspirational” leadership (Shamir et al., 1993), but this terms include not all the aspects of
transformational leadership, those are just parts of it.
Leadership was seen primarily as an exchange relationship (e.g. Homans, 1950), but in 1980,
Levinson suggested that if you limit leadership of a follower to rewards for good performance and
punishments for bad performance, the follower will feel like a jackass. This is not the case with
transformational leadership; “this type of leadership addresses the follower’s sense of self-worth to
engage the follower in true commitment and involvement in the effort at hand.”
Transformational leadership is not only effective in one specific setting, it can be an important type
of leadership to inspire and develop followers in every sector and in every setting (Avolio &
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Yammarino, 2002). There are four components in which transformational leadership itself differ
from other types of leadership, defined by Avolio, Bass, and Jung (1997). The four components are:
Idealized Influence (II), Inspirational Motivation (IM), Intellectual Stimulation (IS), and Individualized
Consideration (IC). Leaders with a great deal of idealized influence are consistent, willing to take risks
and have high standards of ethical and moral conduct. By behaving this way, leaders are admired,
respected, and trusted by their followers. The second dimension, Inspirational Motivation, is about
motivating and inspiring followers by providing meaning and challenge to their followers’ work. The
leader creates clearly communicated expectations and demonstrates commitment to the goals and
shared vision of the leader. Stimulation of Innovation and creativity is the main purpose of
Intellectual Stimulation. Leaders are questioning assumptions, reframing problems, and approaching
old situations in new ways to stimulate their followers to encourage and achieve this creativity.
(Bass & Riggio, 2008). The last dimension, Individualized Consideration, aims at the individual
differences of followers. A leader’s behavior demonstrates acceptance of individual differences;
personalized interactions, listens effectively and tasks are monitored to see if followers need
additional direction or support. The transformational leader acts as a mentor or coach to achieve the
highest potential from each individual (Bass & Riggio, 2008).
Transformational leaders have much in common with charismatic leaders, although charismatic
leaders do not necessarily have to be transformational; the basic difference between the two lies in
the fact that transformational leaders strive to transform the organization’s culture in which they are
part of, whilst charismatic leaders may not want to change anything. In the literature, this difference
has not always been made explicit, especially since different authors define transformational and
charismatic leadership in different, sometimes overlapping, ways (c.f. Rowold & Heinitz, 2007, 123,
referring to Conger & Kanungo, 1987). From this point, we see transformational leadership as ‘the
type of leadership that motivates employees through referring to the aspirations of the entire
group’, along the lines of the definition given by Bass (1990, 21). This brings us to the mediating
variable of our research; namely ‘job motivation’.
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2.3 Job Performance, Transformational Leadership & Job Motivation
Motivation at work is a very important part of the leader-followership process. The selfdetermination theory (SDT) distinguishes two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
The intrinsic motivation has something to do with work activity that a person has to do. This form of
motivation comes from the person him/herself. This motivation is driven by the interest in the task
or job and comes not from external pressure. The extrinsic motivation (contingent rewards) comes
not from the individual but from external incentives like money or coercion. The employee is told
what to do, and gets a reward in return. The instrumental reasons for extrinsic motivation depends
on how internalized the motivation is. External regulation – “doing an activity in order to obtain
rewards and avoid punishments” - lies at the low end and goes from introjected regulation –
“regulation of behavior through self-worth contingencies like ego-involvement and guilt” - to
identified regulation – “doing an activity because one identifies with its value or meaning, and
accepts it as one’s own, which means that it is autonomously regulated” - and finally integrated
regulation – “identifying with the value of an activity to the point that it becomes part of a person’s
habitual functioning and part of the person’s sense of self” (Koestner & Losier, 2002). Extrinsic
motivation can sometimes conflict with intrinsic motivation (Bénabou & Tirole, 2003; Centers &
Bugental, 1966). The purpose of both types of motivation is to complete tasks in the best way
possible, which leads to optimal job performance in the end.
H1a: “Higher job motivation leads to higher job performance of followers”.
H1b: “High job motivation positively mediates the relationship between transformational
leadership and job performance of followers”.
Since this study examines the relationship between transformational leadership and job
performance through job motivation, an interesting finding of Shamir, House and Arthur (1993) is a
valuable complement for this research. They found that transformational leaders motivate their
followers “through implication the self-concept of followers”. Transformational leaders increase the
intrinsic value of efforts and goals by linking them to valued aspects of the follower’s self-concept,
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thus harnessing the motivational forces of self-expression, self-consistency, self-esteem and selfworth” (Shamir et al., 1993; 583). In addition, transformational leaders increase both self-efficacy
and collective efficacy by “showing confidence in followers’ ability to meet such expectation, and
emphasizing the individual’s ties to the collective” (Shamir et al., 1993; 583).
To conclude, transformational leaders increase job motivation of their followers by influencing the
‘self’ of their followers, in order to enhance their collective behaviors.
H1c: “A high degree of transformational leadership behavior positively affects the job
performance of followers.”
2.4 Job Stress Level
To date, we live in uncertainty with respect to the economic crisis worldwide. Therefore, we would
like to investigate some of the influences of the economic crisis on the relationship between
transformational leadership and job motivation and in the end, job performance. This research
treats two constructs with respect to ‘crisis’; job stress and job insecurity. In addition, we treat three
constructs regarding ‘group’: organizational identification, organizational commitment and leader
group prototypicality.
First of all, we define and elaborate on job stress. Dubinsky et al. (1995) defined job stress as the
extent to which employees feel a tension or anxiety caused by their jobs. Several job stressors are
friction with bosses, subordinates, colleague, and role conflict or ambiguity, and job insecurity
(Cartwright and Cooper, 1997). Job stress of employees can cause organizational problems such as
employee dissatisfaction, alienation, low productivity, absenteeism, and turnover (Beehr &
Newman, 1978; Schuler, 1980). Despite lots of research, organizational psychologists have not
agreed on the meaning and process of job stress in work organizations. In our research we define job
stress as ‘A particular individual’s awareness or feeling of personal dysfunction as a result of
perceived conditions or happenings in the work setting’ (Parker & DeCotiis, 1983).
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Our research will investigate the moderating role of job stress of followers on the relationship
between transformational leadership and job performance through job motivation. The
transformational leadership theories focus on the effect which leaders can have on their followers’
motivation, commitment, deployment, satisfaction, and job performance. A transformational leader
will reduce the stress levels of followers more than a transactional leader (Bass, 1999; Dubinsky et
al., 1995). To arouse and motivate his followers, a transformational leader can use his inspirational
appeals. Charismatic and inspirational leadership has been shown to reduce feelings of burnout and
symptoms of stress in professionals (Seltzer, Numerof, & Bass, 1989). Transformational leaders can
use idealized influence to portray a leader who is not panicking. A leader who is concerned but calm,
who is decisive but not impulsive, and who is clearly in charge can inspire the confidence and trust of
followers (Bass & Riggio, 2008).
To conclude, if job stress of an employee is high, in general one will perform less than without the
perceived job stress, because one is less motivated than before and as we mentioned before, job
motivation leads to better performance. When a leader acts transformational by using his
inspirational appeals like pep talks and motivational speeches to build organizational morale, he is
able to reduce or eliminate job stress in individuals which may lead to increased motivation and in
the end, better job performance. This brings us to our following hypothesis.
H2: “High job stress of followers will be positively moderate the relationship between
transformational leadership behavior of the leader and followers’ job performance.
2.5 Job Insecurity
The second ‘crisis variable’ that will be defined is job insecurity. In this study, job insecurity is
defined as ‘an overall concern about the continued existence of the job in the future (Van Vuuren,
1990). Van Vuuren (1990) stated that job insecurity has three components; 1) a subjective
experience or perception, 2) uncertainty about the future, and 3) doubts concerning the
continuation of the job as such. The first component involves that an employee might perceive the
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same situation differently than a colleague. For example, an employee will feel secure when his job
is in jeopardy, while another employee may feel insecure when there is no reason to, because his job
is safe. The second component implies uncertainty about the future; the situation where a person
who does not know whether he/she will be able to continue to work or whether he/she will be
made redundant differs from the situation where a person is being made redundant. In the latter
case, one can prepare him/herself for redundancy and future employment, because the future is
clear.
Especially in times of economic downfall, job insecurity is a well-known, interesting topic. In
connection with the rapidly changing environment, job insecurity has received growing recognition
over the past two decades. Organizations are faced with lots of competition and to survive, there is a
need to make their operations more effective with fewer resources. The unpredictable economic
situation has resulted in downsizing, mergers, acquisitions, and other types of structural change. All
these changes have led to increased feelings of insecurity among the workers, not only feelings
regarding their jobs but also about the future in general (Borg & Elizur, 1992; Davy, Kinicki, & Scheck,
1997).
For the individual, perceptions of job insecurity may have harmful effects on employee well-being
and job satisfaction. From the organization’s point of view, job insecurity may have deleterious
consequences for employees’ attitudes toward the organization, willingness to remain with the
organization, and performance. Job insecurity can be seen as a stressor in employee situations,
stress reactions are consequences of the stressor for the psychological well-being, and coping
behavior refers to the way a person deals with stress (De Witte, 1999). Hartley et al. (1991) even
went so far as to suggest that “job insecurity can be one of the more important stressors in
employment situations” (p. 44). Since job insecurity reduces the well-being of an individual in both
the long and short term and is consistently associated with decreased job satisfaction, declines in
commitment, less confidence in the organization and a rise in intentions to quit, one can assume
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that the job performance of the individual suffers from all these consequences of job insecurity.
(Ashford, Lee, & Bobko, 1989).
In addition, if one has the feeling that his job is in jeopardy, in general one is less committed to the
organization, and one can assume that this person is less interested in the transformational
leadership behaviors of his supervisor, like the collective goals of the organization and the emphasis
on long term achievements. This may led to a decreased job performance because the employee has
less motivation to perform his job tasks. Therefore, a high degree of job insecurity will limit the
influence of a transformational leader on the specific individual. This leads us to the following
hypotheses:
H3: “High job insecurity will negatively moderate the relationship between transformational
leadership behavior of the leader and followers’ job performance.”
2.6 Organizational Commitment
Now, we would like to define and elaborate the first construct of ‘group’; organizational
commitment. Commitment is defined by Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1982) in three components:
identification with the values and goals of the organization, willingness to exert effort on behalf of
the organization, and commitment to stay in the organization. Bass (1998) and Yukl (2002) defined
organizational commitment as ‘loyalty and attachment to the organization’.
In a charitable organization, commitment of volunteers can be sustained for example by the positive
feelings of helping others. Hence, our topic is leadership within organizations, and also leadership is
a key factor that helps build commitment of followers to an organization (Bass & Riggio, 2008,
Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Especially, leadership that is inspirational, stimulating, and
considerate of followers’ needs. These aspects of leadership are the core of transformational
leadership, thus of course interesting for our research.
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Leaders can play a very important role in affecting organizational members’ levels of commitment by
fostering followers’ commitment to the team, to the leader, and to the organization. Followers’
attitudes and their commitments to the leader and organization are one of the strongest effects of
transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2008). Transformational leaders influence both
followers’ identification with and commitment to the leader and also positively influence followers’
social identification with the group or organization (Kark and Shamir, 2002; Kark, Shamir & Chen,
2003). Commitment itself has many facets, a number of scholars have suggested that commitment
to the organization takes different forms (Bass & Riggio, 2008). Allen and Meyer (1990) made a
distinction between affective commitment (employee’s emotional attachment to the organization),
continuance commitment (deals with anticipated cost of leaving the organization), and normative
commitment (employee’s sense of obligation to stay). Transformational leadership helps to build
strong follower commitment, especially affective commitment.
Employees who experience a high degree of job insecurity may be less committed to the
organization and the leader. Thereby, one who has nu assurance about his job, he or she identify
less with the organization and is less interested in the collective goals and interests of the
organization.
Since one core characteristic of transformational leadership is ‘to motivate and empowering
followers through referring to the aspirations and goals of the entire group’, it is assumable that the
positive influence of transformational leadership on job motivation and in the end, job performance
is lower when followers identify less with the leader and the organization (Shamir et al., 1993).
H4: “High organizational commitment positively moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance.”
2.7 Organizational Identification
Social identification with the organization is the second ‘group-variable’ in our research. Social
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identification is an aspect of one’s identity under the ‘self-concept’ as espoused by different scholars
(e.g. van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). The self-conception can be viewed as the knowledge a person
has about him or herself. The self-concept consists of ‘self-construal’, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and
self-consistency (van Knippenberg et al., 2004). An important part of the self-construal is the
collective self; the self is not only dependent on individual factors, but also on collective factors
(Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Hogg & Williams, 2000). Organizational identification is the degree to
which a member defines him- or herself by the same attributes that he or she believes define the
organization.
We can assume that followers are more motivated to work for an organization, if leaders can
cultivate the collective self, so that the well-being of a company becomes a part of the collective self
of followers (Van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). Another part of the self-concept is one’s self-efficacy.
Perceived self-efficacy is defined as ‘people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated
levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives’ (Bandura, 1994).
Waldman & Spangler (1989) stated that transformational leadership can increase one’s self-efficacy.
By helping their followers with individual problems and challenges, and showing confidence to them,
leaders are able to raise the self-efficacy of followers (Bandura, 1977; Gist, 1987).
The identification with the organization has been found to impact several variables in an
organizational setting, such as operational reliability (Weick & Roberts, 1993), competitive behavior
towards 'outside' groups, more organizational citizenship behavior and better individual association
to the organization (Dutton, Dukerich & Harquail, 1994), or organizational performance in general
(Beer, Spector, Lawrence & Quinn Mills, 1984; Gustafson & Reger, 1995). These effects (partly) come
about through heightened motivation to perform better. Individuals who identify themselves with a
group, base their self-concept and self-esteem on their belongings to the group. Group successes
and failures are experienced as personal successes and failures (Mael & Ashforth, 1992).
18
Shamir, House & Arthur (1993) argued that transformational leadership has a positive influence on
job motivation through the use of followers’ identity by the transformational leader. The more
followers identify with the organization (include the organization in their self-concept), the more
leverage leaders have to influence followers’ behavior. Also, the more followers identify with an
organization, the more they are motivated to work for that organization (Giessner et al., 2010).
When employees identify themselves with the organization for which they work, they appreciate
transformational leadership more and the aspects of it, like personal care, vision, and charisma. So,
we assume that social identification will positively moderate the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance through job motivation.
H5: “High social identification with the organization positively moderates the relationship
between transformational leadership and followers’ job performance.”
2.8 Leader Group Prototypicality
Group prototypicality refers to the extent to which the leader is seen to embody the group identity –
the group prototype (i.e., group prototypes are fuzzy sets of characteristics that in a given context
define the group in comparison to relevant other groups. The group prototype describes and
prescribes group membership appropriate attributes in a specific context (Giessner, 2009).
Leader group prototypicality is a cognitive structure, which reflects the essential characteristics of a
group. Leaders are perceived more effective and receive stronger leadership endorsement when
they are perceived to be more group prototypical (Giessner, van Knippenberg, & Sleebos, 2009).
Leader group prototypicality derives its effectiveness from the perception that group prototypical
leaders can be trusted to pursue the group’s best interest (Giessner & van Knippenberg, 2008; van
Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003, van Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005a). To explain why some
leaders are more effective than others, leadership researchers studied leader traits, behavioral style,
and situational contingencies to find an explanation. In general, transformational and charismatic
leadership result in heightened performance, because of the increased sense of collective identity
19
and common mission, greater levels of commitment and motivation, and the willingness to make
personal sacrifices (Bass & Avolio, 1993; Lowe, Kroeck & Sivasubramaniam, 1996; Shamir et al.,
1993).
The social identity approach is an approach to understand the influence of shared group
membership on perceptions, evaluations, and behavior. Individuals perceive the social world in
terms of social categories. Hence, group membership can shape people’s cognitions, feelings, and
behavior (Giessner, van Knippenberg, & Sleebos, 2009). To perceive higher motivation and better
performance, leaders should be as prototypical to the group as possible, because individuals that are
more representative of the group are more influential and attractive (Hogg, 1992; van Knippenberg,
Lossie, & Wilke, 1994). Due to the fact that group prototypical leaders are effective whether they
engage in group-oriented behavior or not, followers have more trust in the leader’s motivation to
pursue the group’s best interest and this increases the openness to the leader’s influence (Giessner
& van Knippenberg, 2008, van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). In addition, employees who identify
more with their supervisor are in general more willing to sacrifice own goals in the interest of the
collective goals that their supervisor pursue. Therefore, leader group prototypicality and leader
group-oriented behavior interact to affect leadership effectiveness (van Knippenberg, 2011). As a
result, transformational leaders who are more effective because of their perceived group
prototypicality are able to positively affect the job motivation and job performance of their
followers. Another theory about leader-member exchange shows that employees who perceive their
leader as more group prototypical
are more committed to the organization, which leads to
employees who are more motivated and as a result of that, shows an increase in job performance
(Sluss & Ashforth’s, 2007).
H6: “High leader group prototypicality positively moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership behavior of the leader and followers’ job performance.”
20
2.9 Openness to Experience
To date, the linkage between transformational leadership and positive psychology, positive
organizational behavior, and positive scholarship is missing (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000;
Seligman, et al., 2005; Luthans, 2002; Cameron, et al., 2003). Additional research is needed to
examine the links between transformational leadership and follower characteristics and its effect on
the follower attitudes and job performance (Zhu et al., 2009). Moreover, the focus, like much of
leadership research, is on the transformational leader – the leader-centric perspective. More
attention needs to be given to the followers of transformational leadership and to the leaderfollower transformational relationship (Hollander, 1992; Vecchio, 1997).
Researchers have investigated personality measures in relation to job performance. The overall
conclusion from these studies is that the validity of personality as a predictor of job performance is
quite low (e.g., Ghiselli, 1973; Guion & Gottier, 1965; Locke & Huh, 1962). Though, the research of
Barrick & Mount suggests that the relation of personality measures (openness to experience and
extraversion) to training proficiency, one of the performance criteria, is an important area for future
research. Openness to experience is related to training proficiency, because it assesses personal
characteristics such as curious, broadminded, cultured, and intelligent, which are associated with
positive attitudes toward learning experiences (Barrick & Mount, 1991).
When we look at the intentions of a transformational leadership style, a supervisor is trying to
develop and deploy his employees as leaders themselves in the long run. He is trying to create an
organization with people who are able to bring the organization to the next level. People, who are
more open to new experiences and changes, would benefit more from a transformational leader and
the effect of this type of leadership on the motivation and performance of employees will be greater
than with people who are more conservative and who prefer status quo rather than change.
H7: “High openness of experience positively moderates the relationship between transformational
leadership and job performance.”
21
2.10 Conceptual Framework
There are nine variables used in this research. The main relationship is the one between
transformational leadership and job performance through job motivation. The main purpose of the
research is to investigate if this relationship is affected by a set of moderators. There are three types
of moderators; the first category is ‘group’ (organizational identification, organizational commitment
and leader group prototypicality), the second category is ‘crisis’ (job stress level and job insecurity)
and
the
last
category
is
‘individual’
(openness
to
experience
of
followers).
Lots of scholars agree that transformational leadership has a positive influence on the motivation
and performance of followers. This research investigates if this is also the case in specific
circumstances, like high or low organizational commitment, high or low job stress and/or job
insecurity, and so on.
Figure 1 shows the conceptual model of this study.
22
Figure 1. Conceptual Model
Transformational
Leadership
Organizational
Commitment
Job Stress
Organizational
Identification
Job
Insecurity
Leader Group
Prototypicality
Openness to
Experience
Job
Motivation
Job
Performance
23
CHAPTER THREE – METHODS
3.1 Introduction / Research Design
This chapter will mention the research strategy, the sample and data collection, and the
measurement of the control, independent, moderating, mediating and dependent variables.
This study can be qualified as a descriptive quantitative research, because the aim of this research is
to determine the relationship between a set of variables by measuring subjects once. The
conceptual model we use consists of nine variables; one independent variable, six moderating
variables, one mediating variable and one dependent variable. All of these variables can be
measured by means of a questionnaire. For this research, there are two different types of
questionnaires; one that has to be filled out by employees who are rated by a supervisor, and one
that has to be filled out by the supervisors themselves. The control variables used in this study are
gender and age of the respondents.
Once the data was collected, we used statistical regression to analyze our data. The program we
used for our analyses is SPSS 19.0 for Windows. Both supervisors and employees use five or seven
point Likert scales to answer the questions in the questionnaires. The items in the questionnaires are
identical and gathered from existing questionnaires used and created by researchers in scientific
research. The questionnaire for the supervisor consisted of 4 questions regarding job performance
of his/her employees. The questionnaire for the employees consisted of 82 questions regarding
transformational leadership behavior of their supervisor, organizational identification, organizational
commitment, leader group prototypicality, openness to experience, job insecurity, job stress and job
motivation.
3.2 Sample & Data Collection
First of all, I thought about companies which are relevant for this study. I concluded that there is no
specific branch or company needed or ruled out for this kind of research. All I needed was a number
of companies with employees and one or more supervisors who are willing to participate in our
24
research by means of filling out two questionnaires; one for the supervisors and one for the
employees.
Participants were eight supervisors and seventy-three employees of eight different companies who
participated voluntarily in this study. The companies who participated in our study are active in the
following branches; construction work, industry, catering, financial services, landscaping business,
and government agencies. The age distribution of the respondents was as follow: 8.2% younger than
20 years, 57.5% between 20 and 40 years, 34.2% between 40 and 60 years, and none of the
respondents were older than 60 years. 53.4% of the participants were male, and 46.6% of the
participants were female.
The above participants from the eight different companies are gathered through the following
procedure. After I decided that every company could be interesting for this study, I started
contacting several organizations I know from my social circle. First of all, I called the organizations to
ask if they were interested in participating in this study. After a positive reaction, I dropped by to
explain this research in further detail and elaborate on the participation procedure. I explained to
the supervisor in question that I needed a supervisor who will rate the job performance of his
followers. In turn, the followers who were rated had to fill out the questionnaire about the
transformational leadership behavior of his/her supervisor. Besides, questions about job stress, job
insecurity, social identification with and commitment to the organization, leader group
prototypicality, and job motivation are discussed. Finally, gender and age were asked as control
variables in this study.
After the supervisor agreed with participation and the procedure was clear, I promised him to send
him the links of the questionnaires by email, and in case he wanted to, I handed out the
questionnaires in person to him and his employees. I made clear that I am always available and
willing to answer questions regarding ambiguities in the questionnaires.
25
3.3 Measurement of the independent variables
3.3.1 Transformational Leadership Behavior of the Leader
The most widely accepted instrument to measure transformational leadership behavior of the leader
is the revised form of the MLQ (5X) (Bass & Avolio, 1997). Though, we decided to use a different
scale for our research, given the fact that the questionnaire used in this study cannot be too timeconsuming. The MLQ (5X) consists of 20 standardized items to measure transformational leadership,
4 items assessing each of the five transformational leadership dimensions. The questionnaire used
for this research is the one from Rafferty and Griffin (2004), they developed a questionnaire to
assess five clusters of behaviors that transformational leaders often demonstrate. This scale
comprises 15 items, primarily derived from House (1998) and Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and
Fetter (1990). The scale encompasses five facets that are associated with transformational
leadership behavior – articulating a vision, inspirational communication, intellectual stimulation,
supportive leadership, and personal recognition. Every items was measured on a five point Likertscale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. Item three is reverse-scored: “Has no
idea where the organization is going”. A sample item is: “Has challenged me to rethink some of my
basic assumptions about my work.” A composite transformational leadership score was computed
by averaging the responses to each item (α = 0.826).
3.3.2 Organizational Identification
Organizational identification is defined as ‘a perceived oneness with an organization and the
experience of an organization’s successes and failures as one’s own (Mael & Ashford, 1992). In this
research, the identification of followers with the organization is measured using the questionnaire
created by Mael & Ashforth (1992). This questionnaire examines the degree to which followers
identify themselves with an organization of which they are part of. The questionnaire consists of six
items on a five point Likert scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. A sample
item is: “I am very interested in what others think about my organization.” A composite social
identification with the organization score was computed by averaging the responses (α = 0.798).
26
3.3.3 Organizational Commitment
To measure followers’ commitment to the organization we used the questionnaire from Allen &
Meyer (1990). This questionnaire consists of 24 items ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5)
strongly agree. The 24 items are divided in three components of commitment; affective
commitment (AC), continuance commitment (CC), and normative commitment (NC). For this
research, we decided to use 18 items in total; six from every component of commitment. Items
three, four, five, and thirteen are negatively phrased, so we reversed code these four items in our
dataset. A sample item is: “I really feel as if this organization’s problems are my own.” A composite
organizational commitment score was computed by averaging the responses (α = 0.786).
3.3.4 Openness to Experience of followers
To measure openness to experience of followers the items of Caprara et al. (1993) are used. In this
study we used 2 items to measure the openness of experience; 1 item to measure ‘openness to
culture’ and 1 item to measure ‘openness to experience’. The items are measured on a 5 point Likert
scale varying from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. A sample item is: “I am always
informed about what’s happening in the world.” A composite openness to experience score was
computed by averaging the responses (α = 0.353). Based on the reliability analysis, we have to
conclude that this variable is not reliable enough (α < 0.65) to use in our analysis.
3.3.5 Job Insecurity
To measure job insecurity we used items from the questionnaire of Ashford, Lee & Bobko (1989). In
this research we decided to use only the 10 items that measure the likelihood of possible changes in
a total job. The 10 items that measure the importance of changes affecting a total to one personally
are not used in this research, because these items are less important for this research. Besides, the
questionnaire used in this research should not be time-consuming with respect to the respondents.
The 10 items we used are measured on a five point Likert scale ranging from (1) very unimportant to
(5) very important. A sample item is: “Lose your job and be moved to a lower level job within the
27
organization?” A composite job insecurity score was computed by averaging the responses to each
item. We have chosen to delete the fourth item of our scale: “Be moved to a higher position within
your current location” to increase the reliability of the scale and besides, the correlation with the
other items was extremely low and negative (r = -0.110, α = 0.914).
3.3.6 Job Stress Level
The moderating variable job stress level is measured by means of the perceived work stress
questionnaire developed by Parker & DeCotiis (1983). The questionnaire consists of 13 items
measured on a five point Likert scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. A
sample item is: “Working here makes it hard to spend enough time with my family.” A composite job
stress level score was computed by averaging the responses (α = 0.910).
3.3.7 Leader Group Prototypicality
The definition of group prototypicality used in this study refers to the extent to which the leader is
seen to embody the group identity – the group prototype (Giessner, 2009). Leader group
prototypicality is a concept measured by means of a questionnaire conducted by van Knippenberg,
consisted of 6 items on a scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. The
respondents were asked to answer six statements about the leader of his/her team. A sample item
is: “Our team leader has a lot in common with our team”. A composite leader group prototypicality
score was computed by averaging the responses to each item (α = 0.722).
3.4 Measurement of the dependent variables
3.4.1 Job Motivation
The questionnaire used to measure job motivation is the one developed by Gagné et al. (2010). They
developed the Motivation at Work Scale (MAWS), which consists of four types of motivation;
intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation and external regulation Each of
these four components consists of 3 items. The items are measured on a 7 point Likert scale ranging
28
from (1) not at all to (7) exactly. A sample item is: “For the moments of pleasure that this job brings
me.” We have chosen to delete the 11th and 12th item of the scale; “Because it allows me to make a
lot of money” and “I do this job for the paycheck”, because the Cronbach’s alpha could be raised
from 0.631 to 0.824. A composite job motivation score was computed by averaging the responses to
each item (α = 0.824).
3.4.2 Job Performance
One approach to the study of performance is to focus on what leaders themselves do. What
behaviors do they engage in, and are these the “right” kinds of behaviors to effectively lead?
Another way to conceptualize leader performance is to focus on the outcomes of the leader’s
followers, group, team, unit, or organization. The latter is the method we used in this study. To
measure the performance of employees, supervisors were asked to fill out a short questionnaire
regarding four performance criteria; productivity, efficiency, quality of innovations, and the overall
achievement of their followers. Each supervisor was asked to compare a few of his followers with
each other. The items ranged from (1) far below average to (5) far above average. These items are
obtained from Kearney & Gebert (2009). A sample item is: “How productive is the focal
subordinate?” A composite job performance score was computed by averaging the responses to
each item (α = 0.859).
29
CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS
4.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the results of our research study. The results were analyzed on the individual
level of analysis. First of all, I present a table with some standard descriptives, like the means,
standard deviations, and the correlations of our independent and dependent variables.
Secondly, a reliability and validity analysis are given, which includes the cronbach’s alpha and
multicollinearity of the variables used in the conceptual model. Next, I will analyze the results by
means of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. This will result in an acceptation and/or
rejection of our hypotheses. Finally, I provide a conclusion with the link to the next chapter; the
discussion of our study.
4.2 Descriptives
Descriptive statistics and correlations between all variables of our model are presented in Table 1.
The descriptive statistics in our study consist of the mean, standard deviations, inter-correlation
coefficients and the reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) of our variables. The rule of thumb for
the reliability coefficient is that the Cronbach’s alpha has to be at least 0.70, so I had to delete the
openness to experience variable, because the coefficient was 0.35. In most of the cases, one can
delete one or more items to raise the reliability coefficient, but in this case, the scale consists of only
two items, so unfortunately the variable ‘openness to experience’ is no longer of relevance in this
study. All other reliability coefficients in this study are higher than 0.70.
When comparing the means of our variables, one can see that the mediating variable job motivation
has the highest mean (M = 4.38) and the two constructs with respect to crisis the lowest; job stress
(M = 2.12) and job insecurity (M=2.15). The majority of the respondents does not experience high
job stress and do not have the feeling that their job is in jeopardy. The latter is somewhat
unexpected in view of the current economic downturn in the Netherlands. When comparing the
other moderators of this study, one can conclude that respondents score slightly above average on
how committed they are to the organization (M=3.25), how strong they identify themselves with the
30
organization (M=3.34) and how they see their supervisor as a person who embody the group identity
(M=3.61).Respondents assessed their supervisor slightly above average on transformational
leadership behavior (M= 3.50) and supervisors assessed their employees slightly above average on
job performance (M= 3.61). Notice there is a weak positive correlation between transformational
leadership and job performance. Unfortunately, this correlation is not significant (r=0.12,
p=0.305>0.05).
When one looks at the effect of the mediating variable job motivation on job performance, one can
conclude that there is a strong significant correlation between these two (r=0.48, p=0.001<0.01). The
higher one is motivated to do his tasks, the better one performs at his job. Note that the standard
deviation of job motivation is the highest of all variables (SD=0.87), which suggests that among the
respondents, there is a remarkable difference between the degree of job motivation.
This study is controlled for age and gender, and after interpreting the results, one can conclude that
they do not have any significant effect on the relationships between the variables in this study.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics
Variables
M
SD
1
2
3
4
1. Transformational
leadership
3.50
0.43
(0.83)
2. Organizational
commitment
3.25
0.39
0.36**
(0.79)
3. Organizational
identification
3.34
0.67
0.47**
0.30**
(0.80)
4. Leader group
prototypicality
3.61
0.51
0.10
-0.02
-0.22
(0.72)
5. Job stress
2.12
0.65
-0.07
0.25*
0.23
-0.40***
(0.91)
6. Job insecurity
2.15
0.80
-0.28*
-0.33**
-0.65***
0.32**
-0.25*
(0.91)
7. Job motivation
4.38
0.87
0.07
0.10
0.55***
-0.05
0.23
-0.67***
(0.82)
8. Job performance
3.61
0.74
0.12
0.09
0.31**
0.03
-0.04
-0.36**
0.48***
(0.86)
9. Age
-
-
-0.09
0.08
0.02
-0.13
0.19
-0.06
0.01
-0.00
-
10. Gender
-
-
-0.12
-0.18
-0.02
0.02
-0.15
0.18
0.10
-0.02
0.10
Notes. Cronbach’s alpha in parentheses. n = 73.
*P<0.05; **p<0.01, ***p<0.001
31
5
6
7
8
9
10
-
4.3 Hierarchical multiple regression analysis
The most interesting part of this study is to test the interaction effects in our model by means of
hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The conceptual model consists of six moderators of which
five will be used in further analyses. Earlier in this research, I concluded that the openness to
experience scale is deleted for further analyses, because the scale failed the reliability test.
Since age is not correlated at all and far from significance, this control variable does not seem to
matter for this study, and therefore, in view of the power of our regression model, I decided to run
model 2 and 3 without age as a control variable. At first, gender does not seem to matter as a
control variable either. However, in model 3 gender causes an interesting interaction effect
concerning transformational leadership and job insecurity. For this reason, I decided to include
gender in all of the three regression models.
To run appropriate hierarchical multiple regression analyses and test interaction effects, the
independent variables and moderating variables of this study are centered. I followed the approach
of Aiken & West (1991) in this matter. First, I created the centered independent variable by
subtracting the mean score of transformational leadership of the individual respondent’s average
score. Now the new variable has a mean of zero with the exact same standard deviation as the
original variable. I followed the same procedure with the five moderators used this study. After the
variables are centered and corrected for multicollinearity, I used the new centered variables to
create the product terms following the product variable approach suggested by Baron & Kenny
(1996). Since the control variables in this study - gender and age - are measured on an
ordinal/nominal level, dummy variables were created instead of being centered. Finally, I ran the
multiple regression analyses with the new variables to show if there are any interaction effects
observable.
32
To summarize, model 1 consists of gender and age, the control variables of this study. In model 2,
age is omitted and the independent variable and the set of moderators are added. Model 3 includes
gender, the independent variable, moderating variables and the product terms to test for interaction
effects. By far, the main focus of this study is model 3, to show if there are any significant interaction
effects that affect the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance.
However, significant relationships in Model 1 and 2 are worth to notice as well.
33
Tabel 2. Job performance as a function of transformational leadership and the set of moderators: summary of moderated multiple regression analyses
Model, Step, and Predictor Variables
Model 1
Β
Model 2
t
Constant
3.62
8.86***
Age
-0.00
-0.01
Gender
-0.03
-0.15
Β
3.60
Model 3
t
31.04***
Β
t
3.73
28,71***
0.02
0.14
-0.09
-0.73
Transformational leadership
-0.07
-0.52
-0.16
-1.13
Organizational commitment
-0.02
-0.15
0.16
1.06
Organizational identification
0.18
1.09
0.19
1.11
Leader group prototypicality
0.15
1.14
0.30
1.93*
Job stress
-0.11
-0.83
-0.17
-1.20
Job insecurity
-0.35
-2.19**
-0.30
-1.68*
Organizational commitment * TL
-0.36
-2.14**
Organizational identification * TL
0.34
1.30
Leader group prototypicality * TL
-0.03
-0.18
Job stress * TL
-0.07
0.46
Job insecurity * TL
0.43
1.78*
Note: ΔR² in model 1 = -0.03, for model 2, ΔR² equals 0.10, in model 3, ΔR² equals 0.17
*p<0.10; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01
34
As can be seen in Table 2, analysis yield a significant relationship between job insecurity and job
performance (β = -0.31, p < 0.10). This result suggests that respondents perform less when their jobs
are in jeopardy. Another significant relationship can be found between leader group prototypicality
and job performance (β = 0.30, p= 0.06<0.10). This suggests that respondents perform better when
they see their leader as a person who embodies the group identity. Of greatest interest is the
finding that the hypothesized two-way interaction between transformational leadership and
organizational commitment is significant and therefore predicts variance in job performance (β = 0.36, p= 0.04<0.05). Though, the finding is not in line with our fourth hypothesis. We predicted that
high follower’s commitment to the organization has a positive effect on the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance, but the results show us that the opposite is true.
This two-way interaction effect claims that the relationship between transformational leadership
and job performance is stronger with lower organizational commitment. We will elaborate on this
unexpected finding in our general discussion. The other significant finding of this multiple regression
analysis that predicts variance in job performance is the two-way interaction between
transformational leadership and job insecurity (β = 0.44, p = 0.08<0.10). This interaction shows that
the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance is positively moderated
through job insecurity. The relationship is stronger with higher job insecurity. Again, this result is in
contrary to our hypothesis. The third hypothesis predicts a negative moderating effect of job
insecurity on the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance. Possible
explanations will be discussed in the general discussion. The other interaction effects in table 2 are
not significant.
The nature of these interactions can be further explored with simple slope analyses. I used
procedures by Aiken and West (1991). Figure 2 shows the simple slopes plotted for the interaction
effect of organizational commitment on the relationship between transformational leadership and
job performance. The figure is obtained from Jeremy Dawson.
35
Figure 2. Job performance as a function of transformational leadership and organizational
commitment
5
Job performance
4,5
4
3,5
Low
Organizational
commitment
High
Organizational
commitment
3
2,5
2
1,5
1
Low Transformational
leadership
High Transformational
leadership
When one looks at figure 3 for interpreting the interaction effect, one can conclude that high
organizational commitment negatively moderates the relationship between transformational
leadership and job performance. This is not in line with our fourth hypothesis which claims that high
follower’s commitment positively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership
and job performance. When employees are less committed to their organization in combination with
high transformational leadership, they perform better compared to employees who are more
committed to their organization in combination with high transformational leadership. On the other
hand, when the follower’s commitment is high in combination with low transformational leadership,
the performance of employees is high, and with low commitment in combination with low
transformational leadership, the performance is low. This analysis revealed that organizational
commitment negatively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and job
performance; lower performance by employees who are more committed to their organization in
combination with high transformational leadership. Possible explanations for this unexpected
finding can be found in the general discussion of our results.
36
Figure 3 shows a simple slope for the interaction effect of job insecurity and transformational
leadership.
Figure 3. Job performance as a function of transformational leadership and job insecurity
5
Job performance
4,5
4
3,5
Low Job
insecurity
3
2,5
High Job
insecurity
2
1,5
1
Low Transformational
leadership
High Transformational
leadership
Note that employees perform better when they experience high job insecurity in combination with
high transformational leadership compared to when employees experience low job insecurity in
combination with high transformational leadership. On the other hand, when job insecurity is high in
combination with low transformational leadership, employees perform less, compared to when
employees experience low job insecurity in combination with low transformational leadership. This
analysis revealed that job insecurity positively moderates the relationship between transformational
leadership and job performance; higher job performance by employees who experience relatively
high job insecurity in combination with transformational leadership.
37
4.4 Mediation of job motivation
To examine whether job motivation mediates the interaction effect of transformational leadership
and job performance, I followed four steps in establishing mediation discussed by Baron & Kenny
(1986) and Judd and Kenny (1981). Step 1 is to demonstrate if the initial variable is correlated with
the outcome. I used job performance as the criterion variable and transformational leadership as a
predictor in a regression equation. Unfortunately, the relation was positive, but not significant (β=
0.12, p=0.31>0.10). In step 2, I needed to show if transformational leadership is correlated with the
mediator, job motivation in our case. I used job motivation as the criterion variable and
transformational leadership as a predictor in a regression equation. Unfortunately, the relation was
positive, but not significant (β= 0.13, p=0.58>0.10). In step 3, one has to show that the mediator
affects the outcome. I used job performance as the criterion variable and transformational
leadership and job motivation as the predictors in a regression equation. The results show us that
job motivation is significant and strong correlated with job performance (β = 0.41, p = 0.00<0.01).
Since the relationship between transformational leadership and job motivation is not significant at
all, one can conclude that job motivation leads to higher performance controlled for the effect of the
relation between transformational leadership and job motivation. However, after the four steps we
just followed, one can conclude that step 1 and 2 are not met, which lead us to the conclusion that
there is no mediation effect of job motivation on the relationship between transformational
leadership and job performance. To conclude, these findings do not provide support for hypothesis
1B; the prediction that higher job motivation positively mediates the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance.
38
4.4 Conclusion
Hypotheses
Rejection/Acceptation
H1a: “Higher job motivation leads to higher job
performance of followers”.
Employees who are more motivated perform
significantly higher than their colleagues who are less
motivated. I accept this hypothesis.
H1b: “High job motivation positively mediates the
relationship between transformational leadership
and job performance of followers
There were no significant relationships found
between transformational leadership and job
motivation and between transformational leadership
and job performance. I cannot accept this hypothesis.
H1c: “A high degree of transformational leadership
behavior positively affects the job performance of
followers.”
There was a weak negative correlation found
between transformational leadership and job
performance, but the finding was not significant. I
cannot accept this hypothesis.
H2: “High job stress of followers will be positively
moderate the relationship between transformational
leadership behavior of the leader and followers’ job
performance through job motivation”.
The interaction effect of job stress and
transformational leadership does not significantly
predicts variance in job performance. I cannot accept
this hypothesis
H3: “High job insecurity will negatively moderate the
relationship between transformational leadership
behavior of the leader and followers’ job
performance through job motivation.”
The interaction effect of job insecurity and
transformational leadership significantly predicts
variance in job performance. However, high job
insecurity positively predicts variance in job
performance. I cannot accept this hypothesis.
H4: High followers’ commitment to the organization
positively moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance
through job motivation“.
The interaction effect of organizational commitment
and transformational leadership significantly predicts
variance in job performance. However, high
organizational commitment negatively predicts
variance in job performance. I cannot accept this
hypothesis.
H5: “High social identification with the organization
positively moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership and followers’ job
performance through job motivation.”
The interaction effect of organizational identification
and transformational leadership does not
significantly predicts variance in job performance. I
cannot accept this hypothesis
H6: “High leader group prototypicality positively
moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership behavior of the leader
and followers’ job performance through job
motivation.”
The interaction effect of leader group prototypicality
and transformational leadership does not
significantly predicts variance in job performance. I
cannot accept this hypothesis
H7: “High openness of experience positively
moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance
through job motivation.”
The scale I used to measure this construct failed the
reliability analysis, because of the low Cronbach’s
alpha. I cannot accept this hypothesis.
39
CHAPTER 5 – GENERAL DISCUSSION
5.1 Introduction
This research was set up to investigate the influence of a set of moderators on the relationship
between transformational leadership and job performance. The moderators used in this study were:
“organizational commitment”, “organizational identification”, “leader group prototypicality”, “job
stress”, “job insecurity”, and “openness to experience”. Especially, job stress and job insecurity were
chosen because of the current worldwide economic downfall and the different opinions in existing
theories about the relationship between job insecurity and job performance. Nine hypotheses were
tested by means of hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The results of these analyses will be
further discussed in this chapter. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings will be
discussed. Limitations and potential areas for future research will be provided at the end of the
discussion.
5.2 Overview
Our findings suggest that both job insecurity and organizational commitment have an effect on the
relationship between transformational leadership and job performance. The results show that high
job insecurity positively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and job
performance and high organizational commitment negatively moderates the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance. In addition, low job insecurity negatively
moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance and low
organizational commitment positively moderates the relationship between transformational
leadership and job performance. Both results are unexpected and not in line with the existing theory
and literature. Organizational identification, job stress, and leader group prototypicality do not have
an interaction effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and job performance.
But worth to mention is the independent effect of leader group prototypicality on job performance.
Higher leader group prototypicality leads to higher job performance. This is not a relationship that
we explicitly hypothesized, but the finding is nevertheless a contribution to existing research regards
40
group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness that found a positive relationship between these
two constructs (van Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005, Hogg et al., 1998). Another finding is the
negative independent effect of job insecurity on job performance. This is remarkable, because the
interaction effect of job insecurity that we found showed a positive effect on the relationship
between transformational leadership and job performance. As such, without taking into account the
type of leadership, employees who perceive high job insecurity perform worse compared to their
colleagues who perceive less job insecurity. In addition, with a transformational leader, employees
who perceive high job insecurity perform better than without such a type of leader. This finding is a
contribution to several studies conducted by many researchers regarding this topic (de Witte, 1999;
Abramis, 1994; Mooney, 1984). These studies found a negative effect of job insecurity on job
satisfaction and organizational outcomes, like job performance. This study shows no significant
relationship between transformational leadership and job motivation which is remarkable and is
probably the result of sampling bias and/or the amount of participants. On the other hand, the most
obvious hypothesis in this study is statistically confirmed, namely the positive effect of job
motivation on the job performance of followers.
5.3 Theoretical and practical implications
Beforehand, we expected a negative influence of high job insecurity on the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance. As Hartley et al. (1991) suggest: “job insecurity
can be one of the more important stressors in employment situations” (p. 44). And stress on its turn
can cause organizational problems in means of low productivity, absenteeism, and dissatisfaction;
three important things that in most of the times results in lower job performance. Since one of the
key elements of a transformational leader is to empower their followers and change their attitudes
to increase their long term performance and in turn, reshape the organizational culture, a decline in
job performance can exist because employees perceive higher job insecurity in periods of change
(Ackerman, 1982).
41
Based on these theories we hypothesized a negative influence of high job insecurity on the
relationship between transformational leadership and the performance of one’s job. Since the
results showed the opposite of this assertion, we need to find an explanation for our unexpected
findings. Existing theories were investigated in order to explain the results from this study, so that
new theory can be formulated.
A high degree of job insecurity in combination with transformational leadership may lead to higher
job performance, because employees want to work harder to convince their supervisor that they are
important for the organization and to show commitment to their organization and their leader.
Brockner (1988) suggested kind of the same assumption based on his laboratory study. As we
mentioned earlier in this study, transformational leadership has five components; Idealized
Influence (II), Inspirational Motivation (IM), Intellectual Stimulation (IS), and Individualized
Consideration (IC). Especially the third one – Intellectual Stimulation – can explain the better job
performance of an individual. Supervisors stimulate their followers to encourage and achieve
creativity to approach old situations in new ways. Therefore, followers are more likely to be willing
and able to come up with possible solutions for the current distress situation to reduce the
perceived job insecurity.
The other way around, the situation that low job insecurity in combination with transformational
leadership leads to lower job performance is also an interesting finding of this study. This finding can
be explained by the fact that employees who are not afraid of losing their job, are less willing and
less motivated to further develop themselves and sacrifice their individual goals in the interest of the
organization in comparison to employees who experience high job insecurity and want to fight for
their organization to keep their jobs. A transformational leader who stimulates and encourages his
employees to become a more capable employee and perhaps a good leader in the future, without
rewarding each individual for every small achievement it accomplishes is probably not the most
suited type of leader in this situation.
42
The other significant result we found is the one regarding organizational commitment. Scholars have
provided evidence of a positive correlation between organizational commitment and job
performance (e.g., Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, & Jackson, 1989). Based on existing theories
we hypothesized a positive influence of organizational commitment on the relationship between
transformational leadership and job performance. The more one is committed to the organization,
the more he or she shows self-sacrificing behaviors in the interest of the collective goals of the
organization. Transformational leadership helps to build strong follower commitment, especially
affective commitment – an employee’s emotional attachment to the organization (Allen and Meyer,
1990). However, this study shows the opposite. High organizational commitment in combination
with high transformational leadership leads to lower job performance. As such, low organizational
commitment in combination with high transformational leadership leads to higher job performance.
We can think of several explanations for these unexpected findings. Employees who are extremely
committed to the organization for which they work have the feeling that they need to satisfy every
customer in every little detail to ensure that customers remain loyal to their organization and this at
the expense of the productivity and efficiency of their daily tasks. Since productivity and efficiency
were part of the four item scale supervisors used to rate the job performance of their followers, this
can be an explanation for this finding. This is not necessarily bad for the company, because in the
long run the customers remain with the company, which leads to an increased turnover. Another
explanation could be the fact that participants score relatively high on continuance commitment and
relatively low on normative and affective commitment. Scholars have found negative correlations
between continuance commitment and supervisor ratings of overall performance (Konovsky &
Cropanzano, 1991; Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, & Jackson, 1989).
The finding that low organizational commitment in combination with high transformational
leadership leads to higher job performance is another finding which is not in line with existing
literature. Based on existing theories, almost all scholars agree that low organizational commitment
has been associated with low levels of morale (DeCotiis & Summers, 1987), lower satisfaction,
43
motivation and compliance (Schappe, 1998). All these aspects can lead to lower job performance. In
our case, employees who see their supervisor as a transformational leader and are less committed
to the organization perform even better than their colleagues who see their supervisor as a
transformational leader and are more committed to the organization. An explanation could be the
fact that employees are strongly committed to their supervisor, but not so committed to the
organization. This way, employees want to work harder for their supervisor because of his idealized,
inspirational, individualized, and intellectual leadership style. Another explanation can be drawn
from the idea that the job performance measure is more focused on the short-term performance of
employees, and employees who are less committed to the organization will perform better on the
short term compared to employees who show a great deal of organizational commitment. Secondly,
employees who are less committed to the organization and who do not care a lot about their
organization may be more likely to take risks instead of choosing the easy way, and taking risks can
result in better performance on the short term. For this reasons, these employees may perform
better than their counterparts.
A practical implication for HR managers following the findings of this study is that employees do not
always perform better when they show organizational commitment or perceive low job insecurity. It
is important that one always takes into account the leadership style that someone demonstrates
before you place someone in a specific situation. This study showed that it is not guaranteed that a
transformational leader increases job performance of his followers; it depends a lot on follower’s
behaviors towards his supervisor and his organization. And after observing the behaviors and
thoughts of followers it is vital to choose the right type of leadership, which may not always be the
transformational one.
5.4 Limitations and future directions
There is no study without its limitations. One of the greatest limitations of this research is the fact
that all data is derived through cross-sectional research. The choice for cross-sectional research
comes from the fact that there was a relatively small amount of time to conduct the research. Data
44
is obtained at one point in time and this can cause bias. For example, it is conceivable that
participants perceived higher job insecurity and/or job stress a few months ago given the fact that
the economic downfall is lasting for a couple of years. However, through reorganization or layoffs
the perceived stress and job insecurity may be decreased. Another limitation of this study is the
relatively small sample size. The sample size is big enough to conduct this research, but future
research should provide confirmation or rejection for our hypotheses using a larger sample size to
make the results of this study more reliable. Especially, the importance of follower’s attitudes and
behaviors should be examined in future research (Zhu et al., 2009). In this study, we tried to provide
some support in this manner, but unfortunately this construct failed the reliability analysis. A more
appropriate scale is needed to investigate this area of research.
The third limitation of the present study is the manner how job performance is measured. The
measure itself is not wrong, but for this research on transformational leadership, it may focus a bit
too much on the short-term performance of employees. Besides, next to supervisory ratings, future
research should also focus on statistical data regards job performance to strengthen this scale. The
final limitation of our study relates to the selection of the several organizations used for this
research. We have chosen to make no distinction between non-profit and profit organizations, and
only used small and medium-sized enterprises companies. However, this could have led to selectionbias. Employees working for financial services companies will probably experience more job
insecurity than a nurse who is working for a hospital where the demand for personnel is huge.
Despite some limitations of our study, this study also has some strengths. A strength of this research
is that the relationship between the data comes from multiple sources, namely supervisors and
followers. Followers filled out a questionnaire about their supervisor’s transformational leadership
behavior and the supervisor on his turn rated his followers on their job performance. As a result, the
relationship between variables does not suffer from common-rater bias.
45
In conclusion
Nowadays, employees are not as loyal as they used to be to their organization. This, and the fact
that employees have tacit knowledge about the company that is difficult to transfer to another
person makes it increasingly important for companies to treat their employees in such a way that
they remain with the company,
Transformational leadership is a type of leadership that has the
power to achieve this. When employees are being motivated, encouraged, inspired and stimulated
by their supervisor to develop themselves to a person and employee who add value to his work, and
the company, and in the end, to his personal life, they will be more committed to the organization.
As a result, employees are more likely to remain with the company than without these aspects.
However, this present study provides useful angles of the study of transformational leadership in
relation to job performance and showed us that transformational leadership is not always the key
solution to increase job performance when influenced by other factors, like organizational
commitment and job insecurity.
46
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Appendices
Appendix 1 – Questionnaires
A. Transformational Leadership Behavior of the Leader - Rafferty and Griffin (2004)
Answer on a 5 point Likert scale (completely disagree - completely agree).
Vision
1. Has a clear understanding of where we are going
2. Has a clear sense of where he/she wants our unit to be in 5 years
3. Has no idea where the organization is going (R)a
Inspirational communication
1. Says things that make employees proud to be a part of this organization
2. Says positive things about the work unit
3. Encourages people to see changing environments as situations full of opportunities
Intellectual stimulation
1. Challenges me to think about old problems in new ways
2. Has ideas that have forced me to rethink some things that I have never questioned before
3. Has challenged me to rethink some of my basic assumptions about my work
Supportive leadership
1. Considers my personal feelings before acting
2. Behaves in a manner which is thoughtful of my personal needs
3. Sees that the interests of employees are given due consideration
Personal recognition
1. Commends me when I do a better than average job
2. Acknowledges improvement in my quality of work
3. Personally compliments me when I do outstanding work
a (R) indicates that the item was reverse-scored.
B. Organizational Identification - Mael and Ashworth’s (1992) OI measure:
Answer on a 5 point Likert scale (completely disagree - completely agree).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
When someone praises my organization, it feels like a personal compliment.
When someone criticizes my organization, it feels like a personal insult.
I am very interested in what others think about my organization.
When I talk about my organization, I usually say “we” rather than “they”.
My organization’s successes are my successes.
If a story in the media criticized my organization, I would feel embarrassed.
C. Organizational Commitment - Allen & Meyer (1990)
Answer on a 5 point Likert scale (completely disagree - completely agree).
Affective Commitment (AC); Continuance Commitment (CC); Normative Commitment (NC)
AC1. I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization.
AC2. I really feel as if this organization’s problems are my own.
AC3. I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to my organization (R)
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AC4. I do not feel emotionally attached to this organization. (R).
AC5. I do not feel like part of the family at my organization. (R).
AC6. This organization has a great deal of personal meaning for me.
CC1. Right now, staying with my organization is a matter of necessity as much as desire.
CC2. It would be very hard for me to leave my organization right now, even if I wanted to.
CC3. Too much of my life would be disrupted if I decided to leave my organization now.
CC4. I feel that I have too few options to consider leaving this organization.
CC5. If I had not already put so much of myself into this organization, I might consider working
elsewhere.
CC6. One of the few negative consequences of leaving this organization would be the scarcity of
available alternatives.
NC1. I do not feel any obligation to remain with my current employer. (R).
NC2. Even if it were to my advantage, I do not feel it would be right to leave my organization now.
NC3. I would feel guilty if I left this organization now.
NC4. This organization deserves my loyalty.
NC5. I would not leave my organization right now because I have a sense of obligation to the people
in it.
NC6. I owe a great deal to my organization.
D. Job Motivation – (Motivation at Work Scale: Gagné et al. (2010))
Note: The stem is “Using the scale below, please indicate for each of the following statements to
what degree they presently correspond to one of the reasons for which you are doing this specific
job” and is accompanied by the scale 1= not at all; 2= very little; 3 = a little; 4 = moderately; 5 =
strongly; 6= very strongly; 7= exactly.
Intrinsic motivation (intrins); Identification (ident); introjection (intro); external regulation (ext)
Intrins1 Because I enjoy this work very much
Intrins2 Because I have fun doing my job
Intrins3 For the moments of pleasure that this job brings me
Ident1 I chose this job because it allows me to reach my life goals
Ident2 Because this job fulfills my career plans
Ident3 Because this job fits my personal values
Intro1 Because I have to be the best in my job, I have to be a “winner”
Intro2 Because my work is my life and I don’t want to fail
Intro3 Because my reputation depends on it
Ext1 Because this job affords me a certain standard of living
Ext2 Because it allows me to make a lot of money
Ext3 I do this job for the paycheck
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E. Job Insecurity Scale – Ashford, Lee, & Bobko (1989)
To capture the perceived threat to a total job, we asked "Again, thinking about the future, how
likely is it that each of these events might actually occur to you in your current job?" (very
unlikely, 1; unlikely, 2; neither likely nor unlikely, 3; likely, 4; very likely, 5).
1. Lose your job and be moved to a lower level job within the organization?
2. Lose your job and be moved to another job at the same level within the organization?
3. Find that the number of hours the company can offer you to work may fluctuate from day
to day?
4. Be moved to a higher position within your current location?
5. Be moved to a higher position in another geographic location?
6. Lose your job and be laid off for a short while?
7. Lose your job and be laid off permanently?
8. Find your department or division’s future uncertain?
9. Lose your job by being fired?
10. Lose your job by being pressured to accept early retirement?
F. Job Stress – Parker & DeCotiis (1983)
Please rank the following statements (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree)
1. I have felt fidgety or nervous as a result of my job.
2. Working here makes it hard to spend enough time with my family.
3. My job gets to me more than it should.
4. I spend so much time at work; I can't see the wood for the trees.
5. There are lots of times when my job drives me right up the wall.
6. Working here leaves little time for other activities.
7. Sometimes when I think about my job I get a tight feeling in my chest.
8. I frequently get the feeling I am married to the company.
9. I have too much work and too little time to do it in.
10. I feel guilty when I take time off from job.
11. I sometimes dread the telephone ringing at home because the call might be job-related.
12. I feel like I never have a day off.
13. Too many people at my level in the company get burned out by job demands.
G. Leader Group Prototypicality – van Knippenberg (2011)
Answer on a 5 point Likert scale (completely disagree - completely agree).
1. Our team leader is a good example of the kind of people who are part of our team.
2. Our team leader has a lot in common with our team.
3. Our team leader has a lot of same features as our team members.
4. Our team leader is much like the members of our team.
5. Our team leader represents what is distinctive about our team.
6. Our team leader embodies who we are as a team.
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H. Openness to Experience – Costa & McCrae (1985)
Answer on a 5 point Likert scale (completely disagree - completely agree).
Openness to culture:
1. I’m always informed about what’s happening in the world
Openness to experience:
1. I’m fascinated by novelties
I. Job Performance – Kearney & Gebert (2001)
Follower performance (answer from (1) far below average to (5) far above average).
1. How efficient is the focal subordinate?
2. How productive is the focal subordinate?
3. How high is the quality of innovations the focal subordinate comes up with during work?
4. What is the overall achievement of the focal subordinate?
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