تأثیر رهبری تحول گرا بر کارکنان در طی تغییر سازمانی – تحلیل تجربی The Effect of Transformational Leadership on Employees During Organizational Change – An Empirical Analysis

Introduction Because of developments such as digitization, globalization and demographic change, organizations must change continually if they are to stay competitive (Doppler, Fuhrmann, Lebbe-Waschke, & Voigt, 2011). Organizations initiate processes of change that include adopting new strategies, adjusting structures and implementing new or more flexible forms of employment (Doppler et al., 2011). Since many organizational changes fail to reach their defined objectives (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Burnes, 2011), empirical research on the factors of successful change has grown (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Oreg, Vakola, & Armenakis, 2011). While there are multiple reasons for the low success rates of organizational change processes, researchers have found that employees themselves have a profound impact (e.g. Bormann & Rowold, 2016; Oreg et al., 2011; Self, Armenakis, & Schraeder, 2007), as it is them who put planned changes into action and respond to the variations in their work routines that come with organizational changes. If planned changes are not realized on the individual level, they cannot be successful on the organizational level, so employees’ motivation and behaviour have been found to be crucial to the success of organizational changes (Kim, Hornung, & Rousseau, 2010; Van den Heuvel, Demerouti, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2010; Woodman & Dewett, 2004). One way to influence employees’ motivation and behaviour during change is through transformational leadership (Oreg & Berson, 2011), which has been shown to affect employees’ attitudes towards and readiness to change positively (Bommer, Rich, & Rubin, 2005; Herrmann, Felfe, & Hardt, 2012) and to reduce their cynicism about change (DeCelles, Tesluk, & Taxman, 2013). Transformational leaders create a positive vision of change that is worth pursuing and inspire their followers through their charismatic nature. They also encourage innovative problem-solving and consider employees as individuals who will seek and pursue opportunities to grow personally (Bass, 1985, 1999). It is this positive influence that increases the motivation of employees (as well as of leaders) and that makes transformational leadership crucial in affecting the result of an organizational change. It should be noted that leaders themselves are employees who experience the change and may resist or support it (By, Hughes, & Ford, 2016). However, the focus of the present study should be on the individual employee (with or without leadership responsibility). Thus, the focus of analysis lies on the employee affected by the change and his or her supervisor. Although researchers know about the positive influence of transformational leadership on employees during change, the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ reactions to change are less clear (Bono & Judge, 2003; Kark & Van Dijk, 2007), and there is little empirical evidence that addresses the issue (Chou, 2015). Empirical investigations that have considered mechanisms that explain how transformational leaders influence employee behaviour during organizational change are particularly scarce (Chou, 2015; Seo et al., 2012).