Numerous studies have empirically tested the linkage between transformational leadership and employees’ reactions to organizational change. However, no systematic attempt has been made to organize and summarize those findings. Based on a sample of 30 empirical studies that included 39 independent effect sizes and 12,240 participants, this meta-analysis found that transformational leadership exhibited (a) a positive relationship with commitment to change, openness to change, and readiness for change; (b) a negative correlation with resistance to change and cynicism about change; and (c) a nonsignificant correlation with support for change. Moderation analyses showed that in cross-sectional (vs. longitudinal) designs, transformational leadership exhibited a stronger correlation with openness to change and cynicism about change. Using Bass and Avolio’s scale (vs. Podsakoff et al.’s), transformational leadership exhibited a stronger correlation with resistance to change. In the Eastern (vs. Western) cultural context, transformational leadership exhibited a stronger correlation with commitment to change and resistance to change. In low-level (vs. high-level) journals, transformational leadership exhibited a stronger correlation with commitment to change, openness to change, and support for change. This study highlights the value of incorporating transformational leadership theory into the literature on change reactions to obtain a better understanding of how leaders facilitate or hinder organizational change.

No abstract

How do supervisors who treat the bottom line as more important than anything else influence team success? Drawing from social information processing theory, we explore how and when supervisor bottom-line mentality (i.e., an exclusive focus on bottom-line outcomes at the expense of other priorities) exerts influence on the bottom-line itself, in the form of team performance. We argue that a supervisor’s bottom-line mentality provides significant social cues for the team that securing bottom-line objectives is of sole importance, which stimulates team performance avoidance goal orientation, and thus decreases team performance. Further, we argue performing tension (i.e., tension between contradictory needs, demands, and goals), serving as team members’ mutual perception of the confusing environment, will strengthen the indirect negative relationship between supervisor bottom-line mentality and team performance through team performance avoidance goal orientation. We conduct a path analysis using data from 258 teams in a Chinese food-chain company, which provides support for our hypotheses. Overall, our findings suggest that supervisor’s exclusive focus on the bottom-line can serve to impede team performance. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

No abstract