Transformational leadership and human capital benefits: the role of knowledge management

Abstract

PurposeIn order to achieve sustained competitive advantage through developing human capital, organizations, apart from human resource management practices, concentrate on developing transformational leaders and implementing knowledge management (KM). To take part in their efforts, this paper intends to explore leadership and KM literatures to examine the interrelationship between transformational leadership, KM, and employee‐perceived human capital creation or benefits.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review is carried out of traditional and contemporary theoretical and empirical research studies to support the nexus of interrelationship between transformational leadership, KM, and human capital. This review is mainly integrated using a model and propositions that relate transformational leadership and KM with human capital benefits.FindingsTransformational leaders have potential to affect their employees' perceptions of human capital benefits. They also have the greatest potential to augment these benefits through involving them in the KM process, establishing organizational culture, and encouraging communication among employees.Research limitations/implicationsThis model suggests that human resource managers should provide training to managers with regard to developing transformational leadership behavior, since this behavior contributes to human capital creation by which an organization achieves competitive advantage. Furthermore, this study mainly focuses on leaders as transformational leaders, since these leaders are highly capable of stimulating their followers' creativity. Therefore, this study only considered the components described by Bass and Avolio.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to leadership literature by adding the notion of transformational leadership as an antecedent of human capital creation.

Impacts of Leadership on Project-Based Organizational Innovation Performance: The Mediator of Knowledge Sharing and Moderator of Social Capital

“…Capital acts like a precursor to organizational innovation and performance [52]. Previous studies focusing on the impact of transformational leadership have predominantly studied human capital rather than social capital [53,54]. Social capital theory suggests that social relationships among organizational members and those with outside actors, confer vital resources such as information or advices among others, all representing important preconditions for information sharing, knowledge creation, and innovation [55].…”

Boosting Creativity with Transformational Leadership in Fuzzy Front-end Innovation Processes

“…Trigger employees' higher-order needs. (Birasnav et al, 2011;Yukl, 1998) The four dimensions of TL are idealized influence (or charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration, as presented in the Table below. Refers to how leaders' admirable behavior can cause followers to identify with the leader; appealing to followers on an emotional level.…”

“…Most of these studies are based on quantitative data or literature reviews. However, the effects of TL on employees' creativity and innovation in practice during organization development processes have received little attention (Birasnav et al, 2011;Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009;Liu & DeFrank, 2011). This research paper aims to reveal how creativity in the fuzzy front-end innovation processes is supported by characteristics of transformational leadership.…”

“…Knowledge is an organization's most valuable resource because it embodies intangible assets, routines, and creative processes that are difficult to imitate. Different types of knowledge require distinct management methods and knowledge integration mechanisms (Birasnav, Rangnekar, & Dalpati, 2011;Miles, Miles, & Snow, 2000;Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995;Pöyhönen, 2006). Many current approaches to innovation hold the assumption that organizations are seldom capable of innovating independently and that an organization's internal capabilities are insufficient to cope with the challenges of the changing environment.…”

Transformational leadership, social capital and organizational innovation

“…TFL impact studies have predominantly focussed on human capital (Birasnav et al, 2011;Peachey et al, 2014) rather than on social capital. Human capital comprises individual resources, whereas social capital encompasses relational resources that facilitate action and create value (Adler and Kwon, 2002).…”