變革型領導如何影響員工敬業度 - 基於自我決定理論的視角

Abstract

The changing market circumstances together with the demand of productivity increase have led to the need of change for enterprises. Studies on leadership and leadership style are of interest and urgent to both academic and business communities. Transformational leadership, as one of the leadership styles, has been studied by many researchers and it has obtained significant progress.

This study stems from the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It acknowledges the mechanism of transformational leadership for influencing employee engagement in terms of their inner needs, feelings and satisfaction. According to the SDT, the mechanism should be based on meeting employees’ three basic needs and inspiring their motivation. Transformational leadership fully meets the autonomy need, competence need and belonging need of the employees. This largely improves their psychological empowerment perception and their subordinate identification with leaders. Furthermore, this also serves as inspiration for their inner otivations and subsequently influences their engagement.

The following conclusions below were drawn from samples of business leaders and their subordinates (1693 samples):
1. Transformational leadership does indeed have positive effects on employee engagement

2. Psychological empowerment perception and subordinates’ identification with leaders have a mediating effect in transformational leadership’s influence on employee engagement.

3. Promotion focus has negative regulatory effects on the influence of transformational leadership—in terms of psychological empowerment perception and subordinates’ identification with leaders.

The significance of this study is as follows:
1. We have conducted empirical research on the basis of the SDT and have enriched the study of transformational leadership from a new theoretical perspective. This study reveals the importance of transformational leadership, especially in inspiring the inner motivation of employees. It also offers theoretical references to further the study on the outcomes of transformational leadership.

2. This study has distinguished transformational leadership from other leadership styles, which affects the psychological empowerment and identification with leaders of subordinates. Through the “subordinate regulatory focus” mechanism, we could observe the impact of transformational leadership. This study may also improve the knowledge of the leaders in regards to the importance of behavior and style of transformational leadership. Therefore, it can inspire them to develop their own style and ability of transformational leadership—all of which will have positive effects on employee behavior.

3. Statistical results have testified that promotion focus has negative regulatory effects on the influence of transformational leadership on psychological empowerment perception and subordinates’ identification with leaders. this study contributes to research of promotion focus in the fields of transformational leadership and employee engagement.

4. Leaders can better inspire the inner motivation of employees and guide their self-development and self-encouragement. Through the empirical research, this paper reveals the unique effect of transformational leadership on meeting the basic needs of employees and inspiring their inner motivation. By improving the transformational leadership and corresponding ability of leaders, it enhances employee engagement.

5. This paper has tested and verified some of the relatively mature Western theories using adequately matched data under China’s market circumstances. It has pointed out some useful practices for China’s enterprises and management teams in order to promote employee engagement and to subsequently improve business performance. In addition, the analysis and discussion of transformational leadership in this paper puts forward advice towards cultivating transformational leaders, team building and improving leadership in domestic enterprises.

Date of Award	31 Aug 2017
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Kwok Fai Geoffrey TSO (Supervisor) & Jiming BAO (External Supervisor)