THE ROLE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP CONSENSUS AND INNOVATION CLIMATE STRENGTH IN PREDICTING EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES

Includes bibliographical references (pages 52-61)Although there has been extensive research on the relationship between transformational leadership (TL) and organizational climate, these studies have typically focused on a team???s average rating of the leader and have failed to address the possibility that team members may not agree about the transformational qualities of their leader. This thesis applied dispersion models to the study of TL to address this gap in the literature. Dispersion models capture variability in responses within an organizational unit. In general, it has been proposed that leadership will have stronger effects when team members agree about the level of leadership in the team. This thesis hypothesized that the positive relationship between TL and innovation climate would be moderated by TL consensus (a dispersion measure), such that innovation climate would be highest when both absolute TL and TL consensus were high, and lowest when TL was low and TL consensus was high. Integrating dispersion models as applied to organizational climate, this thesis hypothesized that climate strength (a dispersion measure) would moderate the positive relationship between innovation climate and attitudes toward a specific innovation, such that attitudes toward a specific innovation would be most positive when innovation climate was high and strong, and least positive when innovation climate was low and strong. Because of past support relating these constructs, it was hypothesized that innovation climate would partially mediate the relationship between TL and attitudes toward a specific innovation. The study utilized data from a large-scale research study of home-based child welfare service providers in the Midwestern U.S. Data were collected from 359 providers whose teams were utilizing a specific innovation beginning at some point during the longitudinal 12-wave study. Each participant and team was assessed at multiple time points. Multilevel analysis was used to analyze the data, properly account for the nesting and simultaneously testing both mediation and moderation effects. Results revealed that the TL interaction hypothesis was supported. The climate interaction hypothesis and the mediation hypothesis were not supported. The results demonstrate the importance of consistent perceptions of leadership in addition to overall high levels of TL. Research and practical implications are discussed