Transformational Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: The Role of Organizational Identification

Abstract

Through this study the author explores the role of organizational identification as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors. One hundred twenty eight employees were administered Bass and Avolio's Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Form 5x-Short, Podsakoff and colleagues' Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale, and Mael and Ashforth's Organizational Identification Scale. While transformational leadership did predict organizational citizenship behaviors, the relationship was not mediated by organizational identification. In fact, organizational identification was negatively related to both transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors. On the other hand, laissez-faire leadership was positively related to organizational identification and negatively related to organizational citizenship behaviors. Hogg's social identity theory of leadership was used to provide a possible explanation for these unpredicted results.