Transformational Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Test of Underlying Mechanisms
verifiedrich profile · Frontiers in Psychology · 2017
Nohe, Christoph; Hertel, Guido
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
transformational leadership → affective commitment
job satisfaction → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
transformational leadership → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
transformational leadership → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
trust in leader → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
affective commitment → organizational citizenship behavior ocb
transformational leadership → leader member exchange lmx
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
affective commitment correlates organizational citizenship behavior ocb
job satisfaction correlates organizational citizenship behavior ocb
job satisfaction predicts organizational citizenship behavior ocb
transformational leadership correlates affective commitment
transformational leadership correlates job satisfaction
transformational leadership correlates leader member exchange lmx
transformational leadership predicts job satisfaction
trust in leader correlates organizational citizenship behavior ocb
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
Based on social exchange theory, we examined and contrasted attitudinal mediators (affective organizational commitment, job satisfaction) and relational mediators (trust in leader, leader-member exchange; LMX) of the positive relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Hypotheses were tested using meta-analytic path models with correlations from published meta-analyses (761 samples with 227,419 individuals overall). When testing single-mediator models, results supported our expectations that each of the mediators explained the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. When testing a multi-mediator model, LMX was the strongest mediator. When testing a model with a latent attitudinal mechanism and a latent relational mechanism, the relational mechanism was the stronger mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. Our findings help to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “Prior studies have indicated that affective commitment can mediate the relationship between leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.(15,16) The effect can also be investigated when it mediates the relationship between leader-member interaction (ie, LMX) and a special form of citizenship behavior (ie, helping behavior).”
supports “Organizational citizenship behavior is the basis for trust in the relationship between leaders and employees (Nohe & Hertel, 2017).”
supports “Referring to the social exchange theory framework, transformational leadership can positively relate to employees ’ general work attitudes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment [74], contributing to increased OCB [58].”
supports “This study not only confirmed the link between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic but our results also showed a higher correlation coefficient between the two variables than in previous studies [29].”
supports “Referring to the social exchange theory framework, transformational leadership can positively relate to employees ’ general work attitudes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment [74], contributing to increased OCB [58].”
supports “The meta-analysis conducted by Nohe & Hertel (2017) proves the influence of transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behavior and shows the mediation of relational trust.”
supports “In a meta-analysis conducted by Nohe and Hertel (2017 ), the leader–member exchange was identified as the stron - gest mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).”
supports “The first mechanism is based on the assumption that transformational leadership positively affects employees’ general job attitudes, such as organizational commitment or overall job satisfaction (e.g., Judge and Piccolo, 2004), which in turn contribute to more OCB (e.g., Ilies et al., 2009).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.2147/prbm.s376464
- 10.18535/ijsrm/v12i06.em02
- 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e27664
- 10.1186/s12912-023-01332-7
- 10.1080/08995605.2024.2319522
- 10.55208/jebe.v14i2.204
- 10.47577/business.v6i.9578
- 10.1007/s12144-023-05095-x
- 10.1037/a0013329
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.