Abstract
Purpose: Transformational leadership engages their employees’ self-concept in such a meaningful way that employees exert extra effort than what is expressed in their job description. In this study, the authors have investigated the influence of transformational leadership on employees’ contextual performance. The study also tests the moderating role of integrity on the relationship between transformational leadership and contextual performance, based on the assertion that not every employee will respond to the transformational leadership’s call for extra effort in the same way. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered through self-administered questionnaires from 480 Indian IT employees across India. Harman’s single factor test was used through analysis of moment structures (AMOS 20.0) to test the bias associated due to common method variance (CMV). Regression analysis was carried out through a series of hierarchical models in SPSS 20.0 to test the direct and interactive effect of integrity between transformational leadership and contextual performance. Findings: The result supports the assertion that transformational leadership has positive influence on employees’ contextual performance. However, the moderational effect of integrity on the relationship between transformational leadership and contextual performance was found to be insignificant. Practical implications: The first implication of this study is that organizations, especially IT firms where employees work in teams and where role interdependency is high, should encourage employees to engage more in contextual performance. Second, organizations should foster transformational style of leadership across hierarchy which will encourage employees to link their individual performance with group or organizational performance by engaging more in prosocial behaviour. Originality/value: This study is critical in a sense that it is one of the few empirical studies that has tested the effect of transformational leadership on employee’s contextual performance in Indian IT organization. Another unique contribution of this study is that it is first to explore the nature and extent of the employee’s desire (voluntary or non-voluntary) to contribute towards contextual performance.
Conclusion
and Direction for future research Our research has investigated the influence of transformational leadership on employee’s contextual performance in Indian IT industry. This study is among the few to test the moderating role of integrity on the transformational leadership- contextual performance relationship. The findings of the study support a positive relationship between transformational style of leadership and employee’s contextual performance, whereas the interactive effect of integrity is found to be insignificant. Future studies might consider performing a longitudinal study to better assess the causal relationship. This study, like most other studies have used MLQ to assess transformational leadership.
Future studies should make effort to develop transformational leadership dimensions in the Indian context (Krishnan and Srinivas, 1998). Our study has examined integrity as a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and contextual performance; we would urge future researchers to also test other emerging and important constructs like authenticity, trust and karma-yoga relevant to the Indian context. Future research might also consider investigating the culture specific dimensions of contextual performance relevant to the Indian context.
