Abstract
Although transformational leadership (TFL) has been recognized as a significant predictor of follower work behaviors, open questions remain concerning whether its effectiveness is universally valid or contingent on context. Building on social exchange theory and leadership contingency theory, we propose that TFL affects employees’ helping behavior, and this relationship depends on centralized and formalized structural contexts. The results show that TFL is positively associated with employees’ helping behavior; however, when moderated by centralization and formalization, TFL is negatively associated with employees’ helping behavior. The results recognize that organizations’ structural characteristics should not be ignored in TFL literature and practice.
Introduction
A salient role of leaders is to direct followers toward achieving a collective vision and goals by shaping follower work attitudes and behaviors (Wright & Pandey, 2010). Over the past decades, transformational leadership (TFL) has emerged in the field of public administration because it is considered particularly effective in accomplishing the vision and goals through exhibiting the four following behaviors: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized attention (Moynihan et al., 2012; Trottier et al., 2008). As a result, many public administration researchers have provided a substantial body of empirical evidence that associates TFL behaviors with various work-related outcomes, including affective commitment (Ashikali & Groeneveld, 2015; Jacobsen & Staniok, 2020), innovative behavior (Hansen & Pihl-Thingvad, 2019), and job satisfaction and organizational performance (Muterera et al., 2018). However, recent interest has shifted to diverse situational conditions comprising the organizational context; a growing body of research has examined the mechanism through which the effectiveness of TFL depends on contextual factors (Bellé, 2014; Caillier, 2014; Jensen, 2018; Peng et al., 2020). That is, leadership and its effectiveness are not isolated from organizational contexts (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Kim & Shin, 2019; Pawar & Eastman, 1997).
Despite many previous studies on TFL and its organizational consequences, few studies have explored how TFL affects employee helping behavior and how structural characteristics of the organization as situational factors shape this relationship. Drawing on social exchange theory (SET), transformational leaders form high-quality exchange relationships with their employees by articulating a compelling vision, demonstrating a commitment to that vision, fostering creative thinking, and offering individualized support (Avolio & Bass, 1995; Dust et al., 2014). These behaviors make employees feel indebted to their leaders, repaying them by showing helping behavior that supports organizational performance (Zhu & Akhtar, 2014). However, from leadership contingency perspectives, this relationship may differ depending on an organization’s structural features (Peng et al., 2020; Van der Voet et al., 2016). Given that leaders function under the organizational structure, the effectiveness of TFL may vary across a continuum ranging from mechanistic to organic forms (Dust et al., 2014; Kandalla & Krishnan, 2004). This implies that two types of structural characteristics—centralization and formalization—may be boundary conditions shaping the relationship between TFL and employee helping behavior (Kim & Shin, 2019). As opposed to mechanistic structures, organic structures with low levels of centralization and formalization provide leaders with substantial managerial discretion in exhibiting TFL behaviors (Dust et al., 2014; Walter & Bruch, 2010). Nevertheless, the moderating role of centralization and formalization—that may facilitate or constrain the TFL process—has largely been overlooked in public administration. However, ignoring organizational structural characteristics may result in erroneous conclusions regarding TFL effectiveness.
Using a survey of Korean public employees conducted in 2017, our study aims to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how TFL affects employee helping behavior and how centralization and formalization can shape the association between TFL and helping behavior. In doing so, this study contributes to suggesting the structural conditions whereby TFL behaviors can become more effective in promoting employee helping behavior among public organizations.
This study proceeds as follows: First, it offers theoretical reasoning for the link between TFL and employee helping behavior and the moderation of centralization and formalization on such a link. Second, it provides an overview of the data and the variables for model specification. Finally, the results and implications for public organizations are discussed.
Theories and Hypothesis Development
TFL and Employee Helping Behavior
Of particular interest in this study is employee helping behavior among diverse work-related outcomes of TFL. This is defined as “voluntarily helping others with, or preventing the occurrence of work-related problems” (Podsakoff et al., 2000, p. 516). Specifically, employee helping behavior as a key component of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) involves individuals providing advice and direct assistance to other colleagues in the same organization, although they are not formally required to do so (Organ, 1988). Because public employees are interdependent, meaning they rely on each other to attain organizational goals, it is essential for them to help their coworkers (Campbell et al., 2016; Karolidis & Vouzas, 2019; Pandey et al., 2008). Given that employee helping behavior is beneficial for improving organizational effectiveness, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to what organizational factors shape helping behavior in public administration (Karolidis & Vouzas, 2019).
TFL is defined as leader behaviors that inspire and challenge followers to achieve extraordinary goals (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006). Transformational leaders try to “transform the needs, values, preferences, and aspiration of followers from self-interests to collective interests” (House & Shamir, 1993, p. 82). According to Bass (1985), TFL comprises four dimensions—idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized attention. Through idealized influence, transformational leaders help followers develop a sense of mission and transcend their self-interest for collective interests by serving as a role model and fostering the internalization of organizational values associated with desired outcomes (Trottier et al., 2008). Inspirational motivation concerns articulating an attractive vision and motivating followers to work toward that vision (Moynihan et al., 2012). Intellectual stimulation encourages followers to create new practices in problem-solving and challenge the status quo to improve their work (Trottier et al., 2008). Individualized consideration includes such behaviors as providing personal attention to followers’ needs and self-development (Muterera et al., 2018).
SET offers the underlying mechanisms through which TFL promotes employee helping behavior (Zhu & Akhtar, 2014). According to the main tenet of SET, employees’ voluntary actions are “motivated by the return they are expected to bring and typically do in fact bring from others” (Blau, 1964, p. 91). The norm of reciprocity inherent in social exchange relationships encourages employees to feel a sense of unspecified future obligations to repay those who have helped them because returning equivalent benefits is essential for maintaining high-quality exchange relationships (Blau, 1964; Scott & Colquitt, 2007). For instance, employees who receive expected rewards and treatment from their organization feel indebted to reciprocate favorably to the organization at some point in the future (Kim & Shin, 2019; Tse et al., 2013). Once social exchange relationships between employees and organizations are formed, employees are likely to exert extra effort for enhanced performance and show positive work-related behaviors beneficial to sustaining organizational functions (Walumbwa et al., 2009).
SET provides underlying mechanisms through which TFL behaviors encourage employees to exhibit helping behavior among public organizations (Caillier, 2014). For example, followers who formulate a high-quality social relationship with their transformational leaders would feel obligated to repay their leaders in the form of helping leaders and coworkers (Twigg et al., 2008). Again, transformational leaders exert influence by sharing a compelling collective vision with their followers, stimulating them to question the status quo, and coaching them to develop their capabilities and perform beyond expected levels. Idealized behaviors facilitate mutual feelings of trust and respect between leaders and followers by demonstrating high standards for ethical conduct and being a role model for followers (Dust et al., 2014; Moynihan et al., 2012). This means that followers can form higher quality social exchange relationships with transformational leaders, engendering them to reciprocate the leaders with desired outcomes (Zhu & Akhtar, 2014). The followers are more likely to be committed to shared vision and goals through engaging in helping behavior. In a similar vein, inspirational motivation of transformational leaders enhances followers’ feelings of collective identity by emphasizing shared values and shifting their focus from self-interest to common interest (Chun et al., 2016; Tse et al., 2013). Such collective identity enables followers to engage in a social exchange relationship with their transformational leaders. Thus, followers are likely to return this favorable experience by cooperating with their colleagues and working toward a collective purpose (De Cremer & Van Vugt, 1999). Finally, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration behaviors also allow followers to feel obligated to reciprocate their transformational leaders’ support for personal creativity and professional development with work behaviors that benefit the organization (Twigg et al., 2008). Specifically, these two dimensions of personalized behavior make followers feel indebted and willing to “pay up” through assisting colleagues and leaders who have heavy workloads (Chun et al., 2016).
In line with these rationales, previous studies have shown that TFL is positively related to diverse organizational outcomes in public organizations, including innovative behavior (Hansen & Pihl-Thingvad, 2019), interorganizational collaboration (Campbell, 2018), cooperation (Oberfield, 2014), job satisfaction, and organizational performance (Muterera et al., 2018; Oberfield, 2014; Trottier et al., 2008). These empirical studies suggest that TFL may promote reciprocity norms underpinning the social exchange relationship between leaders and followers that encourage followers to demonstrate helping behavior toward their supervisors and coworkers in public organizations. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:
The Moderating Effect of Centralization and Formalization
Avolio and Bass (1988) expressed that “very little is known about the circumstances under which a transforming leadership will be most effective” (p. 44). This implies that TFL does not take place in a virtual vacuum but depends on salient contextual influences in the organization (Osborn et al., 2002; Porter & McLaughlin, 2006; Walter & Bruch, 2010). Even when public leaders exhibit desirable TFL behaviors, their leadership effectiveness on work-related outcomes may depend on organizational contextual factors including mission valence, span of control, and decision-making processes (Caillier, 2014; Moon & Park, 2019; Peng et al., 2020). This view of contingency theory proposes that exploring the situational factors conditioning the effectiveness of TFL helps us understand the mechanism through which TFL behaviors encourage public employees to engage in positive work behaviors (Walter & Bruch, 2010).
Given that leadership is often facilitated or constrained by the formal allocation and coordination of resources and power within the organization (Kim & Shin, 2019; Peng et al., 2020), we focus on centralization and formalization as two core components of organizational structure in public organizations. Then, how do centralization and formalization moderate the TFL–helping behavior relationship? As noted above, contingency theory posits that there is no single style of leadership to fit all organizational structures (Han et al., 2018). Instead, leadership effectiveness depends on the compatible match with structural components of the organization (Kim & Shin, 2019).
According to Burns and Stalker (1961), organizational structures can be categorized as either mechanistic or organic. In contingency theory, mechanistic structures with high levels of centralization and formalization aim to facilitate inflexibility and formality that induce employees to behave in predictable and controlled ways, whereas organic structures with low levels of centralization and formalization are designed to promote flexibility and informality that allow employees to focus on innovation and adapt quickly to changing conditions (Dust et al., 2014). While centralization refers to the extent to which decision-making authority and power are concentrated in top management, formalization concerns the degree to which formal rules, standard policies, and procedures regulate employees’ work-related activities (Rainey, 2014). For instance, in an organization with a highly centralized structure, most resources and information are primarily centered at the top of the hierarchical ladder. Furthermore, employees and even upper-level managers are required to receive approval from the top organizational level for most important decisions (Song et al., 2006). An organization with high levels of formalization explicitly defines the duties and accountability of each employee through job descriptions and provides written documents to maintain internal consistency and stability in organizational functioning and vice versa (Kim & Shin, 2019).
We expect that transformational leaders in mechanistic settings may find it harder to build social exchange relationships with their followers because high centralization causes leaders to experience powerlessness in the decision-making process (Dust et al., 2014; Kim & Shin, 2019; Walter & Bruch, 2010). Even if leaders exhibit idealized influence and inspirational motivation to serve as role models and encourage their followers to envision appealing future states, the effectiveness of these TFL behaviors could be weakened in highly centralized organizations where leaders do not have decision-making authority regarding organizational issues, such as policy making and goal setting (Hambrick & Finkelstein, 1987; Walter & Bruch, 2010). The centralized structure allowing leaders to exert low levels of managerial discretion is an undesirable contextual condition to form higher quality social exchange relationships between transformational leaders and followers (Dust et al., 2014). Moreover, centralization could reduce the effectiveness of individualized consideration and inspirational motivation behavior through organizational information and resources centered at the top. Although transformational leaders seek to enhance followers’ sense of obligation by providing support for the individual development and creativity of followers, the unequal distribution of resources concentrated at the top management level attenuates the effectiveness of TFL by obstructing the formation of a social exchange relationship between leaders and followers (Dust et al., 2014; Kim & Shin, 2019).
Formalization similarly reduces the effectiveness of TFL on employee helping behavior in public organizations. 1 Considering that employees exhibit “preprogramming of behavior by the organization” in highly formalized organizations (Hall, 1999, p. 63), leaders are often prohibited from trying deviations from written rules and formal procedures that could leverage employees’ innovative potential and personal growth (Kim & Shin, 2019; Van der Voet et al., 2016). Although transformational leaders perform individualized consideration and inspirational motivation behaviors, high levels of formalization may reduce the positive associations between TFL and employee helping behavior because followers are less likely to reciprocate the two types of TFL behaviors by helping leaders and their coworkers. Moreover, the standardization of the work process is not a suitable contextual factor for transformational leaders to formulate social exchange relationships with their followers through idealized influence and intellectual stimulation because of fewer chances to have communication with followers (Dust et al., 2014). Employees may be expected to perform their work according to formal rules and standard operating procedures in an organization with a greater level of formalization, leading to a lack of conversations with their leaders (Kandalla & Krishnan, 2004). Although leaders may engage in idealized influence and intellectual stimulation, limited opportunities to interact with followers in highly formalized structures can undermine social exchange relationships with followers, decreasing employee helping behavior as a form of reciprocity toward transformational leaders.
In sum, mechanistically structured organizations with high levels of centralization and formalization provide a context that can constrain the development of social exchange relationships between transformational leaders and employees so that employees are less likely to exhibit helping behavior. However, despite the growing attention to the consequences of TFL, few studies have explored the moderating effect of organizational structure on the relationship between TFL and work behaviors. Particularly in public administration, how the link between TFL and employee helping behavior depends on levels of centralization and formalization is underexplored. We do this now, and drawing on contingency theory and SET, and delineate the following hypotheses for empirical testing:
The hypothesized relationships are displayed in Figure 1.
Conceptual framework.
Model Specification
Data and Method
To test the hypotheses, we used the data from the 2017 Korean Public Employee Viewpoints Survey, administered by the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA). The KIPA is a core national research institute supported by the Korean central government that studies a wide variety of governmental issues, such as public management, regulations, performance evaluation, and public finance. The survey was directed at public employees working in 46 central government agencies and 17 regional local governments (RLGs) in South Korea, evaluating employees’ perceptions and experiences on human resource management practices, such as motivation, leadership, job characteristics, work attitudes, and behaviors. The survey also employed a stratified, two-stage cluster sampling procedure that resulted in a total number of 3,117 respondents, including 1,095 from central agencies and 2,022 from RLGs. It should be noted that the data were created using a sampling weight on the demographic characteristics of the population. 2 All items were measured using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
The survey targeted general-service public employees from 46 central agencies and all 17 RLGs. 3 In total, 46 central agencies cover all the ministry- and sub-ministry-level agencies in South Korea except for eight, such as the Office of National Security and Office of the President, which were excluded from the survey for national security reasons or a lack of general-service public employees. 4 Furthermore, due to a limited survey budget and personnel, a sample size of approximately 3,000 respondents was predetermined before the survey. The survey collected 2,000 observations from central agencies and 1,000 from RLGs because RLGs share similar functions, whereas central agencies vary widely in their functions, including regulation, planning, and justice. The weighting mentioned above was developed to account for the actual number of public employees; the number of general-service public employees was approximately twice as large in 17 RLGs (46,997) as in central agencies (21,862) in South Korea as of 2017. Consequently, after applying a weight to the survey, the final number of observations from central agencies was 1,095, whereas that from RLGs was 2,022.
Nonrespondents to the survey and nonresponses to some items in the survey can bias the results. The survey relied on two methods to reduce such bias. First, it employed a sampling weight to reduce bias resulting from an imbalance between respondents and nonrespondents in terms of a demographic match. Second, the survey assured respondents that their responses would be anonymous. In this way, respondents were guaranteed privacy protections and were not forced to produce desirable answers.
Helping Behavior
As a distinct dimension of OCB, helping behavior involves an employee’s voluntary actions that aid organizational members with task-related issues (Mossholder et al., 2011; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). Scholars have argued that employees spontaneously perform helping behavior for two different targets within an organization, including their colleagues and supervisors (Frenkel & Yu, 2011; Zhang et al., 2007). For example, employees assist their colleagues who have heavy workloads and task-related problems and cover work assignments for supervisors even when not asked (Karolidis & Vouzas, 2019). 5 Based on this argument, we relied on three items that identified employees’ helping behaviors toward coworkers and supervisors, which are as follows: (a) “I assist colleagues who are absent as well as those who face a significant amount of work,” (b) “I listen attentively to my colleagues’ problems and concerns,” and (c) “I assist my supervisor, even if I have not been requested to do so.” The scale’s reliability was .77.
TFL
In this study, we adopt Bass’ (1985) four components of TFL: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. 6 Specifically, transformational leaders communicate the vision to followers in a clear way (inspirational motivation), make followers work harder to promote organizational goals (idealized influence), encourage followers to find creative solutions and propose new ideas (intellectual stimulation), and support followers for their personal development needs (individualized consideration; Avolio & Bass, 1995; Bass, 1985). The dimensions of TFL behaviors were captured with the four following items from the survey: (a) “My supervisor provides me with a clear vision of the direction I need to take” (inspirational motivation), (b) “My supervisor motivates me to work hard” (idealized influence), (c) “My supervisor encourages me to perform my work by incorporating new perspectives” (intellectual stimulation), and (d) “My supervisor helps me pursue my own development” (individualized consideration). This scale’s reliability was .95.
Centralization and Formalization
As discussed above, centralization and formalization are crucial contextual factors that may moderate the effectiveness of TFL. Centralization is defined as the distribution of decision-making power through the organizational hierarchy (Hage & Aiken, 1967). In a centralized public organization, for example, important organizational decisions are mostly decided at the top of hierarchies (DeHart-Davis & Pandey, 2005). Three reversed items were used to measure centralization as follows: (a) “My organization considers the opinions and suggestions of all employees in decision-making processes,” (b) “Employees are allowed to request additional information and clear explanations about decision-making,” and (c) “Employees are allowed to object to decision-making.” The scale’s reliability was .91. In contrast, formalization refers to the extent to which there are written rules, procedures, regulations, and instructions that govern an organization (Pugh et al., 1968). Hence, in highly formalized organizational structures, employees are expected to meet specific standards to increase internal stability, consistency, and accountability (Schminke et al., 2002; Strese et al., 2016). Two items were used to measure formalization as follows: (a) “My organization emphasizes consistency, stability, and standardization” and (b) “My organization emphasizes documentation, accountability, and information management.” The scale’s reliability was .81.
Control Variables
The study controls for several potential predictors of helping behavior. First, role clarity was included as a control variable because employees are likely to engage in helping behavior when they understand how they are expected to do a job (Yadav et al., 2016). Three reversed items were used to measure role clarity as follows: (a) “I am unclear about the priorities of my work,” (b) “I am unclear about the ranges of responsibility of my work,” and (c) “I am unclear about the methods for doing my work.” The scale’s reliability was .90. Second, given that interpersonal interactions at the workplace increase relational ties among employees (Settoon & Mossholder, 2002), this study controlled for organizational communication that may influence employees’ helping behavior. Organizational communication combined the two following items from the survey: (a) “Employees have horizontal communication in performing work within the department” and (b) “Employees have vertical communication in performing work within the department.” The scale’s reliability was .86. Third, given that an employee with a greater interest in delivering meaningful public service and higher social altruism are more likely to engage in helping behavior directed at coworkers (Pandey et al., 2008), public service motivation (PSM) was included in the analysis. Five items were employed to measure PSM as follows: (a) “Meaningful public service is very important to me,” (b) “I am often reminded by daily events about how dependent we are on one another,” (c) “Making a difference in society means more to me than personal achievements,” (d) “I am prepared to make enormous sacrifices for the good of society,” and (e) “I am not afraid to fight for the rights of others, even if it means I will be ridiculed in the process.” The scale’s reliability was .89. Finally, this study controlled for several demographic characteristics due to their potential impact on helping behaviors, including gender (1 = female, 0 = male), age (1 = 20–29 years, 2 = 30–39 years, 3 = 40–49 years, 4 = 50 years or older), tenure (1 = less than 5 years, 2 = 6–10 years, 3 = 11–15 years, 4 = 16–20 years, 5 = 21–25 years, 6 = more than 26 years), job grade level (1 = Grade 1–4, 2 = Grade 5, 3 = Grade 6−7, 4 = Grade 8−9), and education (1 = high school, 2 = college, 3 = bachelor’s degree, 4 = graduate school).
Measurement Validity
We assessed the validity of the scale measures and the constructs they represent in several ways. First, confirmatory factor analysis procedures were conducted to test the validity of the measurements. The results showed that the root mean square error of approximation, which should be lower than 0.08, was 0.053, and the comparative fit index and Tucker–Lewis index, which should both generally be above 0.9, were 0.964 and 0.956, respectively. This supported the discriminant validity of the latent variables (Hair et al., 2006). Second, the reliabilities of the scales were estimated with composite construct reliability coefficients. The results revealed that the composite reliability measures ranged from .773 to .946, indicating good results. Finally, a Harman’s single factor test was performed to examine common method variance (CMV), which may arise when all variables are collected from the same data source. The results indicated that the main explanatory factor only accounted for 38.37% of the covariance among the measures, suggesting that CMV may not be a serious threat to hypothesis testing. Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics of the variables.
Descriptive Statistics of the Variables.
Note. PSM = public service motivation; TFL = transformational leadership. N = 3,117.
Respondents were assured of anonymity and not forced to produce desirable answers, lessening concerns about CMVs (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The question orderings in the survey were such that there was physical distance between the dependent variable and the main independent variables, including centralization, formalization, and TFL.
Results and Discussion
Table 2 provides the results of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for helping behaviors. 7 Models 1 and 2 include only the linear terms of all the variables, showing the main effects of TFL. Model 3 adds two interaction terms—TFL × centralization and TFL × formalization—with which to examine the moderating effects of centralization and formalization on the relationships between TFL and employee helping behavior. Furthermore, the models calculated the robust estimate of the variance using the Huber–White sandwich estimator to correct for heteroskedasticity.
OLS Regression Results.
Note. OLS = ordinary least squares; PSM = public service motivation; TFL = transformational leadership.
p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.
Regarding the control variables, the results of Model 1 show that PSM and organizational communication may be important determinants of employees’ helping behavior. As anticipated, public service-motivated employees with positive perceptions of others are willing to engage in helping others (Pandey et al., 2008). Organizational communication promotes helping behavior by helping to form high-quality work relationships among employees. For example, public employees work together to achieve organizational goals through communicating and sharing knowledge (Whitford et al., 2010). Our findings show that formalization is another predictor of employee helping behavior. A formalized organizational structure enhances clarity, transparency, and predictability in organizational operations, which could encourage public employees to demonstrate helping behavior toward coworkers (Fischer et al., 2019).
In support of H1, Model 2 reveals that TFL is positively related to helping behavior (β = 0.04, p < .10). TFL encourages employees to engage in voluntary helping behavior at work. Podsakoff et al. (1990) posits that the real essence of TFL lies in these leaders encouraging their followers to do more than expected. Building on SET, this argument means that the four TFL behaviors may develop high-quality exchange relationships between leaders and followers, which followers reciprocate by actively demonstrating helping behavior. Indeed, our findings are consistent with some previous public management studies that provide empirical evidence on the positive association between TFL and employee extra-role behavior, including altruistic helping behavior (Caillier, 2014; Campbell et al., 2016) and innovative behavior (Vigoda-Gadot & Beeri, 2012). Consequently, this study supports that TFL behaviors are effective in promoting employee helping behavior by facilitating high-quality social exchange relationships between leaders and followers in public organizations.
The interactions between TFL and centralization, as well as between TFL and formalization, are added in Model 3. The results show that centralization and formalization significantly moderate the positive relationship between TFL and helping behavior, such that the relationship is attenuated when levels of centralization (β = −0.06, p < .01) and formalization (β = −0.03, p < .05) are high. This supports H2 and H3. In line with H2, it is possible that centralized decision-making authority reduces the positive effect of TFL on helping behavior by impeding the formation of high-quality exchange relationships between leaders and followers. Formalization also weakens the positive relationship between TFL and helping behavior. Formalization may decrease the need for TFL by imposing a significant burden on the part of employees in their orientation toward helping others (Van der Voet et al., 2016; Wright & Pandey, 2010).
Graphing the slope and confidence intervals of the marginal effects helps visualize the combined effects of TFL and the two structural properties. The solid line in Figure 2 represents the marginal effect of TFL, depending on the degree of centralization, while controlling for all other variables in the model. The dashed lines represent the upper and lower bounds of the 95% confidence intervals for these predictions. When the upper and lower bounds of the confidence intervals are either above or below the horizontal zero line, the effects of TFL are statistically significant. Figure 2 visually presents the idea that the relative degree of centralization is likely to have a major impact on the relationship between TFL and employee helping behavior. The marginal effect of TFL on helping behavior decreases as centralization increases, and the effect becomes insignificant after the degree of centralization reaches approximately 3.4.
Marginal effects of TFL on helping behavior as dependent on centralization.
Figure 3 shows the same pattern. The marginal effect of TFL on helping behavior decreases as formalization increases. Furthermore, this positive relationship between TFL and helping behavior becomes statistically indistinguishable from zero after the degree of formalization reaches approximately 4.2.
Marginal effects of TFL on helping behavior as dependent on formalization.
Building on contingency theory, the results show that mechanistic structures with high levels of centralization and formalization are detrimental to the effectiveness of TFL on helping behavior in public organizations. A centralized decision-making authority attenuates the positive association between TFL and helping behavior by impeding the formation of high-quality exchange relationships between leaders and followers. Similarly, formalization decreases the effectiveness of TFL on employee helping behavior because many written rules and procedures constrain transformational leaders in their communication with and support of their followers. Consequently, followers do not feel a sense of obligation to reciprocate to transformational leaders.
Our findings offer critical implications for top public officials. First, TFL is positively related to employee helping behavior. When public organizations must offer improved services for citizens with fewer resources, identifying which factor stimulates employee helping behavior becomes more urgent than ever. TFL can be such a source of inspiration for followers, supporting their efforts to realize their full potential while simultaneously bettering the organization. Thus, public organizations must seriously foster TFL. These efforts can include training programs and sessions that emphasize TFL’s positive influences on many individual outcome variables (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Yukl, 2013).
Second, top public officials should realize that organizational contexts matter. Leadership does not take place in total isolation from internal or external factors. Understanding how TFL can be affected by such contexts is critical to improving public organizations. This means that public organizations need to consider incorporating contextual elements into their leadership training programs. Moreover, if possible, public organizations need to reshape their organizational structure to reduce levels of centralization and formalization, providing context in line with TFL behaviors. For example, public organizations are advised to assess their levels of centralization and formalization before launching leadership programs. By delegating authority to leaders in decision-making and decreasing formal rules throughout the organization, public organizations may be able to design favorable conditions under which TFL can flourish.
Although it may not be apparent how the results from a Korean context would change in a different cultural context, we would like to note a few similar and distinguishing characteristics between bureaucratic characteristics in South Korea and those in Western counterparts. In terms of similarities, Westernization in Korean public administration has been accelerating over the last two decades, mainly due to the introduction of New Public Management-style reforms, such as performance-based budgeting, performance-based pay, and performance evaluations (Campbell & Im, 2016; Im et al., 2013; Park & Jang, 2015). The South Korean government has also initiated reforms to reduce regulations and foster privatizations, such as by contracting out to private firms or turning government-owned enterprises into privately owned ones (Song et al., 2017). A Confucianism-oriented collectivist culture has also been undergoing a sea change in which an individualistic culture has permeated into public organizations (Ko, 2019). Thus, public employees in South Korea have been exposed to similar work and cultural environments to those in Western countries. In contrast, dissimilarity exists between public employees in South Korea and their Western counterparts. For instance, general-service public employees in South Korea undergo a job rotation by which their work changes every 2 or 3 years to prevent possible corruption due to performing similar duties for a long time (Abbink, 2004; Ko, 2019). Because they expect their work to change every 2 or 3 years, it is possible that they may not fully buy into TFL. Building a rapport with transformational leaders takes time, and a job rotation system may not provide an ideal condition for this. Second, this study focused on general-service public employees with either administrative- or policy-oriented functions. Because frontline service-oriented public employees are excluded from the data, the findings of this study may be limited in their generalizability to public organizations in other countries where there is no clear distinction in types of duties among public employees. Third, working in a public organization is highly coveted in South Korea, and people spend years trying to land a footing in the public sector. Because of a lack of decent tenured jobs in the private sector, people with an outstanding academic resume often pursue government jobs (Ko, 2019; Lee & Choi, 2016). This workforce composition may render the study findings less applicable in places where public sector jobs may not attract the best and brightest. Finally, this study relied on a dataset examining general-service public employees whose tenure is protected by the Civil Service Law. Because they know they cannot be fired without violating civil service laws and regulations, they may not be willing to accommodate leaders as much as their counterparts are in such Western countries as the United States, where in some states, public employees are subject to at-will employment (Kellough & Nigro, 2006).
Conclusion
Public organizations have increasingly been exposed to the harsh reality of fiscal austerity in recent years (Goodman, 2019; Inman, 2019; Yeginsu, 2019). Some governments, such as that of the City of Detroit, have failed to meet this challenge and declared fiscal bankruptcy (Davey & Walsh, 2013), while others have adapted to the new challenge with creative responses (Kim & Warner, 2016). Against this background, employees who are willing to do more than what is required of them bring significant contributions to public organizations. Thus, the present article focused on TFL, one of the mechanisms used to elicit such extra-role behaviors from employees. While some scholars have argued that public organizations are not ideal places for wielding TFL, others have demonstrated that TFL is also a relevant and crucial variable used for uplifting public organizations (Wright & Pandey, 2010). Despite the call for exploring contingency factors that can shape the effectiveness of TFL on work-related outcomes, little attention has been paid to organizational contexts that may condition the relationship between TFL and employee work behavior. To fill this gap in the public management literature, this article focused on structural properties, including centralization and formalization, as moderators of mitigating the effectiveness of TFL on employee helping behavior in public organizations. Our evidence is encouraging. When moderated by centralization and formalization, the positive relationship between TFL and employee helping behavior attenuates. Consistent with SET and contingency theory, this suggests that the effectiveness of TFL on employee helping behavior in public organizations may depend on whether the organization is mechanical or organic.
This study is not without limitations. First, the survey was implemented in a simultaneous timeframe, so there may be problems associated with endogeneity between the explanatory and dependent variables. Second, as with all studies using cross-sectional data, it prevents us from drawing a definite relationship between TFL and helping behavior. Third, because we relied on a survey of Korean public employees working in 46 central government agencies and 17 RLGs, our data are not entirely representative of the whole population of public employees and other countries with different human resource management practices and organizational cultures. As such, caution should be used in generalizing the results to the larger population of public employees in the Korean context and other countries. Fourth, although CMV does not overly threaten the validity of the analysis, our study may still suffer from some environmental biases generated by the organizational context in which an individual is situated (Favero & Bullock, 2015). Survey respondents in the same organization tend to exhibit similar perceptual biases (Favero & Bullock, 2015); for example, socialization processes through organizational culture, training, and hiring preference policies artificially promote similar perceptions across public employees about various dimensions of their workplace, such as leadership styles and human resource management practices (Favero & Bullock, 2015). Thus, we look forward to investigate the sensitivity of our empirical evidence to such limitations, should future data collection efforts remedy these weaknesses. Finally, the study explored TFL’s influences, given certain organizational contexts; however, leaders can also help reshape structural characteristics (Shamir & Howell, 1999). This dynamic quality of leadership remains unexplored in the study. Still, the study’s focus was on identifying the contexts that make followers less receptive to TFL. As such, the study still has merits, adding valuable perspectives to the research on leadership in public management.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by INHA UNIVERSITY Research Grant (2020).
