The Differential Effects of Transformational Leadership on Multiple Identifications at Work: A Meta‐analytic Model
| Author | Diana Boer,Astrid C. Homan,Christiane A. L. Horstmeier,Sven C. Voelpel |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12160 |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 28, 280–298 (2017)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12160
The Dierential Eects of Transformational
Leadership on Multiple Identifications
at Work: A Meta-analytic Model
Christiane A. L. Horstmeier, Diana Boer,1Astrid C. Homan2
and Sven C. Voelpel
Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759, Bremen, Germany, 1University of Koblenz-Landau, and
2University of Amsterdam
Corresponding author email: c.horstmeier@jacobs-university.de
Employees’ identifications are a valuable asset formoder n organizations, and identifica-
tion research has stressed the necessity to distinguish identifications according to their
focus (i.e. organizational, team, or leader identification). Interestingly,transformational
leadership (TFL) has been proposed to unfold its eects by transforming followers’iden-
tifications and could thus be a powerful way to activelymanage identification. However,
it remains unclear whether TFL aects identifications with dierent foci similarly or
whether it predominantly influences a specific focus. To resolve this puzzle, the authors
conducted a meta-analysis (k=73; N=20,543) and found that TFL (and each TFL
sub-dimension) is more strongly associated with leader identification than with organiza-
tional identification or team identification. By presenting a comprehensivemodel of TFL’s
eects on identifications, we show that leader identification mediates the relationshipsbe-
tween TFL and collective identifications (i.e. organizational identification or team iden-
tification), illustrating that relational identification plays a crucial role in subsequently
shaping collective identifications. Implications for research and practiceare discussed.
Introduction
Identification connects employees to dierent
aspects of their work context, such as the or-
ganization, the team, or the leader (i.e. foci of
identification; Van Dick, 2001). Identification
occurs when beliefs about another person or
group become self-referential or self-defining
(Pratt, 1998). Previous research demonstrates that
identification enhances various organizational
outcomes like performance, extra-role behavior,
and employee retention (Kraus et al., 2012;
Riketta, 2005; Van Dick et al., 2006, 2006b),
as well as employee-focused outcomes such as
well-being and satisfaction (Johnson et al., 2006;
This meta-analysis was financially supported by DB
Services GmbH.
Van Dick and Haslam, 2012). However, iden-
tification scholars have stressed the importance
of separating identifications according to their
focus: It is important to know what the employee
identifies with, because identification shapes
employees’ behaviors in such a way that the
goals of the identification target are respected or
internalized (Ullrich et al., 2007; Van Dick et al.,
2004). Consequently, identifications with dierent
foci have been shown to be dierentially related
to outcomes (Liu, Zhu, and Yang, 2010; Riketta
and Van Dick, 2005; Van Knippenberg and Van
Schie, 2000). The question of how identification
with dierent foci can be facilitated is therefore of
interest to both researchers and practitioners.
Interestingly, many leadership theories argue
that leaders influence their followers mainly by
shaping their identifications (Lord, Brown, and
© 2016 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
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Eects of Transformational Leadership 281
Freiberg, 1999; Reicher, Haslam, and Hopkins,
2005; Shamir, House, and Arthur, 1993). Espe-
cially charismatic–transformational leadership
behaviors1(hereafter referred to as TFL Bass,
1985; Burns, 1978; Conger and Kanungo, 1994),
which go beyond pure exchange relationships and
have extraordinary eects on followers, are often
empirically linked to identification, suggesting
that identification is an important mediator of
TFL’s eects on other outcomes (Kark, Shamir,
and Chen, 2003; Shamir et al., 2000; Walumbwa,
Avolio, and Zhu, 2008). Yet, previous empirical
work has not systematicallyaddressed the dierent
foci of identification with respect to TFL. Some
researchers have argued that TFL makes employ-
ees feel part of the larger collective and motivates
them to work towards the team’s or organization’s
goal, hence shaping collective identification with
the team or the organization (Kark, Shamir, and
Chen, 2003; Shamir et al., 1998). Other researchers
have emphasized the dyadic relationship between
leader and follower (Hughes and Avey, 2009;
Walumbwa and Hartnell, 2011), highlighting rela-
tional identification with the leader. The question
therefore arises whether TFL shapes identifica-
tions uniformly or whether it is more strongly
associated with particular identification foci.
The goal of this study is to shed light on the
multiple relationships between TFL and identifi-
cation with the leader, the team, and the organiza-
tion in a meta-analytic framework. This approach
allows us to provide an important contribution to
the literature in terms of building a comprehensive
model concerning the role of TFL (and its sub-
dimensions) in shaping identifications with vari-
ous foci. In this respect, we stress the importance
of distinguishing identification according to its fo-
cus and explore whether TFL aects the dierent
foci of identification similarly. More specifically,
we integrate the diverging theoretical arguments
about the eects of TFL on identification (i.e. the
collective vs the relational reasoning) and estab-
lish leader identification as the primary outcome
of TFL vis-`
a-vis collective identifications.Thereby,
1Weacknowledge that there are conceptual dierences be-
tween dierent theories relating to transformational be-
haviors of leaders. However, they also share a substan-
tial conceptual overlap (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin,
2013). We therefore use the label ‘transformational lead-
ership’ (TFL) in an inclusive sense, also referringto other
charismatic–transformational leadership behaviors.
our approach also contributes to the identification
literature in that we explore TFL as a powerful
proximal antecedent of the various identifications.
To date, the TFL–identification relationship has
only been considered from a leadership perspec-
tive, thereby overlooking the potential to use TFL
to actively manage followers’ identifications.
Social identification
The concept of social identification is grounded
in the social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner,
1986) and links the individual to its social envi-
ronment. Specifically, identifications partially an-
swer the question ‘Who am I?’ and refer to the
extent to which individuals define themselves in
terms of relationships to others or groups (Cooper
and Thatcher, 2010; Pratt, 1998). Two broad levels
of social identifications are distinguished: Collec-
tive identification describes the identification with
a group, whereas relational identification occurs
when one specific other person is integrated into
the self-concept (Brewer and Gardner, 1996).
Modern organizations oer their employees a
variety of identification targets, so-called foci, at
both levels, such as the organization as a whole,
the team, or the leader (VanDick, 2001). On a con-
ceptual level, identification implies that the unique
set of values and goals associated with this spe-
cific focus of identification is integrated into the
self and will guide future behavior accordingly
(Ellemers and Rink, 2005). As such, leader iden-
tification has been conceptualized as the extent to
which the leader is included in the follower’s re-
lational self (Kark and Shamir, 2002). Similarly,
team and organizational identification can be de-
fined as the degree to which people adopt defining
characteristics of the team and organization into
their self-concept (Van Dick and Wagner, 2002).
Empirically, identifications with dierent foci are
related, yet separable constructs in confirmatory
factor analyses (Liu, Zhu, and Yang, 2010; Smith
et al., 2012; Van Dick et al., 2004), which are dif-
ferentially related to antecedents and outcomes
(Olkkonen and Lipponen, 2006; Riketta and
Nienaber, 2007; Riketta and Van Dick, 2005). In
this regard, the strongest eects of identifications
have been found when identification and outcome
correspond in focus or level(Van Dick et al., 2004),
which has also been referred to as the match-
ing principle between identification and outcome
(Ullrich et al., 2007). Therefore, it is of utmost
© 2016 British Academy of Management.
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