رهبری تحول گرا مدیر عامل و نتایج سازمانی: نقش واسطه ای مدیریت منابع انسانی در ارتقای سرمایه انسانی

Using a field survey and company data of 170 firms in Singapore, we tested an integrated theoretical model relating CEO transformational leadership (TL), human–capital-enhancing human resource management (HRM), and organizational outcomes, including subjective assessment of organizational performance, absenteeism, and average sales. We found that human–capital-enhancing HRM fully mediates the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and subjective assessment of organizational outcomes and partially mediates the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and absenteeism. We discuss practical and theoretical implications.

The field of organizational behavior has witnessed an increasing interest in studies of transformational leadership (TL) and human–capital-enhancing (or progressive) human resource management (HRM). Both of these developments represent radical departures from previous research. In the case of leadership, previous scholarship focused on command, coordination, delegation, and resource acquisition. The relationship between leader or manager and subordinate was supposed to be impersonal and based on an exchange or transaction of rewards for services. The focus was on efficient use of resources within the status quo. More recent transformational leadership focuses on changing the status quo, both the organizational status as well as individuals within the organization. Methods for accomplishing these changes or transformations differ greatly from previous administrative techniques. Here, the focus is on the relationship of the leader to other organizational members as well as the impact the leader has on others via such phenomena as charisma (or idealized influence), inspiration, and vision. At the risk of oversimplifying, we may say that the difference between traditional and more recent leadership research is the difference between management and leadership. Likewise, newer research in the area of human resource management differs substantially from older research. Older research focused on administrative issues of selection, performance appraisal, compensation, training, and compliance with legal requirements. Newer theorizing and research also looks at how the HRM function may be used to serve the strategic interests of the organization and how HRM may increase the capacity of organizational members. Although these two new streams of research have grown up together, little or no research has examined how these two organizational phenomena may be related to each other. Both transformational leadership and human–capital-enhancing HRM have positive effects on individual and organizational performance, but the nature of the relationship remains obscure. Perhaps they are independent phenomena. Much of the transformational leadership literature stresses the cognitive and affective relationship between leader and organizational members and stresses the differences between leadership and traditional management or administration of impersonal systems. Therefore, it makes sense to suppose that transformational leadership would have its primary effects outside of the formal administrative system. In this case, transformational leadership and human–capital-enhancing HRM would be independent inasmuch as human–capital-enhancing HRM is part of the organizational administrative system. An alternative, which we explore in the present research, is the somewhat less intuitively obvious proposition that transformational leadership and human–capital-enhancing HRM may work together to enhance individual and organizational performance. Specifically, we propose that much of the effect of transformational leadership is mediated by human–capital-enhancing HRM, in addition to any direct effect of transformational leadership on outcomes.

In this study, our main research aim was to create and test an integrated model that links human–capital-enhancing HRM, transformational leadership, and organizational outcomes. Our findings and analyses indicate that both leadership and HRM are valuable resources for organizational outcomes and competitive advantage. As predicted, human–capital-enhancing HRM fully mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and absenteeism and partially mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and perceived organizational outcomes. As expected, we found that transformational leadership has a positive association with organizational outcomes. This finding makes sense since the CEO plays an important part in the company's success and essentially a transformational CEO motivates and inspires other organizational members to excel towards both organizational and individual excellence. These findings are not surprising and are consistent with prior results of many scholars (Avolio, 1999, Bass, 1997, Curphy, 1992, Hater & Bass, 1988, House et al., 1991, Howell & Avolio, 1993, Howell & Frost, 1989, Howell & Hall-Merenda, 1999, Jung & Sosik, 2002, Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996, Waldman et al., 2001 and Walumbwa, 2002). We also found that human–capital-enhancing HRM is positively related to subjective assessment of organizational outcomes and negatively related to absenteeism. This finding confirms results of other researchers (e.g., Becker & Gerhart, 1996, Cascio, 1991, Delaney & Huselid, 1996, Guthrie, 2001 and Huselid, 1995). Our study also suggests that human–capital-enhancing HRM practices, in terms of staffing, training, performance appraisal, and compensation systems, are distinctive ways to create highly empowered and committed employees. Through these human–capital-enhancing HRM practices, companies are more likely to improve employees' knowledge, skills and abilities, enhance motivation, retain competent employees, and reduce turnover and absenteeism. Second, perhaps more importantly, we found that human–capital-enhancing HRM mediated the relationships between CEO transformational leadership and perceived organizational outcomes and absenteeism. This is the first study that combines human–capital-enhancing HRM and transformational leadership. Specifically, we found that transformational CEOs are more likely to adopt human–capital-enhancing HRM. This finding is consistent with the finding that transformational leaders have a clear vision of what the company is going to be (Bass & Avolio, 1993), including human–capital-enhancing HRM. This finding suggests that, in order to better communicate the vision of leaders and to carry out their decisions, in addition to influencing employees directly through charisma and inspirational motivation, transformational leaders are more likely to create human–capital-enhancing HRM practices. These practices include staffing, training, performance appraisal, and compensation systems to motivate and empower their employees. In the process of creating human–capital-enhancing HRM, transformational leaders tend to listen attentively and pay attention to followers' individual needs for achievement and growth (individualized consideration) and try to satisfy their needs. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find a significant relationship between transformational leadership and average sales. One explanation is that industry type might explain more average sales variance in this sample. For example, high-technology and high-value-added industries have higher average sales than low-value-added and low-technology industries. Although we divided industries into service and manufacturing in this study, we believe that such division is not adequate to grasp the whole picture of industry complexity. Limited by the sample size, we were not able to further test the association of industry type; further study might focus on similar industries to control the confounding influence of industry on the leadership effect. This similar industry suggestion is consistent with the argument of Liberson and O'Connor (1972).