The influence of transformational leadership on followers’ affective commitment : The role of perceived organizational support and supervisor’s organizational embodiment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine why and when followers of transformational leaders exhibit increased affective organizational commitment. Particularly, the authors examined the role played by perceived organizational support (POS) and supervisor’s organizational embodiment (SOE), i.e. a perception concerning the extent to which employees identify their supervisor with the organization, in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 287 employees of a water producer organization responded to a questionnaire. Findings – The results show that, when employees strongly identify their supervisor with the organization, transformational leadership is positively related to POS, with positive consequences in terms of emotional attachment to this organization. In contrast, when the supervisor is not identified to the organization, his/her transformational leadership does not extend to POS and, finally, to affective organizational commitment. Practical implications – The findings suggest that a high transformational leadership and a high SOE together engender the highest POS and affective commitment. Organizations should thus provide their managers with training programs and feedbacks over their performance as leaders to promote transformational leadership. Furthermore, to foster perceptions of SOE, organizations might implement socialization tactics aiming to strengthen managers’ organizational identification or person-organization fit, and give managers more power and influence in their day-to-day work to increase employees’ attributions of informal organizational status to managers. Originality/value – By showing that POS and SOE are important mechanisms in the transformational leadership-affective commitment relationship, this research explains why and when transformational leadership of supervisors has spillover effect on organization-directed attitudes.