Post your analysis of three aspects of motivation

Getting Followers to Transcend Their Self-Interest for the Benefit of Their Company: Testing a Core Assumption of Transformational Leadership Theory

David Effelsberg • Marc Solga • Jochen Gurt

Published online: 30 April 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract

Purpose We aimed at testing transformational leader-

ship’s (TFL’s) capacity to enhance followers’ willingness

to engage in selfless pro-organizational behavior (SPB),

that is, behavior for the benefit of the company that is inapt

to be instrumentally used for self-serving purposes and

carried out despite salient personal costs. Furthermore, we

aimed at demonstrating organizational identification to

mediate this relation.

Design/Methodology/Approach In this study with three

time points of data collection, 321 employees completed

questionnaires measuring TFL, organizational identifica-

tion, and—to control for dispositional effects—honesty/

humility. SPB was captured applying a distribution task

where participants had to make trade-off decisions between

pro-self and pro-company distribution alternatives. In

addition, participants’ general willingness to engage in

SPB was measured using a self-report questionnaire.

Findings We found TFL to predict followers’ (willing-

ness to engage in) selfless pro-organizational behavior and

organizational identification to fully mediate this relation.

Implications Among other things, our findings challenge

the negative assumptions regarding human motivation and

behavior (e.g., people invariably driven by self-interest)

inherent in some influential management-related theories

(e.g., agency theory).

Originality/Value Getting followers to transcend their

self-interest for company benefits is a core element of TFL

theory. However, this core idea is difficult to test by means

of questionnaires that measure citizenship behavior in field

study research because three motives remain intertwined:

pro-social values or orientation, organizational concern,

and impression management motive. By disentangling

company interest from employees’ self-interest and con-

trolling for honesty/humility as an indicator for pro-social

orientation, our study represents a more rigorous attempt to

empirically confirm this assumption.

Keywords Transformational leadership � Organizational identification � Selfless pro-organizational behavior � Self-interest � Honesty/humility

Transformational leadership has been considered to foster

pro-organizational employee behavior not only beyond

expectations but also beyond self-interest (Bass 1985; see also

Avolio et al. 2009; Shamir et al. 1993). In fact, getting fol-

lowers to ‘‘transcend their own self-interest’’ (Hater and Bass

1998, p. 695; see also Brown and Treviño 2006, p. 955; Den

Hartog et al. 1997, p. 20; Yukl 1999, p. 286) and transforming

their perspective from own goals to group or collective goals

has even been described as ‘‘the essence of charismatic and

transformational leadership’’ (Van Knippenberg et al. 2004,

p. 830). To test this idea, demonstrating relations between

transformational leadership and followers’ organizational

citizenship behavior (OCB) would be a near choice. However,

this approach has drawbacks regarding validity that will be

discussed in the following. These drawbacks made us seek for

a more valid piece of evidence to confirm the idea of trans-

formational leadership making followers transcend their self-

interest for organizational purposes.

D. Effelsberg � M. Solga (&) Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum,

Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

e-mail: [email protected]

J. Gurt

Fernuniversität Hagen, Hagen, Germany

123

J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143

DOI 10.1007/s10869-013-9305-x

Indeed, transformational leadership has often been

demonstrated to predict followers’ OCB (e.g., Cho and

Dansereau 2010; Piccolo and Colquitt 2006; Podsakoff

et al. 1990). These findings provide evidence for transfor-

mational leadership’s capacity to foster employee perfor-

mance beyond expectations—after all, OCB is defined as

pro-organizational behavior that is discretionary (Organ

et al. 2006). To be sure, these findings are highly important.

However, the question whether OCB measures are suited to

represent behavior beyond self-interest has been a topic of

debate. In fact, there are several arguments to assume that

OCB, besides serving company interests, can serve focal

actors as well and that employees might ‘‘engage in OCB

for instrumental purposes’’ (Salamon and Deutsch 2006,

p. 189; for a review regarding OCB’s relations with career

success, see Podsakoff et al. 2000). In this vein, Hui et al.

(2000) found employees to strategically engage in OCB to

get promotion. Accordingly, Bolino (1999) argued that

OCB can be driven by an impression management motive,

that is, by some need or desire to self-servingly influence

others’ perceptions of oneself (Bolino et al. 2008; Rosen-

feld et al. 2002). Supporting this view, supervisor-per-

ceived OCB has been found to be related to followers’

supervisor-, self-, and job-focused impression management

tactics (Bolino et al. 2006) and to followers’ ingratiatory

behavior (Chen et al. 2008).

So, although employees may engage in OCB because of

personal characteristics (OCB as a function of pro-social

values or orientation) or with the genuine purpose to sup-

port their company’s welfare (OCB reflecting organiza-

tional concern), they might as well do so to build up their

reputation and to receive some form of personal benefit at

some point in the future (OCB as impression management).

These three motives—i.e., pro-social values or orientation,

organizational concern, and impression management

motive (Halbesleben et al. 2010)—remain intertwined

(confounded) when capturing OCB in field study research.

Therefore, positive relations between transformational

leadership and OCB cannot be taken as valid evidence for

transformational leadership’s capacity to inspire genuine

organizational concern and respective behavior—pro-

social values or orientation and, more importantly,

impression management cannot be precluded as plausible

alternative explanations. Due to that, and because actors

may benefit from citizenship behavior regardless of

underlying intentions, a different approach is needed to

more thoroughly examine whether transformational lead-

ership can actually motivate followers to transcend their

self-interest for organizational welfare and success—an

approach that particularly allows for separating subordi-

nates’ self-interest from company interest in measures of

pro-organizational behavior. The main research contribu-

tion of our study consists in pursuing this path.

For that purpose, we developed a research design in

which participants had to make trade-offs between acting

self-servingly on the one hand and pro-organizationally on

the other. More precisely, we placed employees from dif-

ferent companies in a situation—a distribution task—where

they had to split a quantity of lottery tickets for either

winning an amount of money for themselves (self-interest)

or winning a free image campaign for their company

(company-interest). In this setting, participants’ choices—

pro-self versus pro-company—could not be noticed by

anyone in their organization. We thus placed individuals in

a situation where actions that contributed to their company’s

welfare and success would at the same time disqualify as a

means to gain reputation and to pursue personal goals. For

simplicity and conceptual clarity, we call this specific form

of citizenship behavior selfless pro-organizational behavior

(SPB), representing an actor’s willingness to put him- or

herself out for company success while being aware that this

effort will bring about personal costs that will not be out-

weighed by some tangible or intangible benefit in the future.

In short, SPB involves discretionary pro-organizational

behavior and efforts inapt to be instrumentally or tactically

used for reputational and self-serving purposes. 1

Following the idea that the dynamics of transformational

leadership include ‘‘going beyond the self-interest

exchange of rewards for compliance’’ (Hater and Bass

1998, p. 695), we expected transformational leadership to

be related to followers’ SPB. Furthermore, we expected

transformational leadership’s capacity to enhance follow-

ers’ organizational identification (see, for example, Epi-

tropaki and Martin 2005; Kark et al. 2003; Schuh et al.

2012) to play an important role in the process. Employees

high in organizational identification (OI) feel psychologi-

cally intertwined with their company and their company’s

welfare and success (Mael and Ashforth 1992). Haslam

et al. (2006) posited that highly identified employees are

likely to serve group interests ‘‘even to the detriment of

themselves as individuals (their personal self-interest)’’ (p.

610). So, just like transformational leadership, OI has been

conceptualized—although not explicitly tested—as an

antecedent to pro-organizational and at the same time self-

sacrificing behavior. We therefore expected OI to mediate

the relation between transformational leadership and SPB.

As discussed above, OCB has been demonstrated to also

be a function of pro-social orientation (e.g., Moorman and

Blakely 1995). We therefore expected pro-social

1 Given the definition above, some parallels between SPB and

altruistic behavior become obvious. Batson (2011) defined altruism as

‘‘a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s

welfare’’ (p. 20), stressing out that altruistic behavior is—just like

SPB—not instrumental; rather, the welfare of others is an end in itself

(an ultimate goal). However, whereas altruism is person-directed,

SPB aims at serving ones company.

132 J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143

123

orientation to be associated with SPB as well. One instru-

ment to capture this variable is the honesty/humility scale

introduced by Lee and Ashton (2004). As a broad indi-

vidual difference construct, honesty/humility represents a

person’s sincerity (being genuine in interpersonal rela-

tions), fairness (avoiding fraud and corruption), greed

avoidance (being uninterested in assets that represent

monetary wealth and high social status), and modesty

(being humble and unassuming). According to Ashton and

Lee (e.g., 2008), honesty/humility represents one of the

basic dimensions of personality, one that the Five-Factor

model has largely failed to represent. In our study, we

measured honesty/humility to control for dispositional

effects and, with it, to separate explained variance in SPB

that can be attributed to an individual’s pro-social orien-

tation from explained variance in SPB that can be attrib-

uted to transformational leadership and the OI it engenders.

Thus, our goal for measuring honesty/humility was to more

validly unveil the effects of transformational leadership

and TFL-induced OI on followers’ SPB.

Altogether, we carried out a study with 3 measurement

points to examine the link between transformational lead-

ership and selfless pro-organizational behavior and to fur-

thermore demonstrate OI to act as a mediator in the process.

As a special feature, we observed individuals’ actual display

of SPB in a distribution task (instead of merely capturing

self-assessments of it) to test transformational leadership’s

capacity to foster employee behavior beyond self-interest

more rigorously. Figure 1 presents the research model

(white boxes) as well as the broader theoretical perspective

(grey box, italic letters) that guided our study.

Transformational Leadership, Organizational

Identification, and SPB

Positive relations between transformational leadership and

subordinates’ pro-organizational behaviors are well docu-

mented (Podsakoff et al. 1990; Podsakoff et al. 2000; Wang

et al. 2005). Furthermore, research has identified several

mediating processes such as transformational leadership’s

influence on followers’ job perceptions and job-related

attitudes (Piccolo and Colquitt 2006; Purvanova et al. 2006)

or employees’ supervisor-related trust and fairness percep-

tions (Cho and Dansereau 2010; MacKenzie et al. 2001;

Pillai 1999). Moreover, Jiao et al. (2011) found transfor-

mational leadership’s relationship with followers’ citizen-

ship behavior to be mediated by perceived organizational

instrumentality, that is, the extent to which employees

believe that OCB will contribute to organizational success. 2

Beyond that however, transformational leadership might

also enhance the personal significance that followers sub-

jectively attach to organizational success. In this connection,

the concept of OI is of particular importance. In the fol-

lowing, we will therefore take a closer look at this construct

and its relation with transformational leadership.

Referring to social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner

1986), the concept of OI represents an employee’s psy-

chological attachment toward his or her organization.

Employees high in OI have a strong feeling of belong-

ingness; they tend to experience organizational goals and

interests as well as organizational failures and successes as

their own (Mael and Ashforth 1992) and are, therefore,

willing to increase personal efforts for the benefit of their

company (Boroş et al. 2011; Riketta and Van Dick 2005;

Van Dick 2004; Van Knippenberg 2000).

At the same time, several studies demonstrated an

association between transformational leadership and sub-

ordinates’ identification with the organization and—closely

related—their affective organizational commitment (Barr-

oso Castro et al. 2008; Korek et al. 2010; Epitropaki and

Martin 2005; Kark et al. 2003; Meyer et al. 2002; for a

further discussion regarding the conceptual similarities and

differences between OI and affective organizational com-

mitment, see Meyer et al. 2006, or Van Knippenberg and

Sleebos 2006). Altogether, these findings lent support to

Bass’s (1998) general assertion that transformational

leadership is well-suited ‘‘to fulfill the frustrated need for

identity’’ (p. 41). Among other things, communicating an

attractive and inspiring vision to employees and displaying

self-sacrificing behavior that benefits the work group—and,

with it, acting as a role model—can be seen as important

mechanisms in this process (Van Dick et al. 2007).

Summarizing the foregoing, transformational leader-

ship’s capacity to enhance pro-organizational employee

behavior should at least be partly based on shifting fol-

lowers’ perspective from an individual ‘‘I’’ to a collective

Fig. 1 Theoretical framework and research model guiding the investigation

2 Furthermore, the results of Jiao et al. (2011) provided evidence that

the link between transformational leadership and OCB is also

mediated by perceived individual instrumentality, that is, the extent

to which employees believe that OCB will serve their self-interest.

This again demonstrates that OCB measures do not represent selfless

pro-organizational behavior exclusively; OCB can and will also be

used for self-serving purposes.

J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143 133

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‘‘We’’ (Bass, 1998; see also the review article of Van

Knippenberg et al. 2004 regarding the relation between

leadership and followers’ self-construal processes). This

process should particularly apply to SPB as a specific form

of citizenship behavior because serving ones company’s

welfare and success should be an ultimate goal for highly

identified employees. In this vein, Meyer and Herscovitch

(2001) argued that employees high in OI are inclined to

take action for the good of their organization ‘‘in ways that,

from the perspective of neutral observers, might seem

contrary to their own self-interest’’ (p. 301). Obviously,

this description matches our definition of SPB quite well.

We therefore posit that transformational leadership is

indeed associated with followers’ elevated willingness to

contribute to company success even if this behavior is at

odds with their self-interest. Furthermore, we expect OI to

mediate this relationship.

Hypothesis 1 Transformational leadership will be posi-

tively related to employees’ selfless pro-organizational

behavior (SPB).

Hypothesis 2 This relationship will be mediated by

employees’ OI. In the process, transformational leadership

will be positively associated with OI, and OI will be pos-

itively associated with SPB.

The Present Study

Method

Participants and Overall Procedure

We tested our hypotheses using a sample of employees

from various organizations (primarily middle-sized com-

panies or big businesses from sectors including production

industry, financial service, health care, or public adminis-

tration) who attended a distance teaching university in

Germany alongside work. Besides enhancing generaliz-

ability by means of using a heterogenous sample, the logic

of the distribution task (being part of a lottery with a

chance to win a free image campaign for one’s company)

required employees from various organizations in any case.

With approximately 4 weeks between time points of data

collection, transformational leadership was measured at

time 1; OI and honesty/humility were measured at time 2;

at time 3, participants had to engage in the distribution task

and, afterward, also filled-in a self-report questionnaire

developed to capture their general willingness to engage in

SPB (in addition to capturing their actual display of SPB in

the specific context of the distribution task). All surveys

were completed online. Participants received class credit

for taking part in our study.

Initially, 429 employees participated; 75 % fully com-

pleted all surveys (N = 321). Of these, 56.8 % were

female. Participants’ mean age was 35 years (SD = 9.3).

Their mean job tenure was 6 years (SD = 6.4). Further

examination of dropouts yielded no substantial differences

in answering behavior; we can therefore conclude that our

results were not affected by attrition.

Distribution Task and SPB Measures

To capture SPB, participants got involved in a distribution

task where certain amounts of raffle tickets had to be

allocated to two different lotteries. The first lottery

involved the chance to win 150 Euros for oneself; the

second lottery provided the chance to win a free image

campaign for one’s company (e.g., a professional produc-

tion of a radio spot, image film, or image brochure,

depending on the company’s specific needs). After intro-

ducing participants to the task and ensuring their under-

standing of it (see ‘‘Appendix 1’’ section), participants had

to choose between five different distribution alternatives

regarding tickets for the two lotteries (money raffle tickets

vs. image campaign raffle tickets; for example, 4:0-3:3-3:6-

1:9-0:12). The more tickets they chose for lottery A, the

smaller their amount of tickets for lottery B and, with it,

their chance of winning this lottery. Altogether, partici-

pants had to take 6 trade-off decisions, presented in random

order. We altered the amounts of money vs. company

tickets and their ratios, respectively, from decision to

decision to keep up a conscious and engaged decision-

making process and to also represent different levels of

difficulty (see ‘‘Appendix 2’’ section). Participants made

their choices by moving a webpage input slider back and

forth. Furthermore, they had to enter their chosen amounts

of tickets into two open response fields (see Fig. 2). This

last step, although a redundant one, served to keep up a

conscious and engaged decision-making process once

again and to make sure participants understood their choice

and intended to get the resulting distribution of tickets. The

current total amounts of allocated tickets for both lotteries

were summed-up and presented on top of each webpage.

Obviously, maximizing tickets for the money lottery rep-

resented pro-self behavior, whereas increasing tickets for the

free image campaign was pro-organizational. To reassure the

latter—i.e., participants’ perception of maximizing campaign

tickets as being pro-organizational—we made participants

score the perceived value of a free business campaign for their

company (PVBC; see ‘‘Appendix 1’’ section). Furthermore,

we explicitly emphasized that we would conceal and—if

necessary—even deny any relation between this study and the

offering of a free image campaign in case of winning one,

making clear that no one in the company could take notice of

participants’ self-serving versus pro-organizational decisions

134 J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143

123

within the study. With that in mind, participants knew that

they could not use this form of pro-organizational behavior to

build up reputation and, with it, achieve self-serving goals in

the future. Thus, since acting pro-organizationally directly

reduced ones chance to win the amount of money, the dis-

tribution task indeed measured pro-organizational behavior at

odds with self-serving behavior. To obtain an overall score to

represent a participant’s SPB in the distribution task, we

calculated the difference of allocated tickets for both lotteries

(i.e., sum total of campaign tickets minus sum total of money

tickets). This SPB overall score could be somewhere between

-40 and ?40, with -40 representing behavior intended to

fully maximize one’s self-interest and ?40 representing

behavior to fully maximize one’s company’s interest.

Besides observing actual SPB in the context of the

distribution task, we also measured employees’ general

willingness to engage in SPB by means of a 5-item self-

report questionnaire developed for this research (see

Table 1). In accordance with the core idea of SPB, these

items captured a person’s willingness to engage in discre-

tionary pro-organizational behavior inapt to be used for

self-serving (i.e., reputational) purposes—because respec-

tive efforts would remain either unnoticed or without

appreciation. Thus, in contrast to well-established mea-

sures of OCB (e.g., MacKenzie et al. 1991; Podsakoff

et al., 1990), these items explicitly indicate the referenced

pro-organizational behavior to disqualify as a means to

build reputation and, with it, to obtain some personal

benefit in the future. We pre-tested the items with a group

of 114 employees from various organizations. The

exploratory factor analysis revealed a single distinct factor

(k [ 1.0), explaining 58.1 % of the common variance. All item loadings exceeded .50 with Cronbach’s a = .82 (see Table 1). Participants responded to a 7-point rating scale

with 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree.

Similar to the internal consistency in our pre-test, Cron-

bach’s alpha was .83 in our main study.

Measures of Transformational Leadership

and Organizational Identification

We measured perceived transformational leadership using

the German version of Bass and Avolio’s (1995) MLQ 5 X

Short (Felfe 2006). Participants used 5-point rating scales

with 1 = never and 5 = almost always to complete this

questionnaire with regard to their direct supervisor. Due to

high scale intercorrelations and in accordance with other

authors (Judge and Piccolo 2004), we combined the sub-

scales to represent a higher order factor of transformational

leadership. The internal consistency score was high

(Cronbach’s a = .94). To assess organizational identification, participants

completed the 6-item scale of Mael and Ashforth (1992)

Fig. 2 Item 3 as an example of how SPB was measured in the

distribution task

Table 1 Pre-testing the SPB-questionnaire: selfless pro-organiza- tional behavior items and factor loadings

Item Factor

loading

I am willing to put up with personal inconveniences for

the benefit of my organization, even when my superiors

or colleagues do not notice this

.78

I put my own interests aside if necessary, without making

a great fuzz about it

.84

I am willing to take on unappreciated tasks if I consider

they are important for the company

.72

Even if no one honors it, I would choose the more

inconvenient and challenging path if this was in my

company’s best interests

.84

I reduce my commitment to work if I realize that nobody

in the company would notice anyway (reversed)

.62

N = 114

J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143 135

123

which included statements such as ‘‘This company’s suc-

cesses are my successes’’ or ‘‘When someone criticizes my

company, it feels like a personal insult’’. Participants used

5-point Likert scales with 1 = strongly disagree and

5 = strongly agree. Cronbach’s a was .84 for this measure. We further used the OID—Graphic scale provided by

Shamir and Kark (2004) and found very similar effects for

both measurements of OI. For simplicity, we will therefore

only report findings referring to Mael and Ashforth’s

(1992) 6-item scale in the following (for additional infor-

mation, please contact the authors).

Measure of PVBC

To reassure that our study participants considered the image

campaign as valuable for their organization, we also mea-

sured the perceived value of a free business campaign for

one’s company (PVBC) by means of 5 items (see ‘‘Appendix

1’’ section; 7-point Likert scales with 1 = strongly disagree

and 7 = strongly agree; Cronbach’s a = .91).

Control Variables

To control for participants’ pro-social disposition, we mea-

sured honesty/humility. We made use of the 10-item scale

provided by Ashton and Lee (2009). Honesty/humility

involves a person’s sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance, and

modesty. Participants responded to 5-point rating scales

(1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral [neither

agree nor disagree]; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree).

Example items are ‘‘Having a lot of money is not especially

important to me’’ or ‘‘I think that I am entitled to more respect

than the average person is’’ (reverse-scored). The internal

consistency score was acceptable (Cronbach’s a = .73). Furthermore, because pro-organizational behavior has been

found to be linked to demographic variables (e.g., Farrel and

Finkelstein 2007; Gyekye et al. 2012), we also measured age,

gender, and job tenure to control for their potentially spuri-

ous effects.

Data Analysis

We conducted a set of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs)

to examine construct distinctiveness. Following, we applied

bootstrap analyses to test our mediation model, making use

of the SPSS application provided by Hayes (2012).

Results

Confirmatory Factor Analyses

To test construct distinctiveness, we initially conducted a

four-factor confirmatory factor analysis for transformational

leadership, OI, SPB, and honesty/humility. To preserve ade-

quate statistical power, we used the four transformational

dimensions (instead of the 20 single items) for modeling

transformational leadership. After taking high error covari-

ances into consideration that occurred between the observed

variables loading on honesty/humility (the high covariances

appeared within the four sub-dimensions) as well as between

observed variables within the distribution task (probably due

to the similarity of the different choices)—our four-factor

model fitted the data well (for SPB as observed in the distri-

bution task, in the following ‘‘SPB-task’’: v2 (284) = 483.56, p \ .001; CFI = .94, TLI = .94; RMSEA = .05; for self- assessed SPB (questionnaire), in the following ‘‘SPB-items’’:

v2 (262) = 448.49, p \ .001; CFI = .94, TLI = .93; RMSEA = .05; see Hair et al. 2009; Hu and Bentler 1999).

The four-factor model was then contrasted with three alter-

native models (see Table 2). The baseline model displayed a

significant better fit to the data than the other models (revealed

by the significant v2 difference test as well as model fit

Table 2 Comparison of measurement models for variables in the study

Model Factor SPB observed within the distribution

task (SPB-task)

Self-reported SPB (SPB-items)

v2 df Dv2 CFI TLI RMSEA v2 df Dv2 CFI TLI RMSEA

Baseline model Four factors 483.56 284 .94 .94 .05 448.49 262 .94 .93 .05

Model 1 Three factors: SPB and

honesty/humility were

combined into one factor

613.92 287 130.36** .91 .90 .06 562.81 265 114.32** .90 .88 .06

Model 2 Three factors:

transformational leadership

and OI were combined into

one factor

1,209.56 287 726** .74 .71 .10 1,172.98 265 724.49** .69 .65 .10

Model 3 Single factor: all items

loaded on

one factor

1,986.78 290 1,503.22** .53 .47 .14 1,798.52 268 1,350.03** .47 .41 .13

OI organizational identification, SPB selfless pro-organizational behavior

** p B .01

136 J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143

123

indices), demonstrating construct distinctiveness of our study

variables.

Descriptive Statistics

Table 3 provides means, standard deviations, and zero

order correlations of measured variables.

Transformational leadership was positively related to OI

(r = .23, p \ .01) as well as to selfless pro-organizational behavior (SPB-task: r = .11, p \ .05; SPB-items: r = .11, p \ .05). OI was positively related to both measures of SPB (SPB-task: r = .17, p \ .01; SPB-items: r = .31, p \ .01). Also, we found the SPB measures (SPB-task and SPB-items) to be correlated at r = .29 (p \ .01).

We furthermore measured three potential control vari-

ables to include them, if necessary, in further statistical

analyses. According to Becker (2005), control variables

should be added if and only if they were found to sub-

stantially correlate with the outcome measure in focus (to

avoid spurious suppression effects that may otherwise

occur). This applied to honesty/humility (SPB-task:

r = .15, p \ .01; SPB-items: r = .28, p \ .01) and age (SPB-task: r = .19, p \ .01).

Finally, the mean value of a free business campaign was

considerably high (M = 4.72), demonstrating that the

average respondent perceived maximizing campaign tick-

ets to be indeed pro-organizational.

Testing the Mediation Model

Table 4 provides the results of testing total, direct, and

indirect effects with regard to the two outcome measures,

i.e., participants’ decision-making behavior in the distri-

bution task and self-reported SPB.

Fully supporting Hypothesis 1, the total statisti-

cal effect of transformational leadership on selfless

pro-organizational behavior was substantive (SPB-task:

b = 4.61, p \ .05; R2 = .07; SPB-items: b = .18, p \ .05; R

2 = .09; controlling for honesty/humility and age). Con-

firming Hypothesis 2, we found the direct statistical effects

of transformational leadership on OI (b = .26, p \ .00) and of OI on selfless pro-organizational behavior (SPB-

task: b = 4.94, p \ .01; SPB-items: b = .43, p \ .01; controlling for honesty/humility and age) to be significant.

The mediation model accounted for 9 % of variance in

selfless pro-organizational behavior as measured by

means of SPB-task (16 % when filtering out the error

variance that can be attributed to differences in PVBC 3 )

and for 19 % of variance in SPB as measured by means

of the SPB-items (SPB-task: R 2

= .09/.16; SPB-items:

R 2

= .19).

Bootstrapping the indirect effect of transformational

leadership on selfless pro-organizational behavior through OI

further confirmed Hypothesis 2, since the estimated 95 % CI

did not contain zero (SPB-task: average bootstrap esti-

mate = 1.27, LLCI = .40, ULCI = 2.64; SPB-items: aver-

age bootstrap estimate = .11, LLCI = .06, ULCI = .18).

Also, the direct statistical effect of transformational leader-

ship on SPB turned out to be zero for both outcome variables

(SPB-task: b = 3.36, n.s.; SPB-items: b = .07, n.s.). Thus,

our results demonstrated full mediation. 4

Table 3 Means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal consistency scores

Variable (scale) M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1.Gender – – (–)

2. Age 35.44 9.28 .04 (–)

3. Job tenure 6.06 6.39 .03 .54** (–)

4. PVBC (1–7) 4.72 1.48 -.06 .09 .03 (.91)

5. Honest/humility (1–5) 3.78 .64 -.01 .22** .11* .02 (.73)

6. Transformational leadership (1–5) 3.21 .77 -.02 -.11 -.19** .07 -.02 (.94)

7. Org. identification (1–5) 3.01 .87 .06 -.05 -.04 .12* -.08 .23** (.84)

8. SPB-task (-40 to ?40) -13.02 26.25 .00 .19** .11 .30** .15** .11* .17** (.91)

9. SPB-items (1–7) 4.44 1.16 -.02 .05 .00 .14* .28** .11* .31** .29** (.83)

N = 321; values in parentheses represent internal consistency scores (Cronbach’s a); for gender 1 = female, 2 = male

PVBC perceived value of a free business campaign for ones company, SPB selfless pro-organizational behavior;

* p B .05, ** p B .01

3 If PVBC is low, participants will be less inclined to reduce the

amount of tickets for the money lottery in order to receive campaign

tickets regardless of TFL or OI, respectively, because this behavior is

not perceived to be company-serving. 4

In this research, our focus was on selfless pro-organizational behavior.

However, we also measured citizenship behavior directed toward the

organization as a whole (OCB-O; Chiaburu et al. 2011) at time 3, making

use of the civic virtue subscale of Staufenbiel and Hartz’s (2000) OCB

measure (5 items; 7-point response format with 1 = strongly disagree

and 7 = strongly agree; M = 5.18; SD = 1.06; Cronbach’s a = .81). Testing the model ‘‘transformational leadership (TFL) ? organizational identification (OI) ? OCB-O’’ revealed partial

J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143 137

123

Discussion

Making followers transcend their self-interest for company

benefits has been considered an asset and core element of

transformational leadership. However, this idea is not easy to

test. Demonstrating relations between transformational

leadership and followers’ citizenship behavior has detriments

regarding validity since displaying the latter can be used for

self-serving purposes, that is, for boosting one’s reputation

and seeking benefits that stem from being highly regarded by

others (displaying citizenship behavior as an impression

management strategy). To test the idea more rigorously, we

made employees perform a distribution task where they had to

make trade-off decisions between maximizing pro-self and

pro-company benefits (and with no audience to witness their

self-sacrificing behavior for the good of their company).

We found transformational leadership to predict indi-

viduals’ display of selfless pro-organizational behavior in

the distribution task. This finding supported Hypothesis 1.

More precisely, participants who reported higher levels of

transformational leadership approximately 8 weeks before

performing the distribution task turned out to be more

willing to sacrifice the chance to win money for themselves

for increasing their company’s chance of winning a free

business campaign. This relation proved to be substantial

albeit controlling for participants’ pro-social orientation (as

represented by their honesty/humility scores) and can

therefore be explained in terms of participants’ elevated

level of genuine organizational concern—remember that

discretionary pro-organizational behavior has been con-

sidered to be driven by three different motives: impression

management (neutralized in the context of the distribution

task), pro-social values (statistically controlled for), and

finally: organizational concern (Halbesleben et al. 2010).

In accordance with this conclusion and supporting

Hypothesis 2, we found employees’ OI to function as a

mediator between transformational leadership and dis-

played as well as self-reported SPB (controlling for par-

ticipants’ honesty/humility and age 5 ). So, facilitating and

enhancing employees’ identification with their organiza-

tion and changing their self-perception from an individual

‘‘I’’ to a collective ‘‘We’’ (Bass 1998) proved to be an

important mechanism in making employees transcend their

self-interest and engage in genuine (i.e., organizationally

concerned) pro-organizational behavior. These results (as

well as our findings regarding OCB-O as an outcome

variable, see footnote 3) substantiate the initial idea of

transformational leadership: transforming followers’ values

and goals to be in line with group or organizational values

and goals.

Table 4 Total, direct, and indirect statistical effects

Mediator: Org. identification Criterion: SPB-task Criterion: SPB-items

B SE t p B SE t p B SE t p

Total effect a

4.61 1.86 2.48 .01 .18 .08 2.22 .03

Direct effects

Age .50 .16 3.23 .00 .00 .01 .07 .94

Honesty/humility 5.31 2.24 2.37 .02 .55 .09 5.88 .00

Transformational leadership .26 .06 4.18 .00 3.36 1.88 1.78 .08 .07 .08 .90 .37

Org. identification 4.94 1.67 2.95 .00 .43 .07 6.16 .00

M SE 95 % CI M SE 95 % CI

Indirect effect (bootstrapping) 1.27 .55 .40, 2.64 .11 .03 .06, .18

Unstandardized regression coefficients; SPB selfless pro-organizational behavior, M average bootstrap estimate; bootstrap sample size = 5,000;

95 % CI confidence interval, bias corrected and accelerated, first (second) value representing lower (upper) limit; N = 321 a

Controlled for age and honesty/humility

Footnote 4 continued

mediation (to the best of our knowledge, this model has not been

tested and reported in leadership literature, yet). Results were as

follows: total statistical effect of TFL on OCB-O: b = .26, p \ .01; direct statistical effect of TFL on OI: b = .25, p \ .01; direct sta- tistical effect of OI on OCB-O: b = .35, p \ .01; direct statistical effect of TFL on OCB-O: b = .17, p \ .05 (always controlling for honesty/humility and age); indirect effect: average bootstrap esti-

mate = .09, 95 % LLCI = .04, 95 % ULCI = .15. These findings

again underscore the relevance of transformational leadership-

induced organizational identification for pro-organizational behavior.

Also, please note that we conducted CFAs to provide initial

evidence for OCB-O and SPB being related but distinct (OCB-O–

SPB-items: r = .37). Our findings indeed demonstrated construct

distinctiveness: OCB-O–SPB-items two-factor model: v2 (34) = 73.10, p \ .001; CFI = .97, TLI = .96; RMSEA = .06; OCB-O– SPB-items one-factor model: v2 (35) = 408.83, p \ .001; CFI = .67, TLI = .58; RMSEA = .18.

5 We presume that age showed to be influential because younger

participants—and that is, participants with a lower income—had been

more attracted (as compared to older participants) by the opportunity

to win an amount of 150 Euros.

138 J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143

123

The afore-mentioned results—the link between trans-

formational leadership and SPB and the mediating role of

OI—emerged for participants’ decision-making behavior in

the distribution task but also for their self-reported will-

ingness to engage in SPB at work. These two outcome

criteria correlated to a moderate degree. Given that the

items captured a person’s willingness and, that is, behav-

ioral intention whereas the distribution task captured dis-

played behavior (see the theory of planned behavior; Ajzen

1991) and further considering differences in operational-

ization—observed behavior versus self-report; situation-

specific versus generalized—this correlation indicates

convergent validity and provides initial evidence that the

specific behavior displayed in the distribution task may

represent behavior generally displayed in everyday orga-

nizational life.

Altogether, this research contributes to the extant liter-

ature on transformational leadership by introducing a

research design that allows for testing one of the core ideas

of transformational leadership theory (getting followers to

transcend their self-interest for company benefits) more

rigorously—that is, on a much higher level of internal

validity—as compared to demonstrating relations between

transformational leadership and self- or supervisor-reported

OCB in field study research. To this end, we sought to

disentangle employees’ self- and company-interest and

thus made study participants perform a distribution task

where trade-off decisions had to be made between maxi-

mizing company vs. personal benefits. On a conceptual

level, we focused on a special form of citizenship behavior

to challenge the idea of making followers transcend their

self-interest for company benefits, namely selfless pro-

organizational behavior which represents an actor’s will-

ingness to accept personal disadvantages albeit being

aware that these disadvantages will not be outweighed in

the future because one’s efforts will either remain unno-

ticed or without appreciation.

Practical Implications

From a practical point of view, our results highlight

transformational leadership’s capacity to make people put

up with personal detriments and costs for the good of their

company. Furthermore, our research showed OI to be an

important mediator in the process. The capacity to inspire

OI and, with it, to foster people’s willingness to transcend

their self-interest for company benefits should be taken into

consideration by human resource development profes-

sionals when setting up leadership training initiatives.

Training initiatives should focus on leadership behavior

that is particularly suited to enhance followers’ identifica-

tion with the organization such as developing and

communicating an attractive and inspiring vision for one’s

work group and company (Van Dick et al. 2007). Fur-

thermore, leaders need to learn that in order to enhance

identification and make followers transcend their self-

interest for the benefit of their work group and company,

they need to engage in self-sacrificing, group-oriented

behavior themselves (Van Dick et al. 2007) and, with it, to

demonstrate dedication and commitment toward their fol-

lowers, their work group, and their organization them-

selves—in other words: they need set good examples and

act as true role models.

In training, our study results can furthermore be used to

challenge negative and often detrimental assumptions

regarding human motivation and behavior that are,

according to Ghoshal (2005), still prevalent in management

education. More precisely, our findings contradict agency

theory’s assumption of individuals being invariably driven

by mere self-interest and willing to shirk, deceive, and

exploit their organizations (Jensen and Meckling 1976; see

also Shapiro 2005). This assumption has been rejected by

stewardship theory, an approach that highlights people’s

genuine willingness to support others, to cooperate, and to

commit themselves to organizational success (Davis et al.

1997). Our findings support this approach. Moreover, they

help to identify the antecedents of stewardship behavior—

namely connecting followers’ sense of identity and self to

the collective identity of the organization through trans-

formational leadership behavior (among other things).

Furthermore, our findings are relevant for leadership

practice in even another respect—an ethical one, more

precisely. Because of its capacity to induce self-sacrificing

behavior, transformational leadership shall be comple-

mented by an ethic of care for employees’ welfare (Simola

et al. 2010). Otherwise, it will run the risk of exploiting

people’s willingness to take on personal costs for company

benefits. This should also be considered by HRD profes-

sionals when creating training programs and, of course, by

managers as well.

Strength and Limitations

There are several strengths to this study that shall be

mentioned. First and foremost, our main outcome variable

was displayed behavior that was carried out while instantly

experiencing a divergence of self- and company-related

interests (as opposed to relying on self-reports on outcome

behavior). In order to strengthen the internal validity of our

research, we further collected data at three different points

in time with an interval of 4 weeks between time 1 and 2 as

well as between time 2 and 3—to reduce single source bias

(Podsakoff et al. 2003), but also in line with the causal

pattern implied in our mediation model—and controlled for

J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143 139

123

participants’ level of honesty/humility. Also, we conducted

CFAs to demonstrate construct distinctiveness. Finally, we

took measures in the decision-making task to keep up a

conscious and engaged decision-making behavior (e.g.,

two redundant ways of recording participants’ decisions).

Besides all this, we also captured self-reports of partici-

pants’ willingness to engage in SPB at work, providing

initial evidence for the generalizability of our findings to

everyday organizational life.

There are limitations to our study as well. Most nota-

bly, we conducted our research using one sample only.

So, generalizability might be an issue in that respect. At

least, our sample was a heterogeneous one with employ-

ees from different companies and sectors of industry.

Nevertheless, replicating our findings with other samples

shall be one goal for further research. Furthermore, one

could argue that social desirability bias is a problem when

measuring pro-social orientation. However, with regard to

honesty/humility and the instrument we used to capture

this variable, observer-reports have been found to be

highly correlated with self-reports (e.g., Lee et al. 2009),

indicating that the problem of social desirability is a

rather minor one.

Conclusion

Transformational leadership has commonly been described

as making followers transcend their self-interest for the sake

of their company. However, this assumption cannot be

tested rigorously by making use of OCB measures in field

study research because, in doing so, three motives remain

intertwined: pro-social values or orientation, organizational

concern, and impression management motive. To investi-

gate the assertion at a higher level of internal validity, we

made employees perform a distribution task where they had

to make trade-off decisions between maximizing self-ben-

efits and company benefits and furthermore controlled for

employees’ pro-social orientation (honesty/humility). Our

findings showed transformational leadership to enhance

people’s willingness to sacrifice their personal gain for the

benefit of their company. Furthermore, our findings showed

OI to be an important mediating mechanism in the process.

Appendix 1: Introduction to the Distribution Task

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for taking part in the third part of

our research study! In addition to collecting class credit

points, you can also win quite a few prizes. More precisely,

we are going to be giving away 3 cash prizes of €150 each and 3 free business campaigns.

You can win the tickets for these raffles in the next

10 min. More details are provided on the next few pages. It

is very important that you read the instructions carefully!

We will make sure you understand by giving you a small

test afterward.

Some Information on the Free Business Campaign

Why business campaigns? Business campaigns have

various objectives. They aim to reach potential customers

(or win them back) and retain existing customers. How-

ever, good campaigns also take the staff into account and

boost their identification and satisfaction with the company

and their own job. Good campaigns create added value—

by the impact they have both externally and internally.

What does this mean for your company? As part of

this study, we are giving away 3 business campaigns. If

your company is amongst the winners, our project team

will develop an appropriate initiative for your company in

close consultation with the corresponding decision makers.

For example, one possible initiative would be the produc-

tion of a radio spot or image film, or an article in a regional

newspaper or the development of an image brochure. The

initiative will be implemented by an experienced marketing

agency from Mülheim an der Ruhr in collaboration with

the Marketing Department of the Ruhr-University Bochum.

As this is financed from research funds, it would be com-

pletely free of charge for your company and definitely

worth doing. From the conceptual stage right through to

successful implementation: ‘‘free expertise’’ for your

company!

How Can You Win?

As part of this study, you can take part in two raffles: one

for free business campaigns and the other for cash prizes of

€ 150. You can win the tickets for both these raffles as follows. You will be presented with various combinations

of Euro tickets and campaign tickets. You select the

combination which you are most interested in.

Example: If you make a selection in accordance with

the illustration on the right, you will not receive any tickets

for the money raffle (Euro tickets)—you will however

receive eight tickets for the raffle for a business campaign

for your company (campaign tickets) instead. By moving

the slider, you alter both the number of tickets and, of

course, your chance of winning a prize in the raffle in

question.

You are asked to make such a decision 6 times alto-

gether and can therefore win between 52 and 84 tickets in

total.

140 J Bus Psychol (2014) 29:131–143

123

Some More Information

1. Nobody will ever find out what choice you have made

or that you have taken part in this study.

2. If your company wins the campaign, neither your

colleagues nor your superior will find out that the free

image campaign is connected with the decisions you

made in this study. If we are specifically asked about

this, we will explicitly deny it.

3. With 6 possible prizes to be given away (39 image

campaigns, 39 cash prizes of € 150 each), every ticket currently has about a .19 % probability of winning

(this figure will be updated daily depending on the

number of participants).

4. You can find out if you have won a prize in one of the

raffles from 16 May using your anonymised code

(information will be sent by e-mail at this time).

Before You Can Start with Your First Choice, You Will

Have to Answer the Following Questions Correctly

(Answer True or False):

1. It is possible to win tickets for both the money raffle

and the campaign raffle. (? true) 2. Altogether 69 cash prizes of € 150 each can be won.

(? false) 3. You will be able to win a total of between 52 and 84

tickets in the following 6 decisions. (? true) 4. If your company wins the campaign, the people in your

company will know that this was a result of your

participation in this study. (? false)

Questions to Measure PVBC (Perceived Value of a Free

Business Campaign for Ones Company)

In relation to your company: How helpful do you think

such a free business campaign would be…

… to gain new customers? … to retain existing customers? … to motivate and integrate staff? … to acquire new staff? … for the company as a whole?

Appendix 2

See Table 5.

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