Empirical Examination of Transformational Leadership Effects on Service Quality: The Application of Moderated Path Analysis
Author
Abstract
Leadership has long been one of the important academic phenomena in organizational behavior research. Among the leadership research, one focal attention has given to transformational leadership and its effectiveness. However, there are still limited understanding on transformational leadership in the settings of service industries. The issues addressed by the present study intend to enhance understandings of leadership in the service context. Based on perspectives of social exchange theory, we proposed and tested the following research hypotheses: the direct effect of transformational leadership on customers' perception of service quality, the mediating role of perception of supervisor support in the foresaid relationship, the moderating role of supervisor's humor in the relationship between transformational leadership and perception of supervisor's support, and the mediated-moderation of humor on the relationships among transformational leadership, perception of supervisor support, and service quality. Dyadic sampling from 251 service employees and 1072 customers, we tested the hypotheses by using hierarchical regression and Edwards and Lambert's (2007) moderated path analysis. The results indicated all the research hypotheses were supported. Base on the research findings, academic and practical suggestions and implications were offered.
Key Words
Transformational Leadership, Service Quality, Perception of Supervisor Support, Humor, Moderated Path Analysis
