Evaluating Substitutes for Transformational Leadership: A Configurational Perspective

Transformational leadership is associated with a number of positive employee attitudes and behaviors. Likewise, scholars have demonstrated how employees are also influenced by task and motivational factors such as job design, challenging goals, quality leader-follower relationships (LMX), and transactional leadership behavior. While research has helped identify how task and motivational factors complement transformational leadership, scholars have yet to specify how they may operate in the absence of a transformational leader. To address this we investigate whether high levels of employee commitment, trust, and employee performance can be achieved in the absence of a transformational leader through various ‘bundles’ of enriched jobs, challenging goals, high quality leader-follower relationships (LMX) and transactional leadership behaviors. We also explore the causal asymmetry of these outcomes by identifying the various combinations of these factors that lead to low levels of performance, citizenship behavior, affective commitment, and trust. Using Fuzzy Set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA), our results demonstrate the equifinality of various leadership, task, and organizational characteristic combinations, and identify a number of future research opportunities.