Studies which have built upon previous hospitality-leadership are described in
Sections A and B while the more ad hoc studies are described in Section C. This
analysis shows that there is some consistency of outcomes within sections A and
B respectively, however, across all ten TL studies there is considerable
dissimilarities in measured outcomes.
One area of consistency relates to employee satisfaction, which is measured in
Tracey and Hinkin’s three articles listed in Section A of Table 3 - 7 and also by
Whitelaw and Morda (2004) and Erkutlu (2008). With the exception of Erkutlu,
the studies are measuring ‘employee satisfaction with their leader’ which is a
hypothesised outcome of transformational leadership according to Bass and
Avolio’s Full-Range Leadership Model. Erkutlu, on the other hand, measures both
employee satisfaction with their supervisor and satisfaction with their job, the
latter using a measure based on Smith et al.’s (1969) Job Description Index (JDI).
All of these studies find that transformational leadership enhances employee
satisfaction with their leader. Tracey and Hinkin’s studies measure TL as a single
factor while both Erkutlu and Whitelaw and Morda measure the component parts
of TL. Erkutlu find very small (all ≤0.05) effects of TL on job and leader
satisfaction and Whitelaw and Morda find that the IIA (Idealised Influence
Attributed) and IC (Individualised Consideration) are the specific dimensions of TL
that effect greater levels of leaders satisfaction.
The focus on employee satisfaction in these TL studies reflects the attention paid
to job satisfaction as a positive employee attitudinal outcome in both the broader
and hospitality-focused organisational studies. Employee job satisfaction is
included in this research as an outcome of motivational leadership and a more
detailed discussion of job satisfaction is provided in Section 5.3 below.
To shed further light on the development and current use of transformational
leadership theory in hospitality studies, an analysis of the rationales for employing
transformational leadership theory in the identified hospitality studies has been
undertaken. The results of this analysis (see Table 3 - 8 ) suggest that the diversity
of findings owes much to the diversity of reasons for using transformational
leadership.