An Empirical Research On The Influence Of Transformational Leadership On Work Calling

With the development of globalization and technological innovation,employees' attitudes,ways and behaviors towards work have changed greatly.Traditional incentives are not enough to stimulate employees' enthusiasm for work.The spiritual pursuit of self-worth and realization of internal significance can better drive employees to produce positive results.Work calling,an emerging concept,is considered to have the driving force and has attracted wide attention of scholars.At present,there is no clear understanding about how to stimulate individual work calling.Leadership is one of the important influencing factors of individual working attitude and behavior.In particular,transformational leadership can construct and transmit clear and inspiring goals and vision to employees,and promote employees to have a strong sense of meaning and mission.Based on this,under the guidance of the theory of work meaning,this study deeply discusses the relationship between transformational leadership and work calling,and puts forward six hypotheses.a.transformational leadership is positively related to work calling,b.transformational leadership is positively related to work meaning,c.work meaning is positively related to work calling,d.work meaning plays a mediating role in the relationship between transformational leadership and work calling,e.perceived organizational ethical value plays a moderating role in the relationship between work meaning and work calling,f.perceived organizational ethical value moderates the indirect effect of transformational leadership on work calling through work meaning.In this study,the research hypotheses were tested by using questionnaire survey and experimental research.The first study selected 738 employees from 77 working teams of a large state-owned bank to conduct a questionnaire survey.We use Mplus 7.4 for cross-level analysis to examine the influence of team-oriented transformational leadership on work calling,the mediating role of work meaning and the moderating role of perceived organizational ethical value.The results show that: team-oriented transformational leadership had significant impact on work calling and work meaning;work meaning was positively related to work calling;work meaning partially mediated the positive relationship between transformational leadership and work calling;perceived organizational ethical value not only positively moderated the direct relationship between work meaning and calling,but also moderated the indirect effect of team-oriented transformational leadership on work calling via work meaning.In order to adress the limitations of the survey,the second study used 524 undergraduates as subjects to manipulate transformational leadership by experimental research method,in order to clarify the direct causal relationship between transformational leadership and work calling.The result shows that there is a causal relationship between transformational leadership and work calling.Overall,based on the theory of work meaning,this study verifies the mechanism of transformational leadership on work calling.Through the empirical results and theoretical results obtained in this study,on the one hand,it can enrich,expand and deepen the relevant theoretical research of calling.On the other hand,it can also provide scientific theoretical guidance and experience for managers of enterprises to implement management practice and training related to employees' work meaning and work calling.