Transformational Leadership and Organizational Innovation: The Roles of Internal and External Support for Innovation*

Leadership has been suggested to be an important factor affecting innovation. A number of studies have shown that transformational leadership positively influences organizational innovation. However, there is a lack of studies examining the contextual conditions under which this effect occurs or is augmented. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on organizational innovation and to determine whether internal and external support for innovation as contextual conditions influence this effect. Organizational innovation was conceptualized as the tendency of the organization to develop new or improved products or services and its success in bringing those products or services to the market. Transformational leadership was hypothesized to have a positive influence on organizational innovation. Furthermore, this effect was proposed to be moderated by internal support for innovation, which refers to an innovation supporting climate and adequate resources allocated to innovation. Support received from external organizations for the purposes of knowledge and resource acquisition was also proposed to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. To test these hypotheses, data were collected from 163 research and development (R&D) employees and managers of 43 micro‐ and small‐sized Turkish entrepreneurial software development companies. Two separate questionnaires were used to collect the data. Employees' questionnaires included measures of transformational leadership and internal support for innovation, whereas managers' questionnaires included questions about product innovations of their companies and the degree of support they received from external institutions. Organizational innovation was measured with a market‐oriented criterion developed specifically for developing countries and newly developing industries. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized effects. The results of the analysis provided support for the positive influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation. This finding is significant because this positive effect was identified in micro‐ and small‐sized companies, whereas previous research focused mainly on large companies. In addition, external support for innovation was found to significantly moderate this effect. Specifically, the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation was stronger when external support was at high levels than when there was no external support. This study is the first to investigate and empirically show the importance of this contextual condition for organizational innovation. The moderating effect of internal support for innovation, however, was not significant. This study shows that transformational leadership is an important determinant of organizational innovation and encourages managers to engage in transformational leadership behaviors to promote organizational innovation. In line with this, transformational leadership, which is heavily suggested to be a subject of management training and development in developed countries, should also be incorporated into such programs in developing countries. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of external support in the organizational innovation process. The results suggest that technical and financial support received from outside the organization can be a more important contextual influence in boosting up innovation than an innovation‐supporting internal climate. Therefore, managers, particularly of micro‐ and small‐sized companies, should play external roles such as boundary spanning and should build relationships with external institutions that provide technical and financial support. The findings of this study are especially important for managers of companies that plan to or currently operate in countries with developing economies.     

Security in a sea of insecurity: job security and intention to stay among service sector employees in Turkey

This article examines the association between job security and intention to stay for those who are employed in Turkey. There is a high level of unemployment in the country and many workers there are concerned about their job security. Job security refers to the objective dimensions of continuous contract, working full-time hours and paid and unpaid overtime. Job security also refers to the subjective dimension of perceived job security. We surveyed 407 employees in banking and related sectors' call centres, five-star hotel front-line staff and airline cabin crews. Results show that objective dimensions of job security are not associated with intention to stay. However, perceived job security is significantly and positively associated with intention to stay. We recommend that human resource managers focus on the perceived job security aspect of employment to keep valuable employees with the company.     

Protectionist demands in globalization

Review of Economic Design - We construct a game theoretic model that offers to explain the increase in trade protectionism as a rational reaction of the voters to their increased concern that the...     

The high volume return premium: Cross-country evidence

We examine the high volume return premium across 41 different countries and find it to be a phenomenon found in both developed and emerging markets. The premium is not caused by systematic differences in risk or liquidity. Using Merton's (1987) investor recognition hypothesis as a guide, we find the magnitude of the premium is generally associated with country and firm characteristics hypothesized to affect returns subsequent to a change in a stock's visibility. We also characterize the time-series properties of the premium and consider economic trading strategies.     

Impression management tactics in the CEO statements of Turkish sustainability reports

In this study, we construct a classificatory scheme of impression management tactics and apply it to a sample of sustainability report and annual report CEO statements issued by large Turkish companies. We find a wide range of impression management tactics applied in both types of CEO statements. However, impression management in sustainability report CEO statements emerges as more limited and uniform, revealing clearer prioritizations of impression management tactics when compared to annual report CEO statements. Sustainability report CEO statements emphasize tactics that allow the company to highlight carefully selected, isolated aspects of their sustainability engagement. At the same time, they rarely employ tactics that are geared towards more systematic (quantitative) performance evaluation. We attribute these differences to the way in which corporate sustainability performance is commonly conceptualized and evaluated, emphasising qualitative performance dimensions rather than the reporting of quantitative performance metrics. This results in the application of a different impression management tactics mix and limits the usefulness of sustainability reports as an accountability mechanism when compared to corporate annual reports. In addition, we provide tentative evidence for the context-specific nature of impression management, with the choice of impression management tactics reflecting the institutional environment a company is based in.     

Instagram and body image: Motivation to conform to the “Instabod” and consequences on young male wellbeing

The current paper explores how male Instagram users' (MIU) perceptions of body image and behavior are affected by the exposure to fitness hashtags, and the consequences on their wellbeing. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with #fitfam MIU with different levels of engagement. Low-engagement MIU with low body-esteem long for the “instabod” and engage in body transformation efforts to follow the fitness trend popularized by Instagram, to emulate peers and Instagram celebrities, to gain popularity and to appear successful. Instagram community members use positive and negative reinforcements to strengthen body internalization. The body transformation effort motivates low-engagement MIU to engage more, which has various effects on wellbeing: on one side, they feel anxious and in competition with other peers which often leads to muscle dysmorphia symptoms; on the other side, they feel more masculine with higher self-confidence, they have higher motivation to stay fit and to eat healthily.     

Transformational leadership, creativity, and organizational innovation

This study proposes a model of the impact of transformational leadership both on followers' creativity at the individual level and on innovation at the organizational level. The model is tested on 163 R&D personnel and managers at 43 micro- and small-sized Turkish software development companies. The results suggest that transformational leadership has important effects on creativity at both the individual and organizational levels. At the individual level, the results of hierarchical linear modeling show that there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and employees' creativity. In addition, transformational leadership influences employees' creativity through psychological empowerment. At the organizational level, the results of regression analysis reveal that transformational leadership positively associates with organizational innovation, which is measured with a market-oriented criterion developed specifically for developing countries and newly developing industries. The implications of the findings along with some potential practical applications are discussed.     

Do foreigners facilitate information transmission in emerging markets?

Using the degree of accessibility of foreign investors to emerging stock markets, or investibility, as a proxy for the extent of foreign investments, we assess whether investibility has a significant influence on the diffusion of global market information across stocks in emerging markets. We show that greater investibility reduces price delay to global market information. We also find that returns of highly investible stocks lead those of noninvestible stocks because they incorporate global information more quickly. These results are consistent with the idea that financial liberalization in the form of greater investibility yields informationally more efficient stock prices in emerging markets.     

Strategic management perspectives on supply chain

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, supply chain management (SCM) practices have gained an increasingly strategic character. The focus has shifted from an operational perspective to a strategic one, and SCM is repeatedly cited in the literature as a strategic management tool with a profound effect on the survival of the organizations. SCM domain is well-supported to be closely linked with a number of strategic management views and theories. This study investigates the main strategic management views and theories relevant to SCM and their interactions. It reveals how they complementarily explain supply chain management characteristics of being customer-driven, process-oriented, global, strategically coupled, complex, dynamic, adaptive, multi-agent, IT-intensive, value creating, collaborative and networked. Based on a comprehensive literature taxonomy, a mapping of the main supply chain characteristics to these management views and theories is provided. A conceptual clustering of different management perspectives is developed, and their interactions are analyzed.