Self-efficacy as a resource: a moderated mediation model of transformational leadership, extent of change and reactions to change

Drawing from conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study empirically tests the impact of transformational leadership on commitment to and intention to support organizational change, proposing self-efficacy as a mediating mechanism. This study also aims to study whether the extent of change in the organization moderates the proposed relationship between transformational leadership, self-efficacy and change reactions.

A survey was conducted with a sample of 298 employees going through a major organizational change. The proposed moderated mediation relationship was tested by using PROCESS macro.

The findings showed that self-efficacy mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and reactions to change. Moreover, the extent of changes experienced by the employees moderated the relationship between self-efficacy and outcome variables. In other words, in high change contexts, self-efficacy appeared as a more salient and instrumental resource leading to positive reactions.

The results guide change managers to display a transformational leadership style to enhance self-efficacy of change recipients to generate positive attitudes and behaviors during change. Also, this study shows that self-efficacy particularly gains importance when the extent of change is high.

This study makes several important contributions to the organizational change literature. First, it shows that leaders play a crucial role in generating resources that enhance employees' positive reactions to change. Second, the conditional factor of the extent of change has not received much attention in the literature. This study raises attention to the fact that the importance of such resources may differ across low versus high extent of change contexts.