Inspiration of employees through organizational vision: effects of leadership, communication, and reward systems

Abstract

This study tested a model of contextual social system factors within organizations that are hypothesized to influence inspiration of employees from their organization's vision. The model was derived from the open system theory of organizations (Katz & Kahn, 1978) and from convergent predictions made by modem leadership theories (e.g., transformational leadership; Bass 1998). The following factors were predicted to effect vision inspiration: charismatic-visionary leadership at the executive level; trust in executive leadership; charismatic-visionary leadership at the departmental level; trust in departmental leadership; intensity of communication of the vision message; and collective or organization-level reward systems. The model was examined using a survey of 70 employees (faculty and staff) of a fine arts college located in a major city in the southeastern United States. Principal component factor analysis (PCA) was used to examine the factorial structure of the survey instrument, and predictive hypotheses were tested using multiple linear regression. Overall, results of the PCA did not support the distinction between charismatic-visionary leadership and trust in leaders at either the executive or departmental level; thus, these variables were collapsed at each of these levels into a broader leadership construct, called simply charismatic leadership. The remaining items clustered together generally as intended, yielding four internally consistent predictor scales and a homogenous vision inspiration criterion. Collectively, measures of charismatic leadership of executives, charismatic leadership of department leaders, intensity of vision communication, and collective rewards systems explained significant variance in employees' vision inspiration, R2 = .25, F (4,64) = 5.34, p < .001. Thus, the general thesis that contextual organizational factors are important determinants of within-organization variation in vision inspiration was supported. In addition, bivariate correlations supported the specific hypothesized relationships between predictors and the criterion; however, none of the four predictors met conventional standards for statistical significance in the context of the overall regression model. These results were likely due to the small sample and low statistical power. Only the standardized regression weights for charismatic leadership of executives (β = .23, p = .066) and departmental leaders (β = .21, p = .093) approached significance. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.