Page 1 of 22

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/index.php/JSMaP

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 01 Issue 10

November 2015

Available online: http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/ P a g e | 154

“The Effect of Employee Engagement Drivers on the Organizational

Change Management Process and the Mediating Role of

Transformational Leadership”

Muhammad Anwer*1, Dr.Hong SHEN1, Zaheer Abbas2, Farhan Azmat Mir3

1

*PhD Scholar, School of Education - Higher Education Huazhong University of Science and

Technology N.1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, P.B.430074, P.R. CHINA

1Professor Higher Education-Comparative Education School of Education - Higher Education

Huazhong University of Science and Technology N.1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, P.B.430074,

P.R. CHINA

2Research scholar, Zaheer Abbas, Institute of Management Sciences Bahauddin Zakariya

University, Multan, Pakistan

3Assistant Professor, Farhan Azmat Mir, Institute of Management Sciences Bahauddin Zakariya

University, Multan, Pakistan

Email: manweripe2015@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to model the dynamic

relationship between employee engagement

drivers and organizational change management

process and also evaluate the role of

transformational leadership as a mediating

variable. We assume that there is a positive

relationship between employee engagement

drivers and the change management process and

the transformational leadership will strengthens

this relationship. Survey data was collected from

respondents employed at the banking and textile

sectors of Pakistan through self-administered

questionnaire. 280 questionnaires were

distributed among the employees working in

different cities of Pakistan and 170 participants

returned back the feedback. Results indicated

that Employee Engagement Drivers have a

significant relationship on OCB with

particularly “Environment and Culture and

Role of Communication” having a positive and

significant impact. Transformational Leadership

has shown a slight positive effect on the

relationship between employee engagement and

organization change process. A variation was

also observed in responses from different

management levels. The study is cross-sectional

and uses self-reported data. Other moderating

factors could exist such as LMX (Leader

Member Exchange) and most of the conceptual

underpinnings for this study came from research

carried out in textile and banking sectors and

more work could be done in public sector of

Pakistan Managers in Pakistani industries

should carefully design employee engagement

practices to enable purposeful organizational

change. More over as people resist change due

to different factors, transformational leadership

inspires people to move towards the change by

clarifying the benefits. Thus, organizations that

wish to improve employee engagement should

focus on employee’s perceptions about support

they receive from their organizations and

leaders. A rare study in Pakistan using multiple

dimensions and could provide useful insights

from the selective industries. Hopefully the

research will generate important vision in the

context of management and leadership

implications.

Keywords: Employee Engagement Drivers,

Transformational Leadership, Organizational Change

Management Process, Regression Analysis.

Page 3 of 22

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/index.php/JSMaP

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 01 Issue 10

November 2015

Available online: http://internationaljournalofresearch.org/ P a g e | 156

engagement is positively associated with

customer satisfaction, customer loyalty,

productivity, and profitability, and negatively

associated with employee turnover.

Transformational leadership behaviors include

articulating and presenting a clear vision,

displaying charisma, motivating employees

through inspiration and intellectual stimulation

derived from exposing them to new and complex

ways of thinking, and being considerate of their

individual needs and desires (Podsakoff et al.

1990). Transformational leadership may also

reduce stress experienced by individuals through

its impact on mentoring functions (Sosik &

Godshalk, 2000). Transformational leadership

style places great importance on organizational

change management processes, such as

empowering followers and helping them become

autonomous and competent individuals who

reach self-actualization and high levels of

morality; it regards these processes as critical for

distinguishing transformational leadership from

other forms of leadership (Burns, 1978). Indeed,

these change processes were described as being

‘‘at the heart of transformational leadership

theory’’ (Bass, 1997). Pertinent to the

developmental processes between leaders and

followers, Shamir et al. (1993) suggested a self- concept motivational theory to explain the

process by which charismatic leader behaviors

cause transformational effects on followers.

They argued that charismatic leaders motivate

followers by implicating the followers’ self- concepts, for example, by increasing the

intrinsic valence of effort and goal

accomplishment, and by creating personal

commitment.

Research indicates that numerous variables have

an impact on a leader’s effectiveness. This study

explores the behaviors associated with

leadership effectiveness in driving change

management process. The findings confirm

previous research that identifies change

effectiveness skills, while isolating the specific

leader behaviors deemed most valuable to

implementing change motivation and

communication.

2:- Hypothesis and Conceptual frame work.

2.1 Employee engagement drivers

Employee engagement Drivers are critical for

business success in today’s competitive marketplace

because Employee Engagement is not affected by

signal factor many factor included in this term as

Job/individual characteristics, Management Support,

Reward and Recognition, Environment/Culture and

Communication. These factors have impact on the

employee engagement. Research shows that when the

surrounding are right, when the leader are

inspirational, when the individual find their support

from management and the absolute place in which to

relate their strengths.(Pauken 2008) enhancing

engagement in a long term. Although there is little

empirical research on the factors that predict

employee engagement, it is possible to identify a

number of potential antecedents from Kahn’s (1990)

and Maslach et al.’s (2001) model. While the

antecedents might differ for job and organization

engagement, identical hypotheses are made for both

types of engagement given the lack of previous

research and this being the first study to examine

both job and organization engagement.

2.1.1 Job Characteristics (JC)

Sense of return on investments is involved in

psychological meaningfulness of the self-in-role

performances (Kahn, 1992). According to Kahn

(1990,1992), psychological meaningfulness can be

accomplished from challenging work provided

through task characteristics, personal direction,

variety, allow the use of different skills, and the

opportunity to make essential contributions. This is

based on Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) job

characteristics model and in particular, the five core

job characteristics (i.e. skill variety, task identity, task

significance, autonomy, and feedback). The thing that

brings people to be more willing and engage in work

is to be high in core job characteristics that provide

more intrinsic and extrinsic incentives to individual

(Kahn, 1992). May et al. (2004) found that “job

enrichment was positively related to meaningfulness

and meaningfulness mediated the relationship

between job enrichment and engagement” The

control and workload conditions from the Maslach et

al. (2001) model also put forward the significance of

job characteristics for engagement. In fact job

characteristics, specifically autonomy and feedback,

have been constantly related to stress (Maslach et al.,

2001). From a SET perspective, one can argue that

with challenging and enriched jobs provided to

employee will feel gratified to react with advanced

levels of engagement. Vigor means the level of the

mental resilience and energy while at work,