Ekeland, Terry Paul (2005-12). The relationships among affective organizational commitment, transformational leadership style, and unit organizational effectiveness within the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University. Doctoral Dissertation.
Thesis
Organizational commitment and transformational leadership have been found to correlate positively with each other and with organizational effectiveness. However, much of the commitment research has been based on traditional organizations with employment relationships, raising questions as to whether the research can be generalized to voluntary organizations. Research on transformational leadership has occurred across a broad spectrum of organizations and causal links to objective measures of performance have been hypothesized. The purpose of this research was to extend the existing commitment, leadership, and organizational effectiveness research into the context of a voluntary organization, and contribute new knowledge and understanding of these relationships. The nature of a specific voluntary organization, the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University, was examined in terms of the relationships among affective commitment to the organization, transformational leadership style, and ultimately organizational effectiveness. A hypothesized causal model was proposed to explain the relationships among these three variables. The Affective Commitment Scale and Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire were found to be valid and reliable in the voluntary organization examined. Consistent with prior research, a significant positive correlation was found between affective commitment and transformational leadership. However, extending this relationship to organizational effectiveness through the hypothesized causal model was not supported.
