| Abstract [eng] |
The aim of this master’s thesis is to evaluate the influence of transformational and empowering leadership styles on employee response to change, while trust in leadership is mediating and perceived organisational support is moderating this relationship. This master’s thesis consists of four main parts: scientific literature review of relevant constructs, research methodology, the research and discussion of its results, and conclusions with recommendations. Scientific literature analysis is done to review the main transformational leadership (TL) and empowering leadership (EL) principles and characteristics, and their relevance in the business. The literature review also identified different employee responses to change (ERC), provides more insights about trust in leadership (TiL), and explains the common elements of perceived organisational support (POS). Following the scientific literature analysis, the author of this thesis carried out research into the relationships between TL, EL, ERC, TiL and POS. A quantitative study was conducted, and a total of 311 participants submitted the data via an online questionnaire. After the initial review, 281 responses were confirmed to meet acceptance criteria. The results were analysed using IBM SPSS software with PROCESS macro plug-in. The performed research revealed that when transformational and empowering leadership are one model and share the variance, transformational leadership does not have a significant impact on employee response to change, while empowering leadership does. Both leadership styles have a significant, positive, moderate impact on trust in leadership; also, the results reveal that a significant part of the impact of transformational leadership goes via trust. The mediation of trust in leadership in the relationship between leadership styles and employee response to change is supported as well. The conducted moderation and moderation mediation analyses revealed that perceived organisational support does not have any moderating impact on this relationship, neither directly, not indirectly, however, the direct effect of perceived organisational support on employee response to change is supported. The conclusions and recommendations section summarises the main findings of scientific literature analysis and the results from the conducted research. The author of this thesis shares some suggestions for future research and believes that, despite some limitations, this research gives valuable insights into how leadership styles and surrounding organisational elements can influence organisational change management in general. |
