| Abstract [eng] |
This thesis examines how transformational and transactional leadership styles affect employee involvement. It also explores how job satisfaction mediates this relationship and how gender and age can influence the effects. The study shows that employee involvement matters for organizational success, since engaged employees are more productive, stay longer, and help organizations perform better. The research begins by analyzing transformational and transactional leadership. Transformational leaders inspire, motivate, and help employees grow. They encourage people to go beyond expectations and support the organization’s goals. Transactional leaders focus instead on supervision, rewards, punishments, and clear rules for tasks. Transactional leadership can improve efficiency and short-term results, while transformational leadership is considered better suited to long-term motivation and engagement. The thesis also explains what employee involvement and job satisfaction mean. Employee involvement refers to the degree to which employees feel, think, and act committed to their organization. Job satisfaction is the positive feeling people experience from their work. The study draws on motivational theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's two-factor theory to show how organizations can foster motivation and satisfaction. The literature review found that most prior studies examined transformational and transactional leadership separately rather than together in studies of employee involvement. This study addresses that gap by comparing the two styles at the same time and examining job satisfaction as a factor linking leadership and involvement. A quantitative method was used. Data were collected from 300 employees working in sectors such as manufacturing, services, trading, finance, and education. Convenience sampling and online surveys were used to gather the responses. Statistical analysis was carried out in SPSS, including descriptive statistics, regression, moderation, and mediation analyses. The results showed that transformational leadership strongly improves employee involvement and job satisfaction. Transactional leadership also has a positive effect, but a less pronounced one. The study found that gender and age change how leadership styles affect involvement, meaning that different groups respond differently. Job satisfaction partly explains how leadership leads to more involvement, which means leadership works in part by making employees more satisfied. The findings suggest that effective leadership is important to improving employee involvement and organizational performance. It suggests that organizations should use transformational leadership to boost motivation, satisfaction, participation, and growth. This thesis contributes to leadership research by comparing transformational and transactional leadership styles and examining their effects on employee involvement. |
