The Mediating Effect of Team Empowerment on the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Organizational Performance a Case Study in Tehran-Based R&D Centers in the Oil Industry

Abstract

Transformational leadership has always played an important role in promoting the performance of knowledge-based organizations. On the other hand, the notion of team empowerment introduced in this study as the combination of team work and team efficiency is expected to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance. Accordingly, this paper attempts to investigate the mediating effects of team empowerment in explaining the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance in the context of target organizations. To test the hypotheses of the study, a questionnaire was distributed among employees of the sample. The findings were based upon the outputs of path analysis method using LISREL Software of 8.8 ver. with good fitness. The results indicate that there is no direct relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance in target organizations. However, taking the mediating effect of team empowerment into consideration, such relationship turned to be positive and significant. This means that transformational leadership can leave a positive and meaningful impact on the performance of target organizations through team empowerment.

Keywords

• transformational leadership
• team empowerment
• organizational performance