Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-vqtzn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-19T03:54:08.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A theoretical model of transformational leadership and knowledge creation: The role of open-mindedness norms and leader–member exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Herman HM Tse  and
Rebecca J Mitchell
Herman HM Tse
Affiliation:
Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane QLD, Australia
Rebecca J Mitchell
Affiliation:
School of Business and Management, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan NSW, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Considerable research attention has been devoted to understanding the importance of knowledge creation in organisations over the last decade. Research suggests that leadership plays an important role in knowledge-creation processes. Nonetheless, there is an important omission in knowledge creation research; namely, what are the underlying processes that underpin the implications of leadership for knowledge creation? This article aims to develop a theoretical model of leadership and knowledge creation by drawing on two contrasting leadership perspectives; that is transformational leadership and leader–member exchange (LMX), and the research on open-mindedness norms. Specifically, we argue why transformational leadership is related to knowledge creation, and also theorise how open-mindedness norms and LMX quality serve as underlying mechanisms to underpin the effect of transformational leadership on knowledge creation. We conclude with a discussion of implications of the model for theory and practice, and also suggest potential avenues for future research.

Keywords

transformational leadershipleader–member exchange (LMX)open-mindedness normsknowledge creationteams

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 83 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Amabile, T M (1988) A model of creativity and innovation in organisations, in Staw, B.M, Cummings, L.L. (Eds), Research in organisational behaviour, pp. 123–167, Greenwich CT: JAI Press,Google Scholar
Avolio, B J (1999) Full leadership development: Building the vital forces in organizations. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Bass, B M (1985) Leadership and performance beyond expectations, New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Bass, B M (1998) Transformational leadership: Industrial, military and educational impact. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bass, B M and Avolio, B J (1994) Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Basu, R and Green, S G (1997) Leader-member exchange and transformational leadership: An empirical examination of innovative behaviors in leader-member dyads, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 27: 477–499.Google Scholar
Baron, R M and Kenny, D A (1986) The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51: 1173–1182.Google Scholar
Bauer, T N and Green, S G (1996) Development of leader-member exchange: A longitudinal test, Academy of Management Journal 39: 1538–1567.Google Scholar
Bauer, T N, Erdogan, B, Liden, R C and Wayne, S J (2006) A longitudinal study of the moderating role of extraversion: Leader-member exchange, performance and turnover during new executive development, Journal of Applied Psychology 91: 298–310.Google Scholar
Berson, Y, Nemanich, L, Waldman, D, Galvin, B and Keller, R T (2006) Leadership and organizational learning: A multiple levels perspective, The Leadership Quarterly 17: 577–594.Google Scholar
Bhatt, G D (2000) Information dynamics, learning and knowledge creation in organizations, The Learning Organization 7: 89–99.Google Scholar
Blau, P M (1964) Exchange and power in social life. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Bono, J E and Judge, T A (2003) Self-Concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders, Academy of Management Journal 46: 554–571.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P (1986) The forms of capital, in Richardson, J G (Eds), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, pp. 241–258, New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Brown, J and Duguid, P (2001) Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective, Organization Science 12: 198–213.Google Scholar
Bryant, S E (2003) The role of transformational and transactional leadership in creating, sharing and exploiting organizational knowledge, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 9: 32–44.Google Scholar
Burt, R S (2001) Structural holes versus network closure as social capital in Lin, N, Cook, K and Burt, R (Eds), Social capital: Theory and research, pp. 31–56, New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Burt, R S (2003) The social origin of good ideas. Unpublished manuscript. Available at http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/ronald.burt/research/.Google Scholar
Chen, G and Tjosvold, D (2002) Cooperative goals and constructive controversy for promoting innovation in student groups in China, Journal of Education for Business 78: 46–50.Google Scholar
Coff, R (2003) The emergent knowledge-based theory of competitive advantage: An evolutionary approach to integrating economics and management, Managerial and Decision Economics 24: 245–251.Google Scholar
Cole, M S, Schaninger, W S and Harris, S G (2002) The workplace social exchange network, Group and Organization Management 27: 142–167.Google Scholar
Dansereau, F, Graen, G B and Haga, W J (1975) A vertical dyad linkage approach to leadership within formal organizations, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 13: 46–78.Google Scholar
DeDreu, C and West, M (2001) Minority dissent and team innovation: The importance of participation in decision-making, Journal of Applied Psychology 86: 1191–1201.Google Scholar
Deluga, R J (1992) The relationship of leader-member exchanges with laissez-faire, transactional and transformational leadership in Clark, K E, Clark, M B and Campbell, D B (Eds), Impact of leadership pp. 237–247, Greensboro NC: Centre for Creative Leadership,Google Scholar
Dougherty, D (1992) Interpretive barriers to successful product innovation in large firms, Organization Science 3: 179–202.Google Scholar
Eisenhardt, K M, Kahwajy, J L and Bourgeois, L J (1997) Conflict and strategic choice: How top management teams disagree, California Management Review 39: 42–61.Google Scholar
Fong, P (2003) Knowledge creation in multidiscip-linary project teams: an empirical study of the processes and their dynamic interrelationships, International Journal of Project Management 21: 479–486.Google Scholar
Fornell, C and Larcker, D F (1981) Evaluating structural equations models with unobservable variables and measurement error, Journal of Marketing Research 18: 39–50.Google Scholar
Gerstner, C R and Day, D V (1997) Meta-analytic review of leader-member exchange theory: Correlates and construct issues, Journal of Applied Psychology 82: 827–844.Google Scholar
Graen, G B (2006) To share or not share leadership: New LMX-MMX network leadership or charismatic leadership on creative projects, in Graen, G B and Graen, J A (Eds), Sharing network leadership, pp. 25–36. Charlotte NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
Graen, G B (1976) Role-making process within complex organizations, in Dunnette, M D (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, pp. 1201–1245. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Graen, G B and Uhl-Bien, M (1995) Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective, The Leadership Quarterly 6: 219–247.Google Scholar
Howell, J M and Hall-Merenda, K E (1999) The ties that bind: The impact of leader-member exchange, transformational and transactional leadership and distance on predicting follower performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84: 680–694.Google Scholar
Johnson, W H A (2002) Assessing organizational knowledge creation theory in collaborative R and D projects, International Journal of Innovation Management 6: 387–418.Google Scholar
Jung, D (2001) Transformational and transactional leadership and their effects on creativity in groups, Creativity Research Journal 13: 185–195.Google Scholar
Jung, D and Avolio, B (2000) Opening the black box: An experimental investigation of the mediating effects of trust and value congruence on transformational and transactional leadership, Journal of Organizational Behaviour 21: 949–964.Google Scholar
Jung, D I, Chow, C and Wu, A (2003) The role of transformational leadership in enhancing organizational innovation: Hypotheses and some preliminary findings, The Leadership Quarterly 14: 525–544.Google Scholar
Kark, R, Shamir, B and Chen, G (2003) The two faces of transformational leadership: Empowerment and dependency, Journal of Applied Psych-ology 2: 246–55.Google Scholar
Katz, D and Kahn, R L (1978) The social psychology of organizations. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Lado, A and Zhang, M J (1998) Expert systems, knowledge development and utilization and sustained competitive advantage, Journal of Management 24: 489–509.Google Scholar
Lippman, S A and Rumelt, R P (1982) Uncertain imitability: Analysis of interfirm differences in efficiency under competition, Bell Journal of Economics 13: 418–438.Google Scholar
McFadyen, M A and Cannella, A A Jr (2004) Social capital and knowledge creation: Diminishing returns of the number and strength of exchange relationships, Academy of Management Journal 47: 735–746.Google Scholar
Mitchell, R and Nicholas, S (2006) Knowledge creation in groups: The value of cognitive diversity, transactive memory, and open-mindedness norms, The Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management 4: 67–74.Google Scholar
Mumford, M D and Gustafson, S B (1988) Creativity syndrome: Integration, application and innovation, Psychological Bulletin, 103: 27–43.Google Scholar
Nahapiet, J and Ghoshal, S (1998) Social capital, intellectual capital, and organisational advantages, Academy of Management Review 23: 242–266.Google Scholar
Nemeth, C J and Nemeth-Brown, B (2003) Better than individuals? The potential benefits of dissent and diversity for group creativity, in Paulus, P B (Eds.), Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration, pp. 63–84. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nonaka, I and Konno, N (1998) The concept of ‘Ba’: Building a foundation for knowledge creation, California Management Review 40: 40–54.Google Scholar
Nonaka, I and Takeuchi, H (1996) A theory of organizational knowledge creation, International Journal of Technology Management 11: 833–846.Google Scholar
Okhuysen, G A and Eisenhardt, K M (2002) Integrating knowledge in groups: How formal interventions enable flexibility, Organization Science 13: 370–386.Google Scholar
Parent, M, Gallupe, R B, Salisbury, D and Handelman, J (2000) Knowledge creation in focus groups: Can group technologies help?, Information and Management 38: 47–58.Google Scholar
Pearce, J A and Ravlin, E C (2000) The design and activation of self regulating work groups. Human Relations, 40: 751–760.Google Scholar
Peteraf, M A and Barney, J (2003) Unravelling the resource-based tangle, Managerial and Decision Economics 24: 309–324.Google Scholar
Piccolo, R F and Colquitt, J A (2006) Transformational leadership and job behaviors: The mediating role of core job characteristics, Academy of Management Journal 49: 327–340.Google Scholar
Pillai, R, Schreisheim, C A and Williams, E S (1999) Fairness perceptions and trust as mediators for transformational and transactional leadership: A two-sample study, Journal of Management 25: 897–933.Google Scholar
Podsakoff, P M, MacKenzie, S B, Moorman, R H and Fetter, R (1990) Transformational leader behavior and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors, The Leadership Quarterly 1: 107–142.Google Scholar
Ravichandran, T and Rai, A (2003) Structural analysis of the impact of knowledge creation and knowledge embedding on software process capability, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management 50: 270–284.Google Scholar
Schaubroeck, J, Lam, S. K and Cha, S (2007) Embracing transformational leadership: Team values and the impact of leader behavior on team performance, Journal of Applied Psychology 92: 1020–1030.Google Scholar
Sethi, R, Smith, D C and Park, W C (2001) Cross-functional product development teams, creativity, and the innovativeness of new consumer products. Journal of Marketing Research 38: 73–85.Google Scholar
Shamir, B, House, R and Arthur, M B (1993) The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory, Organization Science 4: 577–594.Google Scholar
Sherony, K M and Green, S G (2002) Co-worker exchange: Relationships between coworkers, leader-member exchange, and work attitudes, Journal of Applied Psychology, 87: 542–548.Google Scholar
Sosik, J J (1997) Effects of transformational leadership and anonymity on idea generation in computer-mediated groups, Group and Organization Management 22: 460–487.Google Scholar
Sosik, J J, Avolio, B J and Kahai, S S (1997) Effects of leadership style and anonymity on group potency and effectiveness in a group decision support system environment, Journal of Applied Psychology 82: 89–103.Google Scholar
Sparrowe, R T & Liden, R C (2005) Two routes to influence: Integrating leader-member exchange and network perspectives, Administrative Science Quarterly, 50: 505–535.Google Scholar
Sparrowe, R T and Liden, R C (1997) Process and structure in leader-member exchange. Academy of Management Review 22: 522–552.Google Scholar
Shin, S J and Zhou, J (2003) Transformational Leadership, conservation and creativity: Evidence from Korea, Academy of Management Journal 46: 703–714.Google Scholar
Shin, S J and Zhou, J (2007) When is educational specialization heterogeneity related to creativity in research and development teams? Transformational leadership as a moderator, Journal of Applied Psychology 92: 1709–1721.Google Scholar
Styhre, A, Roth, J and Ingelgard, A (2002) Care of others: Knowledge creation through care in professional teams, Scandinavian Journal of Management 18: 503–520.Google Scholar
Szulanski, G (1996) Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm, Strategic Management Journal 17: 27–43.Google Scholar
Taggar, S and Elleis, R (2007) The role of leaders in shaping formal team norms, Leadership Quarterly 18: 105–120.Google Scholar
Teece, D, Pisano, G and Shuen, A (1997) Dynamic capabilities and strategic management, Strategic Management Journal 18: 509–533.Google Scholar
Tenkasi, RV and Boland, R J (1996) Exploring knowledge diversity in knowledge intensive firms: A new role for information systems, Journal of Organizational Change Management 9: 79–91.Google Scholar
Tjosvold, D and Morishima, M (1999) Grievance resolution: Perceived goal interdependence and interaction patterns, Relations Industrielle 54: 527–547.Google Scholar
Tjosvold, D and Poon, M (1998) Dealing with scarce resources: open-minded interaction for resolving budget conflicts, Group andrganization management 23: 237–258.Google Scholar
Tjosvold, D and Sun, H (2003) Openness among Chinese in conflict: Effects of direct discussion and warmth on integrative decision making, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 33: 1878–1897.Google Scholar
Tse, H M (2008) Transformational leadership and performance: A social identity perspective: Paper presented at the annual meeting of Academy of Management, Anaheim CA.Google Scholar
Tse, H M, Dasborough, M T and Ashkanasy, N M (2008) A multilevel analysis of team climate and interpersonal exchange relationships at work, The Leadership Quarterly 19:195–211.Google Scholar
Tsoukas, H (1996) The firm as a distributed knowledge system: A constructionist approach, Strategic Management Journal 17: 11–25.Google Scholar
Un, C A, and Cuervo-Cazurra, A (2004) Strategies for knowledge creation in firms, British Journal of Management 15: 27–41.Google Scholar
Wang, H, Law, K S, Hackett, R, Wang, D X and Chen, Z X (2005) Leader-member exchange as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and followers' performance and organizational citizenship behavior, Academy of Management Journal 48: 420–432.Google Scholar
Zollo, M and Winter, S G (2002) Deliberate learning and the evolution of dynamic capabilities, Organization Science 13: 339–351.Google Scholar