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Social distance as a moderator of the effects of transformational leadership: Both neutralizer and enhancer

Management department at the M.J. Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, m.s.cole{at}tcu.edu

Heike Bruch

Institute for Leadership and Human Resources Management of the University of St Gallen (Switzerland), heike.bruch{at}unisg.ch

Boas Shamir

Faculty of Social Sciences, and Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, msshamir{at}mscc.huji.ac.il

Following recent interest in contextual factors and how they might influence the effects of transformational leadership, we consider the social distance between leaders and followers as a cross-level moderator of the relationships between senior level managers’ transformational leadership and individual-level outcomes. Our sample comprised 268 individuals in 50 leader-follower groups. Results revealed that high social distance reduced or neutralized transformational leadership’s association with followers’ emulation of leader behavior. In contrast, high levels of social distance between leaders and followers enhanced the effects of transformational leadership on individuals’ perceptions of their units’ positive emotional climate and individuals’ sense of collective efficacy. Results not only highlight the importance of social distance as a contextual variable affecting leader-follower relations but also suggest that the same contextual variable may have differential effects, enhancing some relationships and neutralizing others.

Key Words: affect • context • efficacy • leadership development • multilevel

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This version was published on November 1, 2009

Human Relations, Vol. 62, No. 11, 1697-1733 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726709346377


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Cole, M. S. Articles by Shamir, B. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?