The emotional bond: vision and organizational commitment among high‐tech employees

Abstract

The new transformational leadership theories stress the emotional bond between leaders and followers, as opposed to the cognitive‐calculative exchange emphasized by traditional transactional theories. However, very little empirical research has concentrated on the effects of transformational leaders on emotion‐ versus cognition‐focused aspects of their followers' world. This study tested the relationships of vision, a common theme to all of the prominent new leadership theories, to the emotion‐focused affective commitment (AC) versus the cognition‐focused continuance commitment (CC) to the organization. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 183 high‐tech employees. The quantitative results confirmed that vision formulation, content of social‐oriented values, and assimilation were positively related to AC to the organization, and unrelated to CC. The qualitative evidences deepened our understanding on the positive relationships of a balanced transcendental and realistic content of the vision and a high level of sharedness in vision assimilation processes to affective organizational commitment.