Impact of Leadership Style on Organizational Change: An Empirical Study in China

A wide range of factors have been found to affect organizational change. In this study, we examine status quo of Chinese enterprise reform and whether leadership style influences organizational change in China. Hierarchical regression results show that the effects of organizational change in government agencies and joint ventures are significantly better than those in state-owned organizations. The findings indicate that both transformational leadership and transactional leadership have positive impact on organizational change. Laissez-faire leadership predicts organizational change in the result of hierarchical regression, which is not consistent with past research. We also find that transformational leadership has significant and positive relationships with both organizational change and organizational performance, and organizational change mediates the relationship between organizational performance and transformational leadership.