The Influence of Transformational Leadership Behaviours on Organizational Commitment in Omani Governmental Organizations

Public organizations all over the world have to confront renewed challenges and obstacles to meet citizens’ needs. Indeed, Omani organizations are required to have leadership behaviours that clearly encourage and foster subordinates’ performance by enhancing employees' commitment. The aim of this paper is to explore the influence of transformational leadership on organizational commitment in Omani public organizations. The quantitative data was collected through survey instrument. The current research utilized AMOS to investigate the measurement model and test the proposed hypothesised relationship between the constructs. The population for this study consisted of Omani public organization that apply civil service law. The sample consists of 336 middle managers in Omani public organizations. The results found that transformational leadership play a pivotal role in enhancing organizational commitment. Specifically, core transformational leadership has a direct impact on all organizational commitment dimensions (affective, normative, and continuance). Whereas, providing individualized support, intellectual stimulation, and setting high performance expectation have a direct impact on both continuance and normative commitment. Keyword: Affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment, Oman organizational commitment, public organization, transformational leadership behaviors


Introduction
Leadership is one of the complex areas that have been known in the past and recently that influences various aspects in organization's daily business.It is arguably believed that, a group of people work together within any organization necessarily requires a leader having the ability to lead and motivate them to achieve their targets.Leadership is the process of convincing subordinate or follower to work together and make their best to achieve the desired results, as well as, directing them to move in the right direction and obtain their commitment and motivation to complete desirable goals in certain time.Leadership is the process of directing the behaviour of followers to achieve the organization common goals (Burns, 1978).
In the past several decades, management experts have undergone a revolution in how they define leadership and what their attitudes are toward it.They have gone from a very classical autocratic style to a very creative, participative style.However, there is no one best style that can be used for all situations.Thus, different behaviours are needed for different situations and each leader needs to know when to exhibit a particular behaviour.The various leadership behaviours differ in terms of the processes by which leaders influence followers.It is the ethical implications of these differences in process that appear to be considered by researchers when investigating ethical leadership (Aronson, 2001).
However, in order to overcome these challenges, Omani organizations are required to have leadership behaviours that clearly encourage and foster subordinates' performance by enhancing employees' commitment.
Literature review shows that there are two forms of research on organizational commitment; antecedents and outcomes of organizational commitment (Marique, Stinglhamber, Desmette, Caesens, & De Zanet, 2012).Researchers argue that there are many factors impact organizational commitment have been acknowledged which consist of personal aspects, job aspects and organizational aspects (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979).However, there is a lack of study conducted to determine the factors impacting the Omani public employees' organizational commitment.Researchers argued that employees who are psychologically attached to an organization are more satisfied and, in turn, more productive (Hunter & Thatcher, 2007).Therefore, organization nowadays, strive to enhance employees' organizational commitment (Morrow, 2011).
Transformational leadership is a process that changes people by affecting emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals.Certainly, transformational leadership involves an unusual form of influence on the leader's part that moves followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected from them (Northouse, 2010).Employees under Supervision of transformational leaders are expected to have a strong perceptions of being treated fairly and, in return, will work harder to achieve organizational goals and develop commitment towards their organizations (Wang, Ma, & Zhang, 2014).

Problem Statement
Omani public organizations are expected to take a leading role in providing different kind of best services to the community such as, health services, educational services, transportation and communications, and housing services.But if they want to be more successful, they require to response very quick to the fast movement in business domain by clearly encourage and foster subordinates' organizational commitment as well as practicing appropriate leadership behaviors that could enhance their employees' performance.Definitely, this sector needs proficient leaders who can accomplish all the goals and objectives of both employees and organizations.Organizations that are short of capital may resort to borrowing money.However an organization with ineffective leadership has little chance for survival (Darwish A. Yousef, 1998).
Therefore, the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment has attracted considerable interest from both academics and practitioners.Much of the interest on these variables is based on the results of the previous studies which have asserted that these concepts may have an impact on the organizations goals and objectives (Z.Khan, Khan, & Shahzad, 2013;Darwish A Yousef, 2000).Yet, there is a lack of research investigating leadership within public sector organizations (AlKindy, Shah, & Jusoh, 2016) in Arabian Gulf Countries in general (Hajee & Al Hashemi, 2012), and in the Sultanate of Oman in particular (AlKindy et al., 2016;Common, 2011).Moreover, there is a dearth of literature on the possible impact of transformational leadership on organizational commitment in the non-profit setting (Freeborough, 2012).Furthermore, there is limited studies focusing on the influence of transformational leadership on organizational commitment dimensions (Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002;So, 2009).This study, therefore, is unique as it will help to address this issue in an effort to improve the understanding of the influence of transformational leadership on employees' organizational commitment in Arabian Gulf Countries in general and in Omani setting in particular.

Research Objectives
The objective of this paper aims to examine the impact of transformational leadership dimensions on employees' organizational commitment (affective, normative, continuous) in Omani public organizations.Based on the research objective stated, the following research question was addressed: Q1.Do transformational leadership dimensions impact Omani employees' organizational commitment (affective, normative, continuous).

Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership was originally developed by James MacGregor Burns in 1978.Burns introduced this concept in his descriptive research on political leaders (Burns, 1978).Transformational leadership encourage employees to perform more than what they originally thought possible (Sarros, Gray, & Densten, 2002), by motivating and inspiring their subordinates' value and self-esteem to go beyond egoistic interests (Felfe, Tartler, & Liepmann, 2004: p.266).The primary goal of this leadership is to transform followers toward a relationship that shift the dependent responsibility for into a relationship that is interdependent, and people are responsible to each other.A transformational leader's bottom line goal is to bring followers up to the level of confidentially accomplishing organizational tasks without direct leader intervention (Einstein & Humphreys, 2001).According to Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter (1990) the dimensions of Transformational leadership are as following: a. Core transformational leadership that consists; (1) Identifying and Articulating a Vision (IAV): This behaviour is aimed at the identifying and communicating a clear vision of the future to their subordinates.(2) Providing an Appropriate Model (PAM): this behaviour is aimed at providing an example for subordinates to follow that are consistent with shared values.(3) Fostering the Acceptance of Group Goals (FAGG): Leader fosters the acceptance of group goals by encouraging self-sacrifice for the sake of the group.
b. Providing Individualized Support (PIS): Leader respects subordinates' needs, makes sure that the assigned work is in accordance with subordinates needs and abilities.c.Intellectual stimulation (IS): leader challenges subordinates to look at their work in different ways, encourages them to be creative, and learn new opportunities.

d. Setting High Performance Expectation;
Leader seeks high quality achievement and insists on only the best performance Academics and researchers, in the last three decades, have received increasing attention about the new paradigm called transformational leadership style (Shurbagi, 2014) where the interest of this study lays.Transformational leadership, particularly, aims to change and transform employees (Northouse, 2012).Researchers argue that transformational leadership has some degree of universality (B.M. Bass & Avolio, 1994;Podsakoff et al., 1990).However, Randeree and Chaudhry (2012) assert that the universality of the transformational leadership may be limited to cultural differences.Undeniably, transformational leadership effectiveness is affected by the organizations and cultures in which it appears.In light of that, researchers stress that the impact of leadership on organizational outcomes should be scrutinized in different culture (Kuchinke, 1999;Pieterse, Van Knippenberg, Schippers, & Stam, 2010).Transformational leadership is needed because the old theories of leadership, operating through the power of performance-reward linkage has become less relevant (Srivastava, 2003).It is argued that, employees working under leaders who exhibit transformational leadership are expected to report higher levels of organizational commitment (Dunn, Dastoor, & Sims, 2012).Moreover, Bernard M Bass (1985) suggests that transformational leadership behaviours might contribute to employees' confidence in both usual and unusual ways to build up their organizational commitment in a much stronger way.Transformational leaders have a considerable influence on enhancement of employees' performance by increasing their organizational commitment (Z.Khan et al., 2013).Thus, the study wishes to test transformational leadership theory and its impact on organizational commitment at Omani public service sector.

Organizational Commitment
It is believed that human resources are critical for organizational effectiveness since it plays a great influence on sustaining organizational competitive advantages through teams of committed employees.Practitioners and researchers have paid a considerable effort to study organizational commitment due to its impact on various organizational outcomes such as work performance (Dirani, 2009).Indeed, committed employee is a better predictor for high performance.Lowe (2000) recommended extra research on employee commitment due to its importance to enhance public service motivation.Similarly, Wang et al. (2014) pointed out that how to motivate employees to work hard and to exhibit a high level of commitment to the organization is a subject worthy of extra investigation.The interest in organizational commitment has increased in most types of organizations whether they are private or public, civilian or military, profitable or non-profitable.In the literature, organizational commitment has been defined differently and thus they are many definition for organizational commitment.However, most of organizational commitment share the view that commitment is a psychological state that characterizes employees' relationship with their organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997).Whereas, Gunlu et al., (2010) defined organizational commitment as the relative strength of a person's identification with and involvement in a specific organization.Committed employees are more likely to remain with the organization (Meyer et al., 1989) and display extra role behavior (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990).Meyer and Allen (1997) defined organizational commitment as a strong belief in and acceptance of an organisation's goals and values; a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of an organisation and a strong desire to remain with the organisation.Researchers in their review of the organisational commitment literature identified three general themes in the definition of commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991;Shaw, Delery, & Abdulla, 2003).
(a) Affective Commitment Meyer and Allen (1991) describe affective commitment as the desire to be emotionally involved in a particular organisation.They believe that it involves employees' long term feelings towards their jobs.Employees with a strong affective commitment continue with their organisation because they want to do so.

(b) Continuance Commitment
It has been found that, continuance commitment is described as perceived costs associated with leaving the organisation.This indicates that when employees bear higher cost of leaving organisation, they are more committed to their organizations not because they want to, but because they have to (Meyer & Allen, 1991)

(c) Normative Commitment
Scholars in the field of management describe normative commitment as the obligation to remain in a particular organisation (Meyer & Allen, 1991;Bryant et al., 2007;Lumley et al., 2011).In this type of commitment employees remain with their organisation because they feel that they should to do so for moral reasons, not because they want or need to (Meyer & Allen, 1991)

The Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment has emerged as a promising area of research in recent time (D.Adebayo, 2006;Jafri & Lhamo, 2013) because it plays an important role in employees behaviour (Berberoglu & Secim, 2015).Employees with high organizational commitment tend to perceive their leaders as more trustworthy than employees who have low organizational commitment (Caldwell, 2011).Shamir, House, and Arthur (1993) suggest that transformational leadership role in enhancing employees' organizational commitment can be viewed as a motivational process, since transformational leaders encourage employees to exert extra effort and to think creatively about complex problems, provide positive feedback, and build commitment to the organization's strategies, mission, and objectives (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006;Yukl, 1998).
Transformational leaders build a strategic vision and communicate that vision to create commitment toward the vision (B.M. Bass & Avolio, 1994).Moreover, Appelbaum and Goransson (1997) building a shared vision is very important for gathering a group of people to work together to raise a commitment to a common future they strives to generate.a considerable research has been conducted over the past two decades to determine how employees' commitment to an organisation develops (Meyer & Allen, 1997).It is argued that transformational leadership has the ability to inspire and motive subordinates to achieve organisational goals and objectives (Burns, 1978).Hence, transformational leadership is used in this research as it is best suited to support and foster a work environment that focuses on organizational issues of commitment (Baek-Kyoo, Yoon, & Jeung, 2012;Freeborough, 2012;Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996).Indeed, the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment has received a great deal of attention in past research.The findings, however, are mixed.Mancini (2008) argues that there is a negative relationship between continuous commitment and transformational leadership factors with the strongest negative relationship being with the inspirational motivation factor.Tuna, Ghazzawi, Akbas Tuna, and Catir (2011) suggest that the charisma sub-dimension has a positive association with affective commitment and normative commitment.However, it reveals a poor association with continuance commitment.Moreover, the intellectual stimulation dimension revealed a poor association with affective and normative commitment but did not find any link with continuance commitment.Finally, they illustrates a positive association between individual consideration sub-dimension and affective and continuance commitment but poor association with normative commitment.
Therefore, based on the results in the literature, as shown in Figure 1, it would be meaningful to examine the influence of transformational leadership behaviours on employees' organisational commitment, which led to the formulation of the research hypotheses as below: H1: There is a significant impact of core transformational leadership on organizational affective commitment.

Sample
The resear ranging fro organizatio public org according percentage stimulation, and setting high performance expectations are crucial variables for building a strong organizational commitment.As indicated by this research results, core transformational leadership has a significant influence on all organizational commitment dimensions (affective, normative, and continuance)..According to Robbins and Judge (2012) affective commitment is driven by an emotional attachment to and identification with the organization.According to Leroy, Palanski, and Simons (2012), social exchange theory serves as the basis for understanding the relationship between transformational leadership and affective commitment.Based on exchange theory, transformational top-level managers engage in positive social exchanges with the middle-level managers.Middle-level managers identify with the top-level managers and the values he/she inspires in the organization.This attachment to the top-level manager results in an increased the level of middle managers' affective commitment.Pillai and Williams (2004) suggest that the collectivistic focus of groups led by transformational leaders may be a stimulation in extracting higher levels of commitment.This is predominantly crucial in middle-level managers led by a transformational top-level manager.

Transf
Whereas, transformational leadership behaviors such as, providing individualized support, intellectual stimulation, and setting high performance have impact on both normative and continuance commitment.This indicates that most transformational leadership behaviors emerged as the contributing factor and play important roles in enhancing employee organizational commitment.
Indeed, the result of this research is in line with previous research that found a direct relationship between transformational leadership and affective organizational commitment (Dhawan & Mulla, 2011;Top, Tarcan, Tekingündüz, & Hikmet, 2013).The result of this research also partially supports Baek-Kyoo et al. ( 2012)'s findings that employees showed the highest organizational commitment when their leaders articulated the vision, and promoted group goals.Moreover, the result of this research supports Kim and Kim (2014)'s findings that the transformational leadership measure of intellectual stimulation was not related to employees' affective commitment.The results of this research are also in line with Freeborough (2012)'s findings showing that there is a significant association between transformational leadership and normative commitment.Moreover, the results of this research are in line with research conducted by Tuna et al. (2011) that there is a positive impact between individual consideration and continuance commitment.However, the results of this research contradict O. O. Adebayo (2010)'s findings that affective commitment is not related to any of the dimensions of transformational leadership.
It can be concluded that one of the novel contributions of this research relates to the influence of transformational leadership dimensions on employees' organizational commitment dimensions which have not been adequately and empirically investigated, as is evident in the literature (Meyer et al., 2002;So, 2009).This is particularly so with respect to the non-profit organizations generally (Freeborough, 2012;Porter, 2015), and specifically for Omani public service organizations (S. A. Khan, 2010).This is also one of the objectives of this research.The empirical evidence in support of this objective as initially hypothesised and based on the findings of this study proves there exists a positive and significant impact of some of transformational leadership dimensions on some of organizational commitment dimensions.Moreover, this study contributes to the literature by using a model of transformational leadership that accounts for the influence of the Omani public service employees' organizational commitments.This research empirically investigated the conceptual model and proved that all transformational leadership behaviours such as core transformational leadership and providing individualized support, intellectual stimulating, and setting high performance expectations have a positive and significant influence on normative and continuance organizational commitment.Moreover, the findings of this research demonstrated that the core transformational leadership behaviour is a variable for building middle-managers' affective organizational commitment.