Organisations are consistently changing and diversifying; therefore, researchers and practitioners are viewing diversity as an essential part of organisational behaviour literature and practice.
The purpose of this study was to investigate a simple mediation model, with the diversity climate as the proposed mediator, transformational leadership as the model antecedent and organisational commitment as the outcome.
The South African diversity climate research is limited, including mediation investigations. Increased organisational diversification requires constant and relevant information with regard to diversity management.
A quantitative approach using a cross-sectional design collected 230 responses from a convenience sample. Transformational leadership was considered through six key behaviours associated with transformational leadership. Organisational commitment was considered as per the Psycones questionnaire and the organisational diversity climate was determined using a single-dimension diversity climate instrument. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and a simple mediation model.
Correlation results revealed that both transformational leadership and a diversity climate demonstrated practical effects with organisational commitment. Results from a standardised regression coefficient confirmed that transformational leadership predicts the diversity climate significantly. Both transformational leadership and diversity climate predicted commitment. The simple mediation model revealed that the diversity climate can be considered a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee commitment.
Organisations would benefit from leadership assessments for current and future employees, especially organisations that would like to prioritise a constructive diversity climate and employee commitment.
Contributions are made towards limited diversity climate investigations by providing empirical evidence of the mediating role of a diversity climate.
Diversity climate is a developing area of research that concentrates on how employees form perceptions regarding policies and practices related to diversity and inclusivity (Ziegert & Hanges,
What could then be considered as a solution for organisations to realise the full potential of diversity? The answer could perhaps be found in leadership. Leadership has been described as a fundamental contributor towards enhancing diversity outcomes (Gotsis & Grimani,
Our interest for the present study was neither in the well-researched direct relationship between leadership and employee outcomes, nor the confirmed direct relationship between a constructive diversity climate and employee outcomes. We were more intrigued by the indirect effect of a conducive diversified environment on the leadership style and employee outcome relationship. Unfortunately, the mediating role of a diversity climate has not received much research attention (McKay & Avery,
The primary aim of this study was to investigate a proposed simple mediation model in which the diversity climate mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and organisational commitment. The next section will be dedicated towards formulating a clear understanding on the proposed model antecedent, the proposed model outcome – employee commitment – and the mediating characteristics of a diversity climate. The literature review also investigates any prior conceptualised and confirmed relationships between these variables.
Proposed model, transformational leadership, diversity climate and organisational commitment.
It has been well documented that transformational leaders are the representatives of change, energising and directing employees towards ‘a new set of corporate values and behaviours’ (McShane & Von Glinow,
Transformational leadership is regarded as multidimensional and comprising six key behaviours (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Moorman, & Fetter,
The relatively new field of diversity climate investigates the shared perceptions of the policies and practices directing the extent to which an organisation is committed towards eliminating discrimination and valuing diversity (Pugh, Dietz, Brief, & Wiley,
The direct consequences associated with a constructive diversity climate have been confirmed in several studies. These advantages include improved employee and organisational performance (McKay & Avery,
An employee is considered a candidate for commitment when demonstrating emotional attachment to, identification with and involvement in a particular organisation (McShane & Von Glinow,
Organisational commitment can assume three distinctive forms: continuance, normative or affective commitment (Meyer & Allen,
It is expected that organisational diversity would further increase in future (Fullerton & Toosi,
With limited research on diversity climates themselves, it is not surprising that investigations into a relationship between the organisational diversity climate and transformational leadership are also limited. However, the matter has seen research interest in that investigations had been focused on the type and nature of the relationship between ‘diversity management interventions’ or ‘diversity practices’ and leadership styles. Research findings suggest that a recorded constructive observation of ‘diversity practices’ is strongly associated with the presence of transformational leadership (Ng & Sears,
Theoretically, the advantages associated with a diversity climate were some of the earliest findings on the matter (McKay & Avery,
While literature suggests that the presence of transformational leadership in organisations will also be associated with a constructive organisational diversity climate, it would be imperative to look into how transformational leadership has been associated with our investigated employee outcome, namely, commitment. Transformational leaders assist as ‘role models who help followers develop their own potential’, changing their outlook on traditional problems (Colquitt et al.,
General positive consequences associated with organisational commitment include job satisfaction (Chughtai & Zafar,
Taking into consideration the established direct independent relationships between transformational leadership, the organisational diversity climate and organisational employee outcomes, coupled with the promising mediating characteristics of diversity climates in limited studies, we propose the possibility of the diversity climate mediating the relationship between transformational leadership and organisational commitment. As a result, the main objective of this study was to investigate the mediating role of a diversity climate in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee commitment. The secondary objective was to examine the direct effects between transformational leadership and a diversity climate; transformational leadership and employee commitment; and, finally, a diversity climate and employee commitment.
This study followed a quantitative approach with a cross-sectional design. The cross-sectional design was considered most suitable for this study because the assessment of the relationships between transformational leadership, the diversity climate and employee commitment was measured at a specific point in time, without any planned intervention. Questionnaires were considered the most appropriate method of data collection. A final research proposal was sent for consideration to the ethics committee of the institution and to obtain permission to collect data for the purpose of the study. The study obtained a minimal risk classification.
Permission was obtained from all participating organisations and the surveys were distributed via human resource managers, heads of departments and team leaders. The anonymous nature of the study was thoroughly explained to the participants, indicating clearly that no personal information was required. Adequate time was allowed for participants to complete the questionnaire and completed questionnaires were collected at arranged central points.
A non-probability convenience sample was used to collect data from South African companies situated in Gauteng province. A total of 230 responses were received from 820 distributed questionnaires, resulting in a 28% response rate. Unfortunately, it is presently quite common for researchers to obtain low response rates. Lower frequencies could be a sign of our busy lifestyles (Carley-Baxter et al.,
Sample biographical and demographic characteristics.
Biographical element | % |
---|---|
1945–1950 | 2 |
1951–1960 | 4.4 |
1961–1970 | 17.4 |
1971–1980 | 18.4 |
1981–1990 | 38.1 |
1990 and onward | 19.7 |
Male | 52.9 |
Female | 47.1 |
Matric (Grade 12) | 17.9 |
Post-matric qualification (diploma) | 17.5 |
University degree (BA, BCom, BSc, etc.) | 29.2 |
Postgraduate degree | 35.4 |
White people | 69.3 |
Black people | 24.9 |
Indian people | 2.7 |
Mixed-race people | 1.9 |
Other | 1.1 |
Permanent | 82.6 |
Temporary | 17.4 |
Senior management | 15.3 |
Middle or line management | 45.1 |
General worker | 39.6 |
Rural (mainly farming activities, small town, etc.) | 29.2 |
Urban | 70.8 |
BA, Bachelor of Arts; BCom, Bachelor of Commerce; BSc, Bachelor of Science.
The measuring instrument comprised a combination of four main sections. The first section focused on obtaining demographic information from the sample group. The remaining three sections collected data on transformational leadership, diversity climate and organisational commitment.
The
The
Primary data were captured, cleaned and processed by the institution’s statistical unit. Data were processed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23 (IBM Corp.,
The statistical analysis of the factor analysis included the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy, with principal component analysis as the extraction method. Field (
Descriptive statistics determined central propensities and whether the data were normally distributed. Statistics for skewness and kurtosis were used to determine normality. The criteria used to determine whether data could be considered a normal distribution were set at 2.00 for skewness (Finch & West,
Regarding reliability, Cronbach’s alpha values above 0.7 are traditionally regarded as acceptable. However, for scales with fewer than 10 items it is sometimes difficult to obtain a decent Cronbach’s alpha value, and for this reason mean inter-item correlation values can be examined as an additional indication of relationships among items (Pallant,
To determine the relationships between the described variables, we conducted a Pearson’s correlation analysis. Effect sizes were calculated with a confidence level set at 95%;
Simple mediation modelling was performed using the PROCESS macro version 3 (Hayes,
Ethical clearance for the study was obtained from the North-West University Business School (Reference number: EMSPBS09/09/16-01/01).
The results of the study are presented as follows: firstly, factor analysis is reported, followed by descriptive and reliability results. Then, results obtained from the correlation analysis are presented, with an interpretation of the type and nature of the relationships between transformational leadership, diversity climate and organisational commitment. Finally, findings from the simple mediation results are reported.
The analysis of the diversity climate (McKay et al.,
The transformational leadership section contained six factors and a factor analysis was conducted for each individual factor with the following results: vision articulation had 78.2% of the variance explained, with an eigenvalue of 3.91 for the first factor extracted (KMO = 0.87). Role modelling had 93.2% of the variance explained, with an eigenvalue of 2.80 for the first factor extracted (KMO = 0.76). Goal acceptance had 88.1% of the variance explained, with an eigenvalue of 3.53 for the first factor extracted (KMO = 0.87). High-performance expectations had 78.7% of the variance explained, with an eigenvalue of 2.36 for the first factor extracted (KMO 0.70). Individual consideration had 56.3% of the variance explained, with an eigenvalue of 1.69 for the first factor extracted (KMO = 0.50). Intellectual stimulation had 82.4% of the variance explained, with an eigenvalue of 3.30 for the first factor extracted (KMO 0.84). The factor analysis for organisational commitment explained 56.0% of the variance with an eigenvalue of 2.80 (KMO = 0.79). Based on these results, the measuring instruments in the present study are valid because of the establishment of construct validity.
Descriptive results and reliability.
Item | Mean | Standard deviation | Skewness | Kurtosis | Cronbach’s alpha | Inter-item correlation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Diversity climate | 3.39 | 0.78 | −0.48 | 0.02 | 0.92 | 0.55 |
Transformational leadership | 5.05 | 1.20 | −0.97 | 0.17 | 0.86 | 0.70 |
Vision articulation | 5.13 | 1.35 | −0.99 | 0.41 | 0.93 | 0.73 |
Role modelling | 5.05 | 1.67 | −0.92 | −0.22 | 0.96 | 0.89 |
Goal acceptance | 5.22 | 1.47 | −1.02 | 0.37 | 0.96 | 0.84 |
High-performance expectations | 5.43 | 1.24 | −0.83 | −0.05 | 0.86 | 0.68 |
Individual consideration | 4.53 | 1.25 | −0.30 | 0.17 | 0.62 | 0.27 |
Intellectual stimulation | 4.95 | 1.41 | −0.76 | −0.05 | 0.93 | 0.77 |
Organisational commitment | 3.97 | 0.68 | −1.11 | 2.52 | 0.80 | 0.45 |
Cronbach’s alpha scores ranged from 0.62 to 0.96 and inter-item correlation scores ranged from 0.27 to 0.89. Individual consideration (four-scale items) recorded a Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.62, which, according to the guidelines by Robinson et al. (
The study calculated correlations in order to determine the relationship between the described variables. Although correlations are considered a worthy indicator of the relationship, it does not necessarily indicate that one variable is caused by another (Hinkle, Wiersma, & Jurs,
Correlation analysis, diversity climate, transformational leadership and organisational commitment.
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Diversity climate | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
2 | Transformational leadership | 0.39 |
1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Vision articulation | 0.39 |
0.92 |
1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
Role modelling | 0.35 |
0.93 |
0.84 |
1 | - | - | - | - | - | |
Goal acceptance | 0.39 |
0.95 |
0.85 |
0.87 |
1 | - | - | - | - | |
High-performance expectations | 0.33 |
0.74 |
0.68 |
0.59 |
0.70 |
1 | - | - | - | |
Individual consideration | 0.16 |
0.65 |
0.46 |
0.60 |
0.56 |
0.21 |
1 | - | - | |
8 | Intellectual stimulation | 0.38 |
0.91 |
0.81 |
0.81 |
0.85 |
0.70 |
0.48 |
1 | - |
9 | Organisational commitment | 0.34 |
0.38 |
0.40 | 0.34 |
0.36 |
0.36 |
0.15 |
0.35 |
1 |
, Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
A closer inspection of the results in
An analysis of the relationship between the diversity climate and organisational commitment revealed a medium effect (
The final examination of transformational leadership, the diversity climate and commitment included an analysis of a simple mediation model. This model was computed using PROCESS macro version 3 (Hayes,
Standardised regression coefficients of the variables: Transformational leadership, diversity climate and organisational commitment.
Variable | Estimate | SE | Bootstrapping BC 95% CI |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
Lower | Upper | |||
Transformational leadership → Diversity climate (a) | 0.26 |
0.04 | 1.68 | 2.50 |
Diversity climate → Organisational commitment (b) | 0.20 |
0.06 | 0.09 | 0.31 |
Transformational leadership → Organisational commitment (c) | 0.17 |
0.04 | 0.10 | 0.24 |
Transformational leadership to organisational commitment via diversity climate | 0.05 | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.10 |
,
SE, standard error; BC, bias-corrected; CI, confidence interval.
As indicated in
Simple mediation model: Transformational leadership to organisational commitment via diversity climate (
A further analysis of
The second regression (a) with transformational leadership and diversity climate (mediator) was also significant with
The third regression (b) between diversity climate (mediator) and organisational commitment was significant with
The results for the indirect effect revealed a significant result with
In this section, we revisit the study’s primary and secondary objectives. The primary objective was to test a proposed simple mediation model, with the diversity climate mediating the relationship between transformational leadership and employee commitment. The simple mediation analysis with transformational leadership as the independent variable, diversity climate as the mediator and commitment as the dependent variable yielded a significant result. The diversity climate demonstrated a significant indirect effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and organisational commitment. This result translates to a situation where shared perceptions regarding diversity policies and practices will constructively assist employees in demonstrating commitment towards the organisation when they are exposed to the characteristics of transformational leadership in their specific workplaces. Thus, the mediation result for the path of transformational leadership to organisational commitment via diversity confirms the mediating promises of a diversity climate as demonstrated by Volpone et al. (
The secondary objective of the study was to investigate and analyse the relationships between transformational leadership, diversity climate and employee commitment. The analysis included a correlation analysis and direct effects. The correlation results revealed small to medium practical effects when examining the relationship between transformational leadership and diversity climate. Our result confirms the findings of Ng and Sears (
The correlation results also exposed the association between diversity climate and organisational commitment. Arguably, our results partially confirm the seminal research by Cox (
The study further found evidence to suggest that the presence of transformational leadership will be associated with higher levels of employee commitment. This specific result confirms the notion of Walumbwa and Lawlwer (
While traditional antecedents for diversity climate include human resource practices and policy interpretation and perceptions, none of these antecedents was tested. The study, however, explored transformational characteristics as predictors of the diversity climate score. A standardised regression coefficient demonstrated that transformational leadership could be considered a predictor of diversity climate. This result is consistent with the findings of Taylor (
We are realistic that this study was not faultless. The quantitative approach and cross-sectional design do not allow the testing of cause–effect relationships. This limitation can be addressed in a longitudinal study, investigating the effect of diversity climate interventions on similar leadership styles and employee outcomes. The sampling method (convenience sampling) does not allow the study to generalise the results and is limited to the sample group. Future studies should consider alternative sampling techniques, for example, stratified sampling. This would allow for group comparisons. Common source bias was also considered a limitation because of self-report questionnaires and significant correlations between variables. In order to minimise the common source bias, future studies should consider careful assessment of the research environment to identify potential sources of bias and implement both procedural and statistical methods to control for common source bias (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, & Lee,
Future studies should further explore the mediating characteristics as demonstrated by the current study. Promising mediating characteristics found in previous studies by Volpone et al. (
The sample demographics was dominated by the white group (69.3%), senior managers and middle managers (60.4% combined), which could have possibly impacted the results. South Africa has a unique history in terms of segregation, with distinctive policy and legislative interventions to correct the inherited disproportions (Jackson & Van der Vijver,
The presence of transformational leadership and its associated advantages in the workforce of the sample group should not be underestimated. Organisations that participated in the study should consider leadership assessments for future employees, especially those organisations that require a constructive diversity climate and increased levels of employee commitment. The pathway whereby the diversity climate was considered the independent variable, and organisational commitment was considered the dependent variable, also revealed a significant result, thereby contributing towards the confirmation by Cox (
It has been emphasised that future organisational leaders will have to consider managing organisational diversity as being a specialised skill or ability (Thomas,
McKay and Avery (
Future organisational leaders tasked with managing diversity need to understand that although transformational leadership will enhance employee organisational commitment, the development and implementation of policies and practices towards diversity should receive equal attention. This study has contributed towards the body of knowledge for South African organisations, with the confirmation that transformational leadership and constructive perceptions regarding policies and practices directed at diversity are associated with organisational commitment.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article. The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the authors and do not represent those of the participating organisations or university where the study was conducted.
S.M. conducted the literature review, collected and processed all data and was responsible for the write-up of the article. L.J. and M.H. guided the conceptualisation and interpretation of results, provided commentary and co-authored the article.