Transformational leadership and organizational identification: mapping the mechanisms, boundaries, and outcomes through a systematic review

This systematic review examines evidence on how transformational leadership (TL) is associated with organizational identification and related foci such as leader and team identification, and how these identity processes influence employee outcomes. Following PRISMA 2020 guided search and a structured search of web of science and Scopus identified 147 records of which 24 quantitative empirical studies met the inclusion criteria. Due to heterogeneity in research designs, measures, and constructs, a qualitative thematic synthesis was carried out. This review illustrates that TL is consistently positively related to higher levels of organizational, leader, and team identification across sectors and cultural contexts. The associations between TL and these forms of identification are typically elucidated by relational mechanisms such as trust and leader-member exchange, value-signalling processes such as corporate social responsibility and internal communication and psychological resources including empowerment and role clarity. Identification, in turn, is often related to greater work engagement, organizational citizenship behavior, voice, and creativity, and reduced turnover intentions, although most evidence is based on cross-sectional designs. The magnitude of these associations tends to vary according to contextual factors including organizational climate, cultural values, follower characteristics, and leader prototypicality. Overall, results suggest that TL is positively related to identity-based processes linked to a range of relevant employee outcomes, however, longitudinal and multilevel research designs are needed to further establish casual inference.