The Combined Influence of the Temporal Construal Theory and the Transactional-Transformational Leadership Model

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 8.5, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this research was to investigate the combined influence of the level of mental construal and the transactional-transformational leadership model on trust in the leader, on loyalty towards the leader, on employee motivation, and on respect towards the employee. In order to test the combined effect of temporal distance and leadership style, a study among 100 subjects has been conducted. A 2x2 between-subjects, factorial design with temporal distance and leadership style as the independent variables and trust, motivation, loyalty and respect as the dependent variables has been applied. Although for trust, loyalty and respect a small interaction effect could be found, it was not significant. It can thus be followed that there is no interaction effect of temporal distance and leadership style for the above- mentioned dependent variables. The non-existence of the effect could be due to additional unmeasured influences on the participants by other forms of psychological distance, the missing work experience of the subjects or that the homogenous sample did not allow for sufficient variation. These and other possible reasons are discussed in this paper. However, with regard to possible limitations of this study, future research is recommended in order to fully close this research gap.