An Exploration of the Effects of Psychological Climate, Workplace Friendships, and Psychological Needs on Perceived Transformational Leadership and Work Engagement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interacting effects of transformational leadership, psychological climate, psychological needs, and workplace friendships on work engagement. Contemporary literature suggests that there is a need to study factors that influence work engagement (Kovjanic, Schuh, & Jonas, 2013), but studies such as these are limited. To address this issue the present study tested a model which proposed that: a) the relationship between perceived transformational leadership and work engagement is mediated by psychological climate; b) the relationship between psychological climate and work engagement is moderated by workplace friendships; c) the relationship between workplace friendships and work engagement is mediated by the satisfaction of relatedness and competence needs. The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement (H1); psychological climate partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement (H2); no support was found for the moderating effect of workplace friendships (H3); however, it was found that the fulfillment of basic needs for relatedness (H4A); and competence (H4B) partially mediated the relationship between workplace friendships and work engagement. These findings support the argument that work engagement is affected by multiple factors. To this end, scholars and practitioners are invited to conduct studies to investigate the effectiveness of leadership development programs where leaders are trained to display more transformational behaviors to satisfy competence and relatedness needs of their workforce, and enhance employee work engagement by nurturing intrinsic motivation.