Collective Efficacy

Foundations

Each individual’s assessment of his or her group’s collective capability to perform job-related behaviors (pp. 372)

Efficacy beliefs play an important role in both individual and group motivation because people have to rely on others to accomplish their tasks (pp. 372)

One of the most important characteristics of transformational leadership is its ability to heighten followers’ collective motivation (pp. 373)

Social identification theory- a process whereby an individual’s belief about a group or organization becomes self-referential or self-defining (pp. 373)

Transformational leaders can also enhance collective efficacy by providing emotional and ideological explanations that link followers’ individual identities to the collective identity of their organization…By emphasizing the group mission, stressing shared values and ideology, connecting followers’ individual and group interest, transformational leaders provide followers with more opportunities to appreciate group accomplishments and other group members’ contributions, resulting in collective identities (pp. 373)

Self-concept Theory- group norm is the yardstick for measuring individual self-worth in relation to other outgroup members…suggests increasing followers’ self-efficacy and facilitating followers’ self-identification with the group as mechanisms through which transformational leaders motivate followers (pp. 374)

By building followers’ confidence, such leaers are expected to have a strong, positive influence over time on followers’ level of collective identification and motivation (pp. 374)

Efficacy beliefs influence what people choose to do as a group, how much effort they put into it and their staying power when collective efforts fail to produce results (pp. 374)

Hypothesis 1: Transformational leadership will be positively associated with collective efficacy (pp. 374)

Hypothesis 2a: Collective efficacy will mediate the relations between transformational leadership and organizational commitment(pp. 374)        TL –> CE –> OC

Hypothesis 2b: Collective efficacy will mediate the relations between transformational leadership and job satisfaction (pp. 374)          TL –> CE –> JS

Hypothesis 3: Collective eficacy will mediate the relations between transformational leadership and withdrawal behaviors (pp. 374)          TL –> CE –> WB

Collective efficacy fully or partially mediated the relations between transformational leadership and work outcomes (pp. 375)

Collective efficacy completely mediated the effect of transformational leadership on followers’ withdrawal behaviors, but only partially on work attitudes (pp. 375)

Factors other than collective efficacy may mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and work attitudes. Because transformational leaders are able to encourage followers to think critically and to seek new ways to approach their job, this may directly strengthen followers’ job involvement and intrinsic motivation, resulting in more desirable work related attitudes (pp. 375)

By developing collective efficacy through transformational leadership, withdrawal behaviors can generally minimized (pp. 376)

Scholars

Walumbwa, Wand & Lawler, Shi; Bandura; Riggs, Warka, Babasa, Betancourt, & Hooker

Research

Walumbwa, F. O., Wang, P., Lawler, J. J., & Shi, K. (2004). The role of collective efficacy in the relations between transformational leadership and work outcomes. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 77, 515-530.

Notes

See Transformational Leadership

Related Theories

Transformational Leadership; Charismatic Leadership; Organizational Citizenship Behaviors;