Transformational Leadership and Employee Commitment: The Mediating Role of Organizational Culture in the Hospitality Industry in Abuja.

Abstract:

Transformational leadership has long been recognized as a key driver of employee commitment, capable of shaping employee attitudes and strengthening commitment. Yet, it remains unclear how transformational leadership influences employee commitment in Abuja hospitality industry, both directly and indirectly through organizational culture. The study population consists of 1,510 employees drawn from ten (10) selected hotels within the Federal Capital Territory. Using Taro Yamane (1967) formular, a sample of 316 employees was determined, data were collected through structured questionnaire with transformational leadership measured using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), and analyzed using Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach was employed via SmartPLS software for Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesized relationships among the variables, the findings reveal that transformational leadership has a positive and statistically significant relationship with employee commitment, with a standardized path coefficient of β = 0.41. The mediation analysis reveals that transformational leadership has a significant indirect effect on employee commitment through organizational culture, with a standardized coefficient of β = 0.482. The study therefore concluded that transformational leadership is a critical driver of employee commitment and organizational culture plays a central role in translating leadership behaviour into sustained employee commitment.