[Investigation into leadership model in cafe rouge and ots impact on employee commitment]

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CHAPTER: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

Top executives are interested in knowing what is most likely to positively influence organizational performance - employee commitment to the organization and/or a particular style of leadership within the organization. A great deal of literature has been generated in recent decades about management leadership style and the commitment of the employee. In this chapter, a review of these theories is presented. Section A will define the terms that will be studied, Section Bwill review the research literature on commitment, Section C will review the research literature on leadership and Section D will discuss the leadership model at Café Rouge.

Definition of Terms

Leadership

Bass and Avolio (1994, 256-286) viewed leadership as the observed effect of an individual's ability to change other's behaviors by altering their motivations. They view leaders as one of three types: (1) transactional - one who uses rewards as a control mechanism to externally motivate; (2) transformational - one who uses rewards to increase commitment and internally motivate or (3) laissez-faire - one who offers no feedback or support.

Commitment

Collins and Porras (1994, 23-39) identified organizational commitment as a sturdy belief in and acceptance of organizational goals and values, characterized by a willingness to exert significant effort on behalf of the organization and a strong desire to maintain membership in it.

Commitment

Commitment has been studied for decades. Numerous researchers give credibility to the belief that this theory has a strong influence on an organization's performance. Early researchers such as Dessler (1998, 310-22) found commitment to be positively associated with an employee's interest in work and negatively correlated with an employee's intent to leave. Years later, Collins 2001, (172-88) determined that a worker's commitment decreases as the ability to participate as an effective member of an organization decreases. Buchanan (1974, 533-546) determined commitment to be an attachment to the goals and values of an organization, to one's role in relation to those goals and values as well as to the organization. More recently, Cawthon (1996, 55-72) found that employees that possess high commitment attitudes tend to have fewer absences and remain longer with an organization than those with lower levels of commitment. Additionally, Belasco and Stayer (1993, 136-56) found a significant negative correlation of 0.25 between commitment and turnover. Bell (2004, 456-68) determined that commitment represents both feelings and behavioral tendencies that employees have towards an organization. Likewise, Bell-Roundtree (2004, 456-68) determined that a committed workforce identifies more closely with an organization and is willing to participate with management in improving performance and productivity. As a result of the many definitions of organizational commitment and numerous scales to measure them, Blake and Mouton (1985, 6-17) developed a three component model of commitment to integrate numerous definitions that had proliferated in the literature. Their prior research indicated that there are three "mind sets" which can characterize an employee's commitment to the organization.

Some of the most common definitions of commitment are listed in Table ...