IMPACT OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND REMOTE WORKING ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM THE IT INDUSTRY
Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis has significantly changed the way corporations operate and has induced a sudden shift to remote and hybrid work arrangements, especially in the IT industry. This development has highlighted the central importance of leadership to the maintenance of employee performance in contexts of flexible arrangements. The current study explores how transformational leadership and flexibility of remote work affect the performance of the employees, and hypothesizes that the connection between motivating the employees and flexibility of work serves as an intermediary of the result. A survey based on a quantitative method was conducted on 287 IT employees. The further analyses included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and mediation analysis to assess the hypothesized relationships. The results show that transformational leadership and remote working conditions have a positive effect on the employee performance, and motivation mediates the effect in part. Academically, the research fills the gap in the literature on leadership and remote work by providing practitioners with practical information to improve the performance at the workplace in the post-pandemic environment.
