Abstract

People with some digital literacy using social media seem more inclined to transformational leadership style and simultaneously, dislike and avoid a preference for the transactional type of leaders. The reason is that TRF is based on high connectivity between leader and followers, while TRS runs on the documented rules and regulations without any continuous change so subordinates are given guidelines once and no need of constant communication. This study investigates the existence of these links among the Faculty members of universities in D.I.Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The objective is to statistically measure the nature and strength of the hypothesized links among educated citizens. The statistical results are supportive at the level of positive and negative relations; however, the readings from connections show varying statistics regarding the power of the links. The simultaneous existence of both positive and negative impacts of SM has been well established with huge statistical scores. Further, the demographic impacts have also been verified from the field study. The findings contain a package of guidelines for the concerned people to focus on their SM and TRF to get more effective results from the connections. 

Key Words

Teachers from Higher Education, Social Media, Transformational & Transactional Leadership Style

Introduction

Social media is a popular technology for high levels of communication between the users irrespective of their country, ethnicity, political affiliation or any other classification (Braskov, 2011). It is a freestyle tool to bring international citizens together and share their views, the information in the form of any kind of document, audio, video, and there is no problem in exchange of data. Likewise, transformational leadership is also an open style where a leader works in a team by listening to every individual and capitalizing on every member’s opinion knowledge (Mansell & Hwa, 2015). Thus, there is a strong connection between users of social media and transformational leadership practices. Contrary to this, transactional leaders stay away from the team members and prefer to follow the documented rule and avoid innovative and creative methods for work and use of implicit (Szczerbaniwicz, 2016). 

SM is offering a diversity of tools to connect people and share text, audio, video, and documents instantly and without any problem. Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Linkedin, e-mail and Skype – all are easily accessible to anybody with a laptop or smartphones to the Internet Society (Braskov, 2011). Citizens have free opportunities to log on the global highway and share messages and stay connected for social, political, and other purposes. SM is a great source for having consistent links with the family, colleagues and leaders to keep fully abreast of the latest updates on different matters (Khoury, 2011). 

Transformational leadership is people-oriented where leader shares everything concerned with the colleagues and followers. This leadership styles have four leading attributes (Bass, Avolio, 1994; Bass, 1999): idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Idealized influence means that leader influences the followers as a role-model who is followed by the subordinates as the best guide in the work environment (Judge, & Piccolo, 2004; Larsson, Eriksson, Olofsson, &Simonsson, 2015). Secondly, the leader does not motivate on the basis of rewards or punishment rather internally motivates the followers to get inspired and work with devotion and love (Szczerbaniwicz, 2016). The intellectual stimulation is the function of the leader to ignite creativity and innovation among the subordinates in performing their job. Further, the individual consideration means that every employee is given separate attention by the leader and listened carefully (Jiang, Zhao & Ni, 2017).

While Transactional Leaders work on the theory of ‘transaction’ between the leaders and subordinates where work is conducted as per existing rules and regulations, and workers are pain contingent on their performance—rewards for the good job and punishment for bad performance (Larsson et al., 2015). The leader does not care about the futuristic visions or change in the work environment rather sticks with the cook-book and motivates the workers to do things as mentioned in the official and documented guidelines. Since human interactions are considered simply as the chain of transactions; therefore, rules are clear for the whole job and all the tasks to be performed. (Sultana, Darun, & Yao, 2015). The leader manages the work environment by exceptions both actively and passively. Passive management means that the leader stays passive while subordinates do their work as per rules and paid accordingly at the end of work. However, when a leader continuously observes the workers on the job, corrections are made by the leader as and when required. This leadership is, therefore called managerial leadership (Szczerbaniwicz, 2016).

This paper reports the findings from the study of relationships between SM and the leadership styles with the help of field data to test the existence, nature and strength of relationships. It has been hypothesized that SM is positively connected with transformational leadership, while its relations with transactional leadership are negative or insignificant. The results verify the assumptions with significant results and huge defining statistics.

Research Design

Philosophy and Approach




Positivism is the philosophy adopted for this study, which suggests that whatever can be verified through observations is called ‘knowledge’ (ontology), which can be recorded and communicated using standard ‘terminologies/concepts’ (epistemology) using ‘scientific-methods’ for the conduct of research. Survey approach has been used through literature and field surveys to collect secondary and primary data, respectively. 




Methods and Procedures




A survey approach was used to conduct literature and field studies. Literature provided the variables with material on their nature and mutual relationships as well as the attributes to be questioned through the questionnaire. A sample of 169 was used to collect first-hand data. All the testing of hypotheses was conducted using SPSS-21 applying correlations, regressions and tests of significance. 

Reliability and Validity

Reliability Statistics

 

	Variable/Instrument	Items	Alpha Score
1	Social Media	9	0.947
2	Transformational Leadership Style	8	0.777
3	Transactional Leadership Style	8	0.925
4	Questionnaire	25	0.677

 

Validity Statistics on Social Media

 

KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett's Test			Matrix
Sampling Adequacy.		.874	Qs	Score
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	1682.666	SM1	.984
	df	36	SM2	.746
	Sig.	.000	SM3	.682
			SM4	.764
			SM5	.873
	Required	Computed	SM6	.811
KMO test	0.07	.874	SM7	.888
Bartlett’s test	<0.05	.000	SM8	.829
Factor Loading	0.4		SM9	.959

 

Validity Statistics on Transformational Leadership Style

 

KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett's Test			Matrix
Sampling Adequacy.		.780	Qs	Score
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	489.063	TRF1	.911
	df	28	TRF2	.040
	Sig.	.000	TRF3	.481
			TRF4	.592
	Required	Computed	TRF5	.633
KMO test	0.07	.780	TRF6	.745
Bartlett’s test	<0.05	.000	TRF7	.755
Factor Loading	0.4		TRF8	.737

 

Validity Statistics on Transactional Leadership Style

 

KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett's Test			Matrix
Sampling Adequacy.		.890	Qs	Score
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	1246.763	TRS1	.975
	df	28	TRS2	.579
	Sig.	.000	TRS3	.748
			TRS4	.733
	Required	Computed	TRS5	.754
KMO test	0.07	.890	TRS6	.910
Bartlett’s test	<0.05	.000	TRS7	.935
Factor Loading	0.4		TRS8	.837

Literature Review

Social Media




There was a time when people used newspapers to stay aware of the events happening around at local, national and global levels. For information and updates, people had to rely on newspapers, radio and TV. Today, citizens are more connective locally, national and globally far more than ever in history (Jung, 2010). Current technologies provide 24/7 connectivity far beyond physical boundaries and time. SM has, therefore connected families, relatives, co-workers, political affiliates, government etc., together into a global village (Khoury, 2011; Mansell & Hwa, 2015). Now the citizens are international citizens who have phenomenally shifted from the traditional communication systems to new digital media like SMS, E-mails, Facebook, Myspace, Blogs, Twitter etc., which support speedy interaction to exchange news and ideas (Kaun&Uldam, 2018). 

Media has the capability to give back control in the hands of citizens. In prospect, it would play an important role in politics (Kirkpatrick, 2010). Several studies confirm that SM not only helps in creating interpersonal relationships, it also assists leaders in practising intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration (Khoury, 2011). Leaders can reduce the communication problems in the work environment to develop relationships across the organization, thereby sharing knowledge and reducing confusions and misunderstanding among the groups (Karamat& Farooq, 2016). In Arab Spring upheavals in 2011, SM played an instrumental role in facilitating the revolutions. In Pakistan, the Internet came in 1995, and since then, the SM sites, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Messenger etc., are catching the attention of the masses. In June 2010, the statistics of Internet consumers extended to 20 million in the country by an 11.5% penetration proportion as per given by the Internet World Stats of 2013 (Kaun&Uldam, 2018).

Since transformational leaders are extrovert and share knowledge and experiences with their team members or followers or subordinates and want each member to be part of it, therefore, SM is the best tool ever available to the leaders, managers, and administrators to work with (Jung, 2010; Braskov, 2011). The age of social media is forcing the transformational leadership strategies to encourage employee involvement (Khoury, 2011; Mansell & Hwa, 2015). While good leadership recognizes the need to embed policies with regards to SM, it also recognizes its potential to transform the work environment through driving organizational norms, values, beliefs and practices, thereby transforming employee effectiveness.




Transformational Leadership Style




The theory of transformational leadership was suggested by Burns (Burns, 1978), which was then improved and advanced by Bass (1985), who contributed to the popularity of this model of leadership. A transformational leader transforms the followers in terms of thinking positively to use organizational vision and objectives as of their own (Bass &Riggio, 2006). Further, the leader plays as the role model, practising intellectual stimulation and inspired motivation with the individualized relationship, which motivates the workforce to control and tune their interests through organizational vision and goals (Mhatre, Riggio, & Handbooks, 2014). Transformational leadership has become the most critical issue and topic in research on organizations and management (Jiang et al., 2017).

As per Bass’s (1997) research, transformational leadership is characterized by four distinct but interrelated components or pre-requisites of transformational leadership:




1. Role-Model: Idealized influence is the term used for this attribute to represent the charismatic personality of the leader. He/she commands and exhibits such an ideal personality, which is so influential for the followers and subordinates that they use him/her as their role model for performing in the organization. A transformational leader is worth following in terms of front-man, character, norms and values, intellectual capabilities and social powers (Díaz-Sáenz 2011; Larsson et al., 2015).

2. Intellectual stimulation is the ability of the transformational leader regarding creativity and innovation as a tool to run the business of the organization. He/she tries his/her level best to ignite creativity and innovative thinking in the followers or subordinates. The followers are given ample opportunities to stay in contact with the leader and share their creative and innovative ideas, which are then used in the decision-making process of the organization in realizing goals. The leader motivates the subordinates to learn and improve into independent and distinct workers (Dinh et al. 2014).

3. Inspirational motivation refers to the duty of the transformational leader to inspire the followers towards motivation. It is the level to which the leader presents a dream which is eye-catching and inspiring to subordinates. Learning of the workforce is given special attention through organizational learning processes for creating awareness about the organizational vision, mission and objectives (Jiang et al., 2017).

4. Individualized consideration asserts that every employee is treated as a distinct contributor in the workplace. The leader will perform as a mentor, therefore gives attention to each member of the team, his/her needs, as well as accepts extends to respect for the apprehensions and genuine requirements of each employee (Larsson et al., 2015).

Transactional Leadership Style

Transactional leaders are more managers and fewer leaders. That’s why this leadership is also called managerial leadership because of the focus of such leaders on the productivity of the organization, administration, and performance. The transactional leader takes their relationships with the subordinates as an exchange process: performance exchanged with rewards and punishments, whatever is applicable. Contingent rewards and the book of rules and regulations are two major tools used by such leaders to manage subordinates and other organizational resources (Sultana, Darun, & Yao, 2015).

Bass's (1997) notes that transactional leaders use rewards/punishments as well as the active and passive management by exception as the instrument to achieve required performance from the employees.




1. Contingent rewards (Bass, 1997) are either rewards or punishments contingent upon the performance of the employees. All these are documented in the rules and regulations of the organization. The employees are considered as fellows entering into a contract with the organization mentioning the performance required for the salary or rewards as well as punishment on bad performance (Sultana et al., 2015).

2. Passive Management, by Exception, implies that leaders do not take any action until the problem gets really serious and the workers have to work as per prescribed rules. They stay passive by avoiding the work situations unless they are requested to take some action as an officer or manager as per rules (Sultana et al., 2015). 

3. Active Management, by Exception suggests that some managers keep the performing workers under observation with the intention to correct them during the work if they mistake or deviate the rules (Larsson et al., 2015). 




Schematic Diagram of the Theoretical Framework



Findings of the Field Study

Descriptive Results

 

Designation/Qualification Cross-tabulation
		Qualification		Total
		Post Grade	Graduate
Designation	Officers	53	15	68
	Staff	35	66	101
Total		88	81	169

 

Descriptive Statistics

 

	N	Min	Max	Mean	Std. Deviation
Social Media	169	2.00	5.00	3.5687	.75270
Transformational Leadership Style	169	2.22	4.11	3.0493	.42619
Transactional Leadership Style	169	1.00	4.00	2.7648	.81716

 

Testing of Hypotheses

 

Associations

 

Hypothesis # 1 SM is significantly Associated with Both Leadership-Styles

 

Correlations (n=169)
		Social Media	Transformational Style
Transformational Style	Pearson Correlation	.723**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
Transactional Style	Pearson Correlation	-.663**	-.455**
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000	.000

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Analysis

 

H-1 is accepted as true because the positive and negative relations of SM has been significantly verified by the statistical tests of correlation analysis.

 

Predictions (Positive)

 

Hypothesis # 2 SM Significantly Predicts Transformational Leadership-Style

 

Model Summary

 

Model		R	R Square		Adjusted R Square		Std. Error	F	Sig.
1		.723a	.523		.521		.29511	183.392	.000b
Coefficients
Model				Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients		t	Sig.
				B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)			1.587	.110			14.391	.000
	Social Media			.410	.030	.723		13.542	.000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Social Media b. Dependent Variable: Transformational Style

 

Analysis

 

R2 of .523 shows the strength of variation brought in the dependent variable by SM with significant statistics like Beta-weight and 100 per cent p-value. The hypothesis-2 is, therefore accepted.

Predictions (Positive)

 

Hypothesis # 3 SM Significantly Predicts Transactional Leadership-Style

 

Model Summary

 

Model		R	R Square		Adjusted R Square		Std. Error	F	Sig.
1		.663a	.440		.437		.61321	131.336	.000b
Coefficients
Model			Unstandardized Coefficients			Standardized Coefficients	t			Sig.
			B	Std. Error		Beta
1	(Constant)		5.335	.229			23.277			.000
	Social Media		-.720	.063		-.663	-11.460			.000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Social Media b. Dependent Variable: Transactional Style

 

Analysis

 

SM is negatively connected with transactional leadership as proved by negative statistics of Beta-weight (.720) with 44 per cent of the negative variation in the dependent variable. The hypothesis-3 is, therefore substantiated as verified.

 

Demographic Differences

 

Hypothesis # 4 Gomalian are Scoring Higher on SM & TRF

 

Group Statistics (Sector)

 

		Sector		N		Mean		Std. Deviation		Std. Error Mean
Social Media		Gomal		88		3.7045		.76013		.08103
		Qurtuba		81		3.4211		.72045		.08005
Transformational Style		Gomal		88		3.1199		.41989		.04476
		Qurtuba		81		2.9726		.42220		.04691
Transactional Style		Gomal		88		2.7102		.76177		.08121
		Qurtuba		81		2.8241		.87428		.09714
Independent Samples Test (Sector
			F		Sig.		t		df		Sig. (2-tailed)
Social Media	EVA		.058		.810		2.483		167		.014
	EVNA						2.488		166.852		.014
Transformational Style	EVA		.001		.974		2.274		167		.024
	VNA						2.273		165.691		.024
Transactional Style	EVA		2.479		.117		-.904		167		.367
	EVNA						-.899		159.330		.370

Key: EVA (Equal variances assumed); EVNA (Equal variances not assumed)

 

Analysis

 

From descriptive data, Gomalian scored higher on SM and TRF; both assumptions have been proved correct. Qurtubians, however, scored higher on TRF, but the results of this assumption are insignificant. Since two assumptions have been verified, therefore hypothesis-4 is accepted.

Hypothesis # 5 Staff is Scoring Lower than Officers on SM and TRF

 

Group Statistics (Designation)

 

	Designation			N	Mean			Std.Deviation		Std. Error Mean
Social Media	Officers			68	4.0147			.55136		.06686
	Staff			101	3.2684			.72235		.07188
Transformational Style	Officers			68	3.2663			.38160		.04628
	Staff			101	2.9032			.39242		.03905
Transactional Style	Officers			68	2.4835			.66352		.08046
	Staff			101	2.9542			.85836		.08541
Independent Samples Test (Designation)
			F		Sig.		t		df		Sig. (2-tailed)
Social Media		EVA	15.991			.000	7.218		167		.000
		EVNA					7.602		164.311		.000
Transformational Style		EVA	.005		.944		5.965		167		.000
		EVNA					5.998		146.583		.000
Transactional Style		EVA	5.659		.018		-3.818		167		.000
		EVNA					-4.012		163.754		.000

Key: EVA (Equal variances assumed); EVNA (Equal variances not assumed)

 

Analysis

 

Officers have higher averages on SM and TRF, which is verified by the tests; therefore, hypothesis-5 is accepted because two out of three assumptions have been substantiated. Staff score high on TRS; however, the statistics on this test are insignificant. 

Discussions & Conclusions

Since TRF is founded on the fact that human capabilities have to be capitalized on by the leaders and managers, therefore, SM obviously suits the best to such work environment where higher levels of connectivity and huge traffic of data sharing are the pre-requisite. Conversely, TRS leaders are more managerial than a leader in the true sense. They follow the rules and want their subordinates and followers to do the same. Rules and regulations are documented and needed to be communicated once. The continuous flow of information between leader and followers is not needed but exceptionally. So, the role of SM is reduced under such work conditions and organizational behavior.

It can, therefore, be concluded that SM is the best tool for TRF type of leaders and their workplaces. Organizations should capitalize on the potentials of SM in the best of their organization by creating higher levels of teamwork spirit among the workers and their supervisors. Field study verifies that SM is positively connected with TRF and its relationship with TRS is negatively significant. The relation is negative because SM tools are not needed rather irrelevant to the successful implementation of TRS kind of work environment. Further, the demographic differences are also critical because they have emerged statistically significant.

References

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