The impact of organisational leadership culture on a discretionary behaviour within organisations.

In this study we describe a predictable but previously poorly investigated relationship between transformational/transactional organisational leadership culture and participation in discretionary behaviour. Perceptions of organisational leadership culture were found to have a significant effect across the organisation on one measure of discretionary activity, specifically the completing and returning of a work-related questionnaire. Utilising wave analysis and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), findings suggested that respondents from differing organisational culture types responded to the questionnaire at different rates. Later respondents perceived lower levels of transformational culture and higher levels of transactional culture within their organisation than did early respondents. This finding suggests that as organisations become more transactional, employees are less likely to engage in work related discretionary behaviour. Therefore, in practical terms there are strong reasons why leaders should make organisational culture as transformational and non-transactional as reasonably possible. Other implications of findings are discussed and future enquires are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]