Who will be a Better Change Leader?: Schema-Based Leadership Perception on Followers’ Commitment to Change

We tested the effect of followers' perceived leadership schema congruence on leadership effectiveness in the organizational change context. Drawing on literature from implicit leadership theories (ILT) and social identity perspectives, we predicted that schema-based leadership perceptions - followers' perceived ILT congruence and leader's group prototypicality - explain leadership effectiveness, as measured by follower' commitment to change. We also investigated possible moderators, namely, followers' organizational identification and perceived uncertainty to change. Result of survey study (n=189) on employees of Korean firms supported our research prediction. ILT congruence and leader's group prototypicality were positively related to followers' commitment to change. Moreover, organizational identification positively moderated the effect of leader's group prototypicality on commitment to change. Meanwhile, perceived uncertainty to change showed negative moderation in ILT congruence but positive moderation in leader's group prototypicality, which can be expected from social cognition literature and social identity literature, respectively. Implications for further studies are also discussed.