Empowering Leadership, Risk-Taking Behavior, and Employees’ Commitment to Organizational Change: The Mediated Moderating Role of Task Complexity

Successful organizational change is an important factor for maintaining sustainable competitive advantage and growth in today‘s rapidly changing business environment. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between empowering leadership and the commitment to organizational change of Korean employees and also examine whether risk-taking behavior mediates the above relationship. Moreover, we attempt to address the moderating role and mediated moderating role of task complexity in the relationship between risk-taking behavior and commitment to organizational change. The main hypotheses were tested using a cross-sectional design, with questionnaires administered to 275 employees working in Korean firms. The results of the empirical analysis revealed that empowering leadership was positively related to commitment to organizational change. The results also showed that risk-taking behavior positively mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and employees’ commitment to organizational change. More importantly, we found that the indirect effect of empowering leadership on commitment to organizational change via risk-taking behavior was stronger when task complexity was high. Uncovering the relationship between empowering leadership and employees’ commitment to organizational change through the mediating role of risk-taking behavior and the mediated moderating role of task complexity has useful theoretical and practical implications. The limitations of the study are discussed along with suggestions for future research.