The International Journal of Human Resource

Management

ISSN: 0958-5192 (Print) 1466-4399 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rijh20

Transformational and transactional leadership

and employee’s entrepreneurial behavior in
knowledge–intensive industries

Bilal Afsar, Yuosre F. Badir, Bilal Bin Saeed & Shakir Hafeez

To cite this article: Bilal Afsar, Yuosre F. Badir, Bilal Bin Saeed & Shakir Hafeez (2016):
Transformational and transactional leadership and employee’s entrepreneurial behavior in
knowledge–intensive industries, The International Journal of Human Resource Management,
DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2016.1244893

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2016.1244893

Published online: 17 Oct 2016.

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The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2016.1244893

Transformational and transactional leadership and

employee’s entrepreneurial behavior in
knowledge–intensive industries
Bilal Afsara, Yuosre F. Badirb, Bilal Bin Saeedc and Shakir Hafeezc
a
Department of Management Science, Hazara University Mansehra, Mansehra, Pakistan; bSchool of
Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathum Thani, Thailand; cDepartment of Management
Science, COMSATS Abbottabad, Abbottabad, Pakistan

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Leaders play a vital role in encouraging and supporting the Transformational leadership;
initiatives of individual employees to explore new opportuni- transactional leadership;
ties, to develop new products or to improve work procedures entrepreneurial behavior;
for the benefit of the organization. Entrepreneurial behavior psychological empowerment
is imperative for innovation, growth, and organizational suc-
cess. Transformational leadership, in contrast to transactional
leadership, has been argued to be particularly effective in
engendering entrepreneurial behavior. However, empiri-
cal evidence for this relationship is scarce and inconsistent.
Addressing this issue, the current study examines the moder-
ating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship
among transformational leadership, transactional leadership,
and entrepreneurial behavior. Data were gathered from a
cross-industry sample of 557 employees and 64 leaders from
eight different knowledge-intensive organizations. The results
show that transformational leadership is positively related to
entrepreneurial behavior, whereas transactional leadership
negatively influences it. We found that transformational lead-
ership is positively related to entrepreneurial behavior only
when psychological empowerment is high, whereas transac-
tional leadership has a negative relationship with entrepre-
neurial behavior only under these conditions.

1. Introduction
The global economy is creating deep and rapid changes for knowledge-intensive
organizations all over the world. The answer to today’s competitive and fast-
changing environment is risk taking, proactiveness, and innovativeness – in one
word: entrepreneurial behavior. Successful knowledge-intensive organizations
gain competitive advantage from entrepreneurial activities of their human capital

CONTACT  Bilal Afsar  bilalafsar@hu.edu.pk

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2    B. Afsar et al.

(Von Nordenflycht, 2010; Wisse, Barelds, & Rietzschel, 2015). Entrepreneurial

behaviors are high on the agenda of contemporary knowledge-intensive firms
due to intangible, heterogeneous, and perishable nature of the services (Hislop,
2005; Pina & Tether, 2016). Owing to a strong need for minor improvements in
products, services, and processes, the critical role of employees’ entrepreneurial
behavior to keep pace with rapid changes has become pivotal.
Entrepreneurial behavior has been defined as the identification and exploitation
of opportunities and the extent to which employees take business-related risks
and proactively engage in the conception, recognition, and realization of oppor-
tunities at workplace (de Jong & Den Hartog, 2007; de Jong, Parker, Wennekers,
& Wu, 2015). Work in organizations has become more knowledge based and less
rigidly defined. In this context, employees through their ability to identify and
exploit opportunities can improve business performance by introducing new and
better products, services, and work processes (de Jong et al., 2015). The question
arises how management can help employees to display entrepreneurial behav-
iors. Leaders do have a strong influence on employee behavior (Müceldili, Turan,
& Erdil, 2013), and entrepreneurial behavior is no exception.
Previous work has indicated that employees’ entrepreneurial activity and
opportunity pursuit depend greatly on leadership style (Krause, 2004; Moriano,
Molero, Topa, & Mangin, 2014; Saeed & Wang, 2014). Therefore, management
should try to identify which leadership style can stimulate entrepreneurial behav-
ior/intentions among their employees. Despite agreement on the importance of
leaders in triggering entrepreneurial behavior, little integration of leadership and
individual intrapreneurship research is found in the literature (Chang, Bai, & Li,
2015). To understand what engenders entrepreneurial behavior remains a crucial
research question to be investigated (Prabhu, McGuire, Drost, & Kwong, 2012).
The core leadership function of transformational and transactional leadership is
to encourage individuals to take risks and stimulate their proactive and innovative
abilities (Yukl, 2002). Bass (1999) and Howell and Avolio (1993) integrated trans-
actional and transformational leadership styles and found them to complement
each other in achieving desired goals and outcomes. That is why this study has
incorporated both transactional and transformational leadership styles to better
understand the effects of these leadership theories on entrepreneurial behavior,
as both lead people in contrasting ways and construct reality in different dimen-
sions (Reuvers, van Engen, Vinkenburg, & Wilson-Evered, 2008; Saeed & Wang,
2013). The impact of transformational leadership on innovation is stronger than
transactional leadership (Saeed, Wang, & Peng, 2014; Waclawski & Church, 2002);
but these results do not provide evidence about the impact of transactional and
transformational leadership on the entrepreneurial behavior of employees. We
believe that the impact of transformational and transactional leadership to engen-
der entrepreneurial behavior among employees and the psychological mechanism
which surround these relationships would address one of the many issues which
are still unresolved.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   3

Prior research has not investigated the impact of the influential processes of
employee’s psychological mechanisms on transformational leadership (e.g. Jaiswal
& Dhar, 2015; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). One particularly promising psycho-
logical mechanism that may moderate the relationship between transformational
and transactional leadership styles and entrepreneurial behavior is psycholog-
ical empowerment – an employee’s cognitive state characterized by increased
intrinsic task motivation, perceptions of competence and self-determination to
initiate and implement work behaviors (Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989). Pieterse,
Van Knippenberg, Schippers, and Stam (2010) studied the interaction effect of
psychological empowerment on the relationship between transactional leadership
and employee creativity and suggested to further explore this interaction effect on
other employee behaviors. Transformational leaders inspire and motivate employ-
ees to display positive work behaviors; and psychological empowerment being a
motivational construct would affect the employee’s work outcomes.
Theoretically, this study contributes to the past literature in two ways. First,
our finding contributes to the leadership literature by showing that transforma-
tional leadership promotes employee’s entrepreneurial behavior. Second, our study
also enriches the intrapreneurship literature that transformational leadership is
contingent on employees’ perceptions of psychological empowerment to affect
the level of entrepreneurial behavior. Practically, findings of our study provide
clearer guidelines to practitioners on what leaders can do and how psychologi-
cal empowerment may account for different level of employees’ entrepreneurial
behavior. Accordingly, this study has two objectives: first, to examine the effect of
transformational and transactional leadership styles on employee’s entrepreneurial
behavior; second, we seek to add to the ongoing development of the transactional–
transformational leadership paradigm by testing a new and important moderator,
psychological empowerment.

2.  Theoretical framework and hypotheses

2.1.  Transformational leadership and entrepreneurial behavior
Leadership theory distinguishes between two leadership styles: transformational
and transactional (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006). Transformational and trans-
actional leadership are often presented as being at opposing ends of a spectrum.
Wang, Tsui, and Xin (2011) noted that transactional leadership better predicted
individual task performance (behavior prescribed by the job role), while trans-
formational leadership predicted better contextual performance (organizational
citizenship behavior, which describes performance above and beyond what is
delineated by job requirements alone). Both styles of leadership augment each
other to achieve higher levels of employee’s performance but the difference lies
in goal setting and motivation methods (Tyssen, Wald, & Spieth, 2014). As
such, followers are inspired and intrinsically motivated to reach highest levels of
4    B. Afsar et al.

achievement and self-identification to strive beyond the call of duty rather than
thinking about rewards or punishments. Research shows that transformational
leaders are more effective in increasing discretionary behaviors (Wang et al., 2011)
and innovative work behavior of employees (Afsar, Badir, & Saeed, 2014) than
transactional leadership.
Since entrepreneurial behavior is discretionary, vision-directed, organization-
wide action that purposefully and continuously rejuvenates an organization (Mair,
2005; Saeed & Wang, 2013), therefore it describes performance above and beyond
what is delineated by job requirements alone. Given our broad, behavior-based
definition, we identified three features of entrepreneurial behavior for investi-
gation: innovation, proactivity, and risk taking. These features are discretionary
and they represent a range of behaviors that entrepreneurial workers may engage
in – including generating and searching out ideas, identifying opportunities and
threats, championing ideas and selling those to peers in the company, putting effort
in making it happen, and boldly moving forward in the pursuit of opportunities
while accepting the risk of potential losses.
Transformational leadership is imbued with inspirational motivation, collective
sense of mission, heightened awareness of goals, and exciting vision and aspiration
(Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999; Kark, Shamir, Avolio, & Yammarino, 2002). It aims
to transform the personal values and self-concepts of followers and shift them to
a new level of needs and aspirations. Transformational leaders ensure that indi-
viduals challenge the status quo and are stimulated intellectually by transcending
their own self-gains for higher collective gains. Transformational leaders inspire
and motivate followers to pursue entrepreneurial intentions to influence their
creative behaviors (Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002). They quite often change
organizational processes and systems to achieve an exciting future; delegate
authority to employees to come forward and accept responsibility; and seek them
to a higher level of commitment by providing flexibility to make decisions about
their work contexts (Boehm, Dwertmann, Bruch, & Shamir, 2015).
Leaders with transformational style understand that to foster followers’ inno-
vativeness, they should provide a clear vision, inner-strength, and self-confidence
to the followers so that they can argue successfully for the right course of action
instead of popular or established procedures (Malloch, 2014). Transformational
leaders transform existing systems, plan new ways to address problems, and exhibit
optimism and excitement about these novel perspectives (Elkins & Keller, 2003;
Müceldili et al., 2013). This heightened level of motivation is likely to stimulate
entrepreneurial behavior.
Transformational leaders articulate a compelling vision, engage in creative
process development, initiate and implement novel ideas, and facilitate diffused
learning to bring changes. Bass and Riggio (2006) and (Jung, Wu, & Chow, 2008)
found that followers of a transformational leader often show desire to engage in
creative endeavors when they experienced supportive and non-controlling work
environment where personal and organizational transformations and changes
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   5

are promoted. Moreover, articulation and alignment of follower’s personal value

systems with the interests of the organization may increase followers’ understand-
ing and commitment toward attainment of such desired collective values and
performance expectations (Boehm et al., 2015).
Transformational leaders encourage employees to craft new ways of doing
things, to initiate creative ideas and exploratory thinking, and to identify and
commit to long-term goals and mission (Qu, Janssen, & Shi, 2015). Entrepreneurial
behavior requires employees to have high need for achievement and low need for
conformance which is facilitated by transformational leaders. Transformational
leaders facilitate risk-taking behaviors of individuals to try new ways of working,
to change existing processes and systems for long-term benefits, and to exploit
opportunities effectively (Pearce et al., 2003).
Transformational leaders help followers to strive for more difficult and
challenging goals by changing follower’s propensity for creative perspectives
(Whittington, Goodwin, & Murray, 2004). This individualized support helps
followers to become more proactive and hence explore new opportunities
with a better focus on important organizational issues and processes leading to
value addition and goal alignment instead of initiating random irrational ideas.
Transformational leaders help to balance short-term goals with opportunity
exploitation and motivate employees to take risks associated with trying out new
processes. Based on above arguments, the following hypothesis is proposed:
Hypothesis 1: Transformational leadership is positively related to employees’ entrepre-
neurial behavior.

2.2.  Transactional leadership and entrepreneurial behavior

Transactional leadership is based on marginal improvement and maintenance of

the quantity of performance on an exchange or bargain relationship. Bass (1985)
defined transactional leadership as behavior that is based on reward and pun-
ishment. Transactional leaders plan goals to be achieved with an emphasis on
clarifying roles, task requirements and expectations to followers. Hence, they
increase compliance, reduce resistance, reward contributions and support mutual
dependence (Deichmann & Stam, 2015). Cheng, Yang, and Sheu (2014) suggested
that transactional leadership is positively related with creativity of middle-level
managers, whereas Öncer (2013) study showed that there was no association
between transactional leadership and innovativeness or risk-taking dimensions
of entrepreneurial orientation. The contradictory results may be explained by the
power distance, organizational culture, structure, and individual’s psychological
empowerment perceptions.
In transactional leadership, managers and followers meet to exchange valued
outcomes by clarifying roles and expectations, and both are rewarded on the
basis of desired contributions and performance (Epitropaki & Martin, 2013).
6    B. Afsar et al.

Leaders transact with followers and monitor their performance through bilateral
disclosures and management-by-exception. Transactional leaders avert risks, do
not challenge the status quo quite often, operate within specified boundaries,
concentrate on operational efficiency and effectiveness, prefer time constraints,
and maintain control through mutual exchange value systems of performance
against expectations (Si & Wei, 2012). In a knowledge intensive context, this might
inhibit employee’s motivation to take risks, and create and implement new and
useful ideas.
Transactional leaders usually try to maintain the status quo and control their
subordinates instead of envisioning an exciting and challenging future. Thus,
transactional leadership can be argued to be negatively related to entrepreneur-
ial behavior because it does not stimulate individuals to explore and exploit
opportunities as it is based on risk aversion and maintenance of the status quo.
Moreover, followers try to restrict themselves to conformance and doing exactly
what the leaders have told them instead of exploring and exploiting opportunities
(Boerner, Eisenbeiss, & Griesser, 2007; Moss & Ritossa, 2007; Ryan & Tipu, 2013).
Transactional leaders establish clear structures and roles for their followers. The
relationship between leader and followers is ‘transactional’ (i.e. ‘if you give me that,
I will give you this’), where rewards and contingencies are in control of the leader
(Deichmann & Stam, 2015). In order to preserve stability in the organizations,
a transactional leader closely monitors performance of the followers and checks
for any deviances, mistakes, and errors. As a result, the followers might consider
it as rigid, inflexible, bureaucratic, centralized, and less-empowering scenario,
inhibiting entrepreneurial behavior.
Transactional leaders perform better under conditions of certainty, stability,
routine tasks, and less dynamic contexts. Instead of introducing change, trying
out new solutions, and envisioning continuous innovations, they seek consistency,
stability, status quo, and steadiness (Deichmann & Stam, 2015). They develop
understanding with their followers on the basis of mutual exchange; where good
deeds and fulfillment of goals is rewarded and bad deeds and inability to achieve
goals are punished. Transactional leaders reward performance which is according
to clear expectations communicated to followers. Followers of a transformational
leader are motivated extrinsically to perform better.
Lack of intrinsic motivation in transactional leadership might stall followers in
generating new ideas and innovate. Mostly, transactional leaders are concerned
with operational effectiveness and improving efficiency of the processes within the
boundaries of existing systems (Jung, 2001). The followers in such an environment
strive only to achieve the negotiated level of performance on which their rewards
or punishments would be decided. They feel that thinking entrepreneurially is the
responsibility of their leaders (Rea & Parker, 2012) and they will not be rewarded
for bringing out of the box, novel and useful ideas to their organizations. In such a
highly structured and controlled environment, the creative abilities of employees
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   7

Psychological
empowerment

H3

Transformational H1
leadership
H4 Entrepreneurial
behavior
Transactional H2
leadership

Figure 1. Research model.

stagnate and they become demotivated to engage in entrepreneurial activities

(Moriano et al., 2014). Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Transactional leadership is negatively related to employees’ entrepre-
neurial behavior.

2.3.  The moderating role of psychological empowerment

Many researchers used psychological empowerment as a moderator to deter-

mine the impact of transformational leadership on various employee behaviors,
such as organizational commitment (Avolio, Zhu, Koh, & Bhatia, 2004), job sat-
isfaction and turnover intention (Barroso Castro, Villegas Periñan, & Casillas
Bueno, 2008), workplace aggression (Hepworth & Towler, 2004), and motivation
(Epitropaki & Martin, 2013). However, there is a paucity of research on the analysis
of moderating effect of psychological empowerment on the relationships among
transformational, transactional leadership and work outcomes with respect to
entrepreneurial behavior. This research examines the effect of an employee’s per-
ception of psychological empowerment on the entrepreneurial behavior through
transformational and transactional leadership.
Psychological empowerment is defined as ‘increased intrinsic task motivation
manifested in a set of four cognitions (competence, impact, meaning, and self-
determination), reflecting an individual’s active orientation to his or her work role’
(Spreitzer, 1995; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). It is quite different from traditional
empowerment which comprised a set of managerial practices solely focusing
on delegation principles (Leach, Wall, & Jackson, 2003). There have been mixed
empirical results of the relationship between transformational–transactional
leadership and work outcomes (Afsar et al., 2014). One possible explanation of
these conflicting results may be the dynamic nature of leader’s behavior which
should balance followers’ beliefs and circumstances (Reicher, Haslam, & Hopkins,
2005; Shamir, 2007).
Leader effectiveness is usually moderated by other factors such as environ-
mental dynamism, task context, culture, organizational structure, job autonomy,
8    B. Afsar et al.

and follower characteristics (Osborn & Marion, 2009). As leader effectiveness is

dependent on circumstances, therefore, we argue that the direct effect of trans-
formational and transactional leadership styles on entrepreneurial behavior of
employees may not give us a better understanding, unless we investigate the role
of moderating variables.
Transformational leaders often emphasize cooperation, collective task
accomplishment (Liu & DeFrank, 2013), learning by sharing experiences, control
and freedom in decision-making, and delegating authority to execute ideas which
fosters employees’ participation in novel idea initiation and implementation
(Gong, Huang, & Farh, 2009). Basu and Green’s (1997) analysis of 225 employees,
and Krause’s (2004) examination of 339 managers found that transformational
leadership affected employees’ ability and willingness to innovate and suggested
that this relationship might be mediated by some individual level processes. Afsar
et al. (2014) found that psychological empowerment moderated the relationships
of transactional and transformational leadership with creativity and innovative
work behaviors. Thus, transformational leadership builds a work environment in
which employees feel internal empowerment, motivation, meaning, inspiration,
self-development, competence, and self-management, without direct supervision
or intervention conducive to exploit opportunities and give creative solutions
(Afsar et al., 2014) and self-organizing behavior (Nicholls-Nixon, 2005).
High level of psychological empowerment is essential to act on the inspirations
of transformational leaders (Yukl, 2002). When employees feel that they have
personal decision-making control, ability to influence others, freedom, flexibil-
ity, meaning of the work, inspiration to achieve an envisioned attractive future,
they tend to produce more creative endeavors to enhance job performance (Lan
& Chong, 2015). Transformational leaders strongly inspire employees high on
psychological empowerment to propose new dynamic solutions, take risks, exploit
opportunities, and engage in entrepreneurial behaviors (Deichmann & Stam,
2015). On the other hand, employees low in psychological empowerment fear
uncertainty and become demotivated. In such case, inspiration from transfor-
mational leaders becomes less effective and lack of motivation hinders entrepre-
neurial behavior of such employees.
Generally, an individual with psychological empowerment feels autonomy
and freedom to engage in ‘trial and error’ and develop new ideas to carry out
organizational processes efficiently and effectively (Ramamoorthy, Flood, Slattery,
& Sardessai, 2005; Spreitzer, 1995). The success and failure of searching, explor-
ing and exploiting new opportunities and proposing creative solutions of prob-
lems involve trial and error. Empowered employees may engender higher level of
entrepreneurial behavior as the organization expects them to reciprocate without
fearing about bureaucratic rules and regulations.
Another important trait of transformational leaders is their ability to encour-
age in-depth intellectual processing, questioning norms, concepts, practices
and processes. This would help followers to approach old problems in new ways
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   9

(Deichmann & Stam, 2015). Transformational leaders do influence entrepreneur-

ial orientation and behaviors of employees by acting as mentors, and personalizing
their interactions with followers by listening effectively, identifying different needs,
desires and behaving in ways that demonstrates an acceptance of individual dif-
ferences. Thus, the leader delegates tasks based on individual ability and qualities
(Tyssen et al., 2014).
Empowered employees have positive emotional support to find meaning in
their work; they are more likely to be motivated intrinsically to have an impact
on value systems, which in turn may promote intrapreneurship and task accom-
plishment (Afsar et al., 2014). Transformational leadership prepares employees
to take more responsibility and enhances beliefs about their capabilities to per-
form activities and accomplish tasks with novelty and creativity (Sun, Zhang,
Qi, & Chen, 2012). Such leaders pay close attention to their employees’ sense of
accomplishment which is expected to enhance employees’ innovativeness (Afsar
et al., 2014). Based on the above arguments, we hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 3: Employees’ perceptions of empowerment moderate the relationship
between transformational leadership and entrepreneurial behavior such that the rela-
tionship is positive with high psychological empowerment and weaker with low psy-
chological empowerment.
Transactional leadership is focused on close monitoring of subordinates against
specific performance criteria in which goals accomplished are rewarded and per-
formance deficiencies are punished (Antonakis & House, 2014). When employees
are empowered in organizations, they exhibit creative behaviors because they find
worth in their work roles (Jung et al., 2008). According to empowerment theory,
psychologically empowered individuals see themselves as self-determined and
competent and that their work has organizational impact and is meaningful (Sun
et al., 2012). This would enhance employees’ motivation and results in an ener-
gized state to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. Psychological empowerment is
regarding perception and belief of an individual that s/he can make a difference by
having autonomy in decision-making and initiating changes, having self-efficacy,
having skills and abilities to achieve goals, being self-determined, and feeling
meaning in job (Spreitzer, 1995).
As transactional leadership controls the environment, is less flexible, is restric-
tive in nature and relies on existing systems, the feeling of psychological empower-
ment moderates the negative effect of transactional leadership on entrepreneurial
behavior of followers. Schaufeli and Salanova (2008) argued that psychological
empowerment enhances felt responsibility and flexible role orientations which
encourages employees to devote more effort to bring change to the workplace.
Leaders can effectively influence follower’s behaviors but it is constrained by many
factors, such as HRM policies, external environment, support for innovation and
culture, to name a few. These factors shape perceptions of employees about psy-
chological empowerment independent of leadership style.
10    B. Afsar et al.

We argue that the effect of transactional leadership on employees’ creativity-

related outcomes such as entrepreneurial behavior is explained through enabling
them to make their own decisions and feel empowered at the work place
(Deichmann & Stam, 2015). The detrimental effect of transactional leadership
on entrepreneurial behavior of employees can worsen if they are unable to
realize meaning and purpose in the work, minimal control over work roles
and diminished determination to make a difference. Low level of psychological
empowerment might make followers view transactional leadership as restrictive,
controlling and demotivating, and therefore causing less innovative behavior. Si
and Wei (2012) study suggested that highly empowered employees under less
flexible systems and strict reward and punishment contingencies display greater
feelings of respect, more self-determination, more sense of common values, and
more harmonious work climate, leading to more intrinsic motivation and more
innovative behaviors.
Transactional leadership emphasizes in-role task performance, conformity,
risk-aversion, formal and organized systems, and strict control mechanisms.
Highly empowered employees might view such controlled and inflexible envi-
ronments as detrimental to their creative abilities (Afsar et al., 2014; Pieterse et al.,
2010), causing decreased entrepreneurial intentions. Under conditions of low psy-
chological empowerment, employees lack meaning, self-efficacy, determination
and impact to their work roles. Such employees operate better in controlled envi-
ronments with contingent rewards. According to Pieterse et al. (2010), the negative
effect of transactional leadership on innovative work behavior is moderated by
psychological empowerment. As employees high on psychological empowerment
have higher sense of mastery, self-efficacy over their tasks and work environments,
and influence over strategic, functional, administrative, and operating outcomes at
work, the negative effect of transactional leadership on entrepreneurial behavior
is much stronger as compared to employees low in psychological empowerment.
Based on the above arguments, we hypothesize that (Figure 1):
Hypothesis 4: Employees’ perceptions of empowerment moderate the relationship
between transactional leadership and entrepreneurial behavior such that the relation-
ship is negative with high psychological empowerment and weaker with low psycho-
logical empowerment.

3.  Research method

3.1.  Participants and procedures
Data were gathered from employees of eight different knowledge-intensive organ-
izations in China. The organizations were chosen from the banking and insurance
industries. China has realized that apart from human capital, it needs to invest
heavily on education and research, R&D, entrepreneurship, and innovation among
individuals (Chang et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2012). Research in the West suggests
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   11

that the transformational leadership model contributes to individual creativity,

innovation, and entrepreneurial activities (e.g. Jung & Sosik, 2002; Kark et al.,
2004). If the same holds true in China, encouraging transformational leadership
may constitute one element of the country’s strategy to innovate continuously
through its public.
We collected data from multiple industries and firms for better and deeper
understanding of the relationship structure among these constructs, particularly
in context of knowledge-intensive industries. Our respondents were subordi-
nates and their direct supervisors mainly from Marketing, Administration & HR,
Operations & Customer Care and IT departments of these eight organizations.
Respondents varied in hierarchical position and level of experience. The study
included employees and their direct leaders. The anonymity and confidentiality
of this survey were ensured to employees. We started by fixing appointments with
top level managers of these organizations. A total of 160 supervisors (20 in each
firm) and 800 subordinates (100 in each firm) was administered a questionnaire.
The measures of psychological empowerment, transformational leadership, and
transactional leadership were rated by the subordinates. To avoid common source
bias, direct supervisors were asked to rate the entrepreneurial behavior of their
subordinates. Subordinates were asked to place their names on the completed
questionnaire, so that responses could be matched with the supervisory ratings
of innovative work behavior.
Of the 800 surveys distributed to subordinates, 592 surveys were returned,
for a response rate of 74%. Of those 592 surveys, matching supervisory surveys
(a supervisor rated a subordinate who had also turned in a survey) were returned
for 557 individuals. A total of 64 out of 160 supervisors rated innovative work
behavior of their subordinates thus the usable matched data consisted of nine
subordinates’ ratings per supervisor, on average. The average age of respondents
was 35.2  years with a standard deviation of 8.57. The average tenure with the
organization was 7.46 years with a standard deviation of 4.14 years. Approximately,
61% of the sample consisted of males.

3.2. Measures

3.2.1.  Transformational and transactional leadership

A 20-item scale for transformational leadership and a 12-item scale for trans-
actional leadership were taken from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire
(MLQ) Form 5X (Bass & Avolio, 1995; Hartog, Muijen, & Koopman, 1997), includ-
ing idealized behaviors, idealized attributes, inspirational motivation, intellectual
stimulation, and individualized consideration (Bass & Avolio, 1995). The employ-
ees were asked to rate the frequency with which their direct leaders display behav-
iors, on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (frequently,
if not always). Sample items are ‘My leader talks optimistically about the future’
(transformational leadership) and ‘my leader provides assistance in exchange for
12    B. Afsar et al.

my effort’ (transactional leadership). The Cronbach’s alphas for ‘transformational

leadership’ and ‘transactional leadership’ were .82 and .87, respectively.

3.2.2.  Psychological empowerment

The 12-item Empowerment at Work Scale, developed by Spreitzer (1995),
using the four cognitive aspects of empowerment (meaning, competence, self-
determination, and impact) was used in this study. Employees were asked to rate the
extent to which they believe they are empowered in their jobs on a five-point scale
(one-strongly disagree to five-strongly agree). Sample item: ‘I have considerable
opportunity for independence and freedom in how I do my job’. Responses to the
items were averaged to form an overall psychological empowerment score with
a reliability of .89.

3.2.3.  Entrepreneurial behavior

The nine-item scale developed by (Pearce & Sims Jr., 2002) validated by other
researchers (e.g. de Jong et al., 2015; Kuratko, Ireland, Covin, & Hornsby, 2005;
Zampetakis & Moustakis, 2007) was used to measure employee’s level of entre-
preneurial behavior. The leaders were asked to rate the frequency with which
their subordinates displayed different behaviors (e.g. ‘This employee displays an
enthusiasm for acquiring new skills’) on 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to
5 (always). The reliability of entrepreneurial behavior scale was .81.

3.3.  Control variables

Based on previous research, we controlled for several relevant demographic factors

to better estimate the effect sizes of the hypothesized variables. In all our analyses,
we included age, job tenure, and gender as control variables. Job tenure, as years
in the current job, has been found to be negatively related to creative outcomes
(Pieterse et al., 2010). Prior studies have demonstrated that gender was not related
to proactive behavior (Jung et al., 2008; Pieterse et al., 2010). We find that gender
is not related to entrepreneurial behavior (β = .09, p = .37). Therefore, gender was
not incorporated in our final model.

4. Results
4.1.  Confirmatory factor analysis
We used AMOS 17.0 to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the
variables. For transformational leadership, we used items to form four first-
order dimensions, which were used as indicators of the overall transformational
leadership construct. For all other variables, we used the items themselves as
indicators of their corresponding latent variables. The results showed that
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   13

the four-factor model (transformational leadership, transactional leadership,

psychological empowerment, and entrepreneurial behavior) fit the data well
(λ² (327) = 925.41, p < .01; CFI = .95, NFI = .96, IFI = .964, RMSEA = .061). This
hypothesized model was significantly better than all other three-factor models. As
an example, the four-factor model was shown to have a significantly better fit than
the three-factor model in which we combined transformational and transactional
leadership into one factor (λ² (332) = 1489.47, p < .01, CFI = .843, NFI = .832,
IFI = .847; RMSEA = .127, with a λ² change of 564.06 (df = 5, p < .001)). The four-
factor model was also compared to a one-factor model in which all items loaded
onto one latent factor, and the four-factor model again yielded a significantly better
fit (∆λ² (5) = 759.27, p < .01). Overall, the discriminant validity of these constructs
was confirmed (Appendix 1).
Because most leaders (supervisors) evaluated the entrepreneurial behavior of
more than one follower (subordinate), we also computed the inter-class correlation
coefficient (ICC). The result (F = 1.285, p > .10; ICC (1) = .052) indicated that there
were no systematic differences in leaders’ (supervisors’) ratings of entrepreneurial
behavior. Thus, we used hierarchical moderated regression (Cohen, Cohen, West, &
Aiken, 2013) to test our hypotheses. All interaction variables were mean-centered
to reduce multicollinearity and enhance the interpretability of the interactions
(Cohen et al., 2013).

4.2.  Descriptive analyses

Table 1 presents means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study
variables. According to this table, the means range from .29 to 35.2 and the stand-
ard deviations range from .43 to 8.57. As expected, transformational leadership is
significantly correlated with entrepreneurial behavior (r = .19, p < .05) as well as
with psychological empowerment (r = .38, p < .01). Psychological empowerment
is also significantly correlated with entrepreneurial behavior (r = .21, p < .01).
Transactional leadership is negatively correlated with entrepreneurial behavior
(r = −.27, p < .001).

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations among the variables.

Variable (N = 557) M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Gender 29 (.43)
2. Age 35.2 (8.57) −.34**
3. Tenure 7.46 (4.14) −.13 −.30**
4. Transformational lead- 3.70 (.63) −.09 −.09 .06
ership
5. Transactional leadership 2.75 (.55) .04 .13 .11 .62**
6. Psychological empower- 3.92 (.56) .11 .14 .14 .38** .23***
ment
7. Entrepreneurial behavior 3.31 (.72) .17 −.33** −.35* .19* −.27*** .21** 1
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
14    B. Afsar et al.

4.3.  Regression analyses

Hierarchical-moderated regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized

relationships among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, psy-
chological empowerment, and entrepreneurial behavior. Initially, control vari-
ables were entered and then a regression of entrepreneurial behavior with both
control variables and independent variables (transformational leadership and
transactional leadership) was conducted. In the next step, psychological empow-
erment was added in the equation. In last step, we added the interaction terms,
transformational leadership  ×  psychological empowerment, and transactional
leadership × psychological empowerment to test our hypotheses.
Before taking the interactions into account, job tenure was negatively related
to entrepreneurial behavior (β = −.22, p < .01) and age was positively related to
entrepreneurial behavior (β = .35, p < .05). To test the hypotheses, we regressed
psychological empowerment on transformational leadership and transactional
leadership. Then, we regressed entrepreneurial behavior on transformational
leadership and transactional leadership. In the last step, we regressed entrepre-
neurial behavior on transformational leadership, transactional leadership and
psychological empowerment.
More specifically, we entered the control variables, gender, age, and organiza-
tional tenure, in the first step. Transformational leadership, transactional leader-
ship, and psychological empowerment were entered next, and then followed by the
product terms of transformational leadership and psychological empowerment,
and transactional leadership and psychological empowerment. The results are
shown in Table 2. Transformational leadership was positively related to entre-
preneurial behavior (β = .19, p < .05), supporting Hypothesis 1. Transactional
leadership was negatively related to entrepreneurial behavior (β = −.28, p < .01),
validating Hypothesis 2.
The third and fourth hypotheses posit the moderating role of psychological
empowerment on entrepreneurial behavior through transformational leadership

Table 2. Hierarchical regression analysis.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4
Variable b β b β b β b β
Age .32 .35* .29 .32* .30 .34* .29 .32*
Tenure −.07 −.22** −.07 −.21** −.07 −.22** −.07 −.22**
Transformational lead- .22 .19* .12 .11* .14 .13
ership
Transactional leadership −.35 −.28** −.34 −.27** −.32 −.26
Psychological empower- .33 .28** .31 .27**
ment (PE)
Transformational leader- .45 .25*
ship × PE
Transactional leader- −.64 −.28**
ship × PE
Notes: R² = .22* for Step 1; ∆R² = .06** for Step 2; ∆R² = .06** for Step 3; ∆R² = .09** for Step 4;*p < .05; **p < .01.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   15

and transactional leadership. Initially, a regression of entrepreneurial behavior

with both control variables and independent variables was conducted. To test
Hypotheses 3 and 4, we entered the main effect of transformational leadership
and transactional leadership as well as the interaction effects (transformational
leadership × psychological empowerment and transactional leadership × psycho-
logical empowerment) on entrepreneurial behavior. If the interaction paths are
significant, moderator hypotheses are supported.
A significant beta coefficient for each interaction term (transformational lead-
ership × psychological empowerment, transactional leadership × psychological
empowerment) indicates that the moderator variable acts as a moderator. We first
entered control variables and then the main effects of transformational leadership,
transactional leadership, and psychological empowerment were entered along
with the control variables. In last step, the interaction effects of psychological
empowerment with transformational leadership and transactional leadership were
entered along with the control variables and the direct effects of psychological
empowerment, transformational leadership, and transactional leadership. The
addition of moderated effects in the equation rendered transformational leader-
ship and transactional leadership no longer significant, but psychological empow-
erment remained significant (β = .27, p < .01). Psychological empowerment was
positively and significantly related to entrepreneurial behavior.
Step 4 provided a significant increase in variance explained over step 3
(ΔR² = .09; p < .01). The addition of the interactions between transformational
leadership and psychological empowerment explained 11% more variance for
entrepreneurial behavior in Step 4 over Step 3 adding more value to the model
over model with only main effects. More specifically, we found that the interaction
between psychological empowerment and transactional leadership was related
negatively and significantly to entrepreneurial behavior (β = −.28; p < .01). Hence,
Hypotheses 3 and 4 were supported.
For employees with high psychological empowerment, relationship between
transformational leadership and entrepreneurial behavior was positive and sig-
nificant (β = .31, p < .05). On the contrary, for employees with low psychological
empowerment, no significant relationship was found between transformational
leadership and entrepreneurial behavior (β = −.14, ns.). A negative relationship
between transactional leadership and entrepreneurial behavior was found for indi-
viduals with high level of psychological empowerment (β = −.49, p < .01); and we
could not find any significant relationship between transactional leadership and
entrepreneurial behavior for individuals who perceived low level of psychological
empowerment (β = .08, ns.).

5. Discussion
The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationships among trans-
formational leadership, transactional leadership, and entrepreneurial behavior by
16    B. Afsar et al.

focusing on psychological empowerment. Consistent with our hypotheses, this

study suggests four important conclusions. First, the results show that transfor-
mational leadership sets the most favorable managerial circumstances to foster
entrepreneurial behavior. This is in line with other studies that found that these
transformational leadership components foster employees’ creativity and innova-
tion (Afsar et al., 2014; Majumdar & Ray, 2011; Reuvers et al., 2008). Consequently,
managers of the knowledge intensive firms in particular are most effective in facil-
itating entrepreneurial behavior among their employees when they display trans-
formational traits of leadership such as share a sense of mission (i.e. inspirational
motivation), provide mentoring or coaching (i.e. individualized consideration),
arouse employees to think out of the box and in new ways (i.e. intellectual stimu-
lations), and gain their employees’ trust and confidence (i.e. idealized influence).
Second, transactional leadership, in contrast, is found to have a negative
effect on employees’ entrepreneurial behavior. Under transactional leadership,
employees are extrinsically motivated (i.e. contingency rewards and active man-
agement-by-exception) and thus they are less willing to go beyond their job
responsibilities to try out innovative ideas for the benefit of the organization.
This is consistent with Pieterse et al.’s (2010) finding that transactional leadership
is detrimental for followers’ innovative work behavior. Transactional leaders in
knowledge-intensive firms prefer to maintain status quo, interfere only when
mistakes and errors occur, and try to preserve consistency and stability and thus
in such less dynamic and highly controlled environment, employees become dis-
inclined to identify and exploit opportunities to benefit the organization.
Third, employees’ psychological empowerment perceptions moderated the
relationship between transformational leadership and entrepreneurial behavior.
Hence, an employee displays higher levels of entrepreneurial behavior when the
feeling of empowerment, respect, autonomy, meaning, self determination, and
competence while working with their leaders is strong. This is in line with previous
studies that have suggested that transformational or charismatic leaders influence
employees’ actions by increasing their psychological empowerment (Afsar et al.,
2014). The more the leaders enhance employees’ psychological empowerment,
the more employees are likely to experience the organization as desirable and
attractive to belong to; thereby increasing their motivation to turn any innovative
idea or project into a profitable venture for their organization.
Fourth, transactional leadership is negatively related to entrepreneurial behav-
ior only with higher psychological empowerment. If employees feel high levels
of cognitive state characterized by a sense of perceived control, perceptions of
competence, and internalization of the goals and objectives of the organization, it
is less likely that transactional leadership would help them to take risks and pursue
innovative actions that would be to the advantage of the whole organization. In this
sense, transactional leaders reduce the investments of employees in behaviors that
serve organizational interests (e.g. entrepreneurial behavior) because employees
focus merely on individual concerns and goals (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003).
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   17

Figure 2.  Moderating effect of psychological empowerment on the relationship between

transformational leadership and entrepreneurial behavior.

Figure 3.  Moderating effect of psychological empowerment on the relationship between

transactional leadership and entrepreneurial behavior.

The moderation effect of psychological empowerment on the relationship

between transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and entrepreneur-
ial behavior is illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, respectively.

5.1.  Theoretical implications

Our findings help to understand deeper the drivers of entrepreneurial behavior

among employees through focus on empowered followers and the relationship
they have with their leaders. It contributes to our understanding of entrepre-
neurial behavior through displaying the effects of two contemporary leadership
styles in order to provide in-depth and significant knowledge about the subject.
Transformational leaders give autonomy and freedom to employees by placing
emphasis on the meaning and worth of work roles that followers perform and
stimulate intellectual abilities of employees and inspire them to create opportu-
nities to significantly impact their work roles, which could lead to higher levels of
innovative work behavior. Thus, the effectiveness of transformational leadership
in encouraging employees to display entrepreneurial behavior is dependent on
psychological empowerment.
The positive relationship between transformational leadership and entrepre-
neurial behavior materializes under conditions of high psychological empower-
ment. A lot of research has drawn attention to the importance of psychological
18    B. Afsar et al.

empowerment in augmenting employee’s proactive behavior and creative out-

comes (e.g. Afsar et al., 2014; Pieterse et al., 2010). On the other hand, highly
empowered employees may view transactional leadership style as restrictive, less
flexible, controlling, and risk aversive which demotivates them to display entrepre-
neurial behavior. If the employees feel lower level of psychological empowerment,
the detrimental effect of transactional leadership on their entrepreneurial behavior
may be less strong. The results show that both styles of leadership seem to influ-
ence entrepreneurial behavior with psychological empowerment. Irrespective of
leadership behavior, employees with lower levels of psychological empowerment
were less likely to display entrepreneurial behavior. Higher psychological empow-
erment motivated employees to show entrepreneurial intentions even in case of
transactional leadership which is related negatively to entrepreneurial behavior.
Our study collected leadership and entrepreneurial behavior ratings from mul-
tiple industries and different departments within the same firm, increasing better
understanding of the relationships among the studied constructs and reducing
the potential effects of common methods and single source bias. Moreover, prior
studies that have examined the impact of transformational leadership and transac-
tional leadership on employees’ creative behaviors have not tested for moderating
effect of psychological empowerment (Afsar, Badir, & Kiani, 2016).
One of the very important implications of the present study is that transforma-
tional leadership is more helpful, beneficial, and effective in increasing entrepre-
neurial behavior as compared to transactional leadership, but only with employees
having perception and belief of higher psychological empowerment. The litera-
ture has been divided on the level of effectiveness of transformational leadership
and transactional leadership in engaging employees to show positive outcome
behaviors. However, this study suggests that to engender entrepreneurial behavior
among employees, a higher level of psychological empowerment is needed that
can warrant efficacy of transformational leadership.

5.2.  Practical implications

There are several practical implications that can be derived from our findings. It
is practically important for leaders to understand what fosters entrepreneurial
behavior among employees. Employees with high higher psychological empow-
erment display entrepreneurial behavior more frequently under the influence
of a transformational leader as compared to the employees who prefer personal
identities and goals over their organizational identities and goals. However, it
does not mean that organizations should simply endorse transformational lead-
ership or discourage transactional leadership, but think of ways to empower their
employees psychologically because that makes real difference when it comes to
enhancing entrepreneurial activities. The management has to develop training
programs which should not only focus on coaching their leaders to display certain
leadership behaviors, but should also train them to raise the level of psychological
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management   19

empowerment of their subordinates. To promote feelings of psychological empow-

erment, managers should articulate a vision to innovate continuously to inspire
employees, recognize their efforts and give autonomy in job-related activities,
clarify goals through collaboration and clearly specify tasks, responsibilities, and
rewards, understand their needs and demands, build trust and confidence among
employees to try out new ideas.
The most beneficial way to increase entrepreneurial behavior among employ-
ees is to stimulate transformational leadership and psychological empowerment
simultaneously. Continuous innovation is critical for leaders and as innovation
brings change in organization and employees who are socially interwoven care and
help each other to accept the change. Those who are socially distant are difficult to
convince for a change because they prefer status quo. By training managers to exert
transformational leadership, organizations in general and knowledge-intensive
firms in particular, may stimulate entrepreneurial behavior among employees.

5.3.  Limitations and recommendations

The current study is not without limitations. First, we were unable to establish
causality due to the cross-sectional nature of data. Second, we collected data from
multiple companies across multiple industries, but did not perform multiple-level
analyses. Third, we encourage researchers to explore other potential modera-
tor variables such as creative self-efficacy, personality traits, and creative process
engagement on the effects of transformational–transactional leadership on entre-
preneurial behavior and by conducting longitudinal studies to explore the causal
relationships implied in this study. Fourth, the present study relied on supervisory
judgments for measuring entrepreneurial behavior. Although it is presumed that
supervisory judgments are good measures of entrepreneurial behavior, there is
always the potential for bias in perceptual processes. Therefore, future research
might address this issue by including both supervisor and peer ratings in their
studies. This study analyzed the moderating role of psychological empowerment
on the relation between transformational leadership and entrepreneurial behav-
ior. However, transformational leadership affects other job behaviors such as job
satisfaction (Hoffman, Bynum, Piccolo, & Sutton, 2011; Worley & Lawler, 2010),
turnover intentions (Conger & Lawler, 2009), organization commitment (Kark
et al., 2004), and job performance (Avolio et al., 2004). Future research may con-
tinue to examine whether psychological empowerment moderates the effects of
transformational–transactional leadership on these outcome variables.
Notwithstanding these limitations, this article contributes to a better under-
standing of the organizational factors, such as leadership and psychological
empowerment, which influence entrepreneurial behavior. Specifically, the research
findings in this article suggest that promoting and facilitating transformational
leadership and psychological empowerment can be a great investment for organ-
izations that wish to foster employees’ entrepreneurial behavior. By training
20    B. Afsar et al.

managers to exert transformational leadership, organizations may stimulate entre-

preneurial behavior. Additionally, these managers can help organizations retain
valuable employees from quitting to exploit their ideas in an independent start-up.
Moreover, managers can develop a competitive hiring advantage by positioning
their organizations strategically as ones which offer supportive environment for
entrepreneurial behavior.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Appendix 1. Results of confirmatory factor analysis
Standardized factor Composite Average variance
Items loading reliability extract α
Transformational leadership .87 .75 .89
My leader instills pride in me when associated with others .73
My leader talks about my most important values and beliefs .86
My leader specifies the importance of a strong sense of purpose .89
My leader convinces me to go beyond self-interest for the good of the group .69
My leader acts in ways that build others’ respect for me .77
My leader considers moral and ethical consequences of decisions .73
My leader displays a sense of power and confidence .84
My leader emphasizes the importance of having a collective sense of mission .87
My leader talks optimistically about future .89
My leader talks enthusiastically about what needs to be established .92
My leader articulates a compelling vision of future .75
My leader expresses confidence through his/her behaviors that goals will be achieved .72
My leader re-examines the critical assumptions and questions whether they are appropriate .79
My leader seeks differing perspective when solving problems .78
My leader gets others to look at problems from many different angles .88
My leader suggests new ways of looking at how to complete assignments .84
My leader spends time coaching, teaching, and mentoring his/her followers .86
My leader treats others as individuals rather than just as a member of a group .89
My leader considers an individual as having different needs, abilities, and aspirations from others .91
My leader helps others to develop their strengths .92
Transactional leadership .83 .71 .85
My leader provides assistance in exchange for my effort .71
My leader clearly formulates expectations .68
My leader shows satisfaction if expectations were realized .73
My leader pays special attention to the breaking of rules and deviation of set standard .83
My leader draws attention to mistakes .85
As long as work meets minimal standards, my leader avoids trying to make improvements .86
My leader only intervenes when problems have arisen .94
My leader only reacts to problems if it is absolutely necessary .87
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 

My leader doesn’t bother me if I do not bother him/her .83

Problems have to be chronic before my leader will take action .82
My leader is a firm believer in ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’ .85
 25

Things have to go wrong for my leader to take action .72

 26 

Appendix 1 (Continued)
Standardized factor Composite Average variance
Items loading reliability extract α
Psychological empowerment .89 .78 .91
The work I do is very important to me .81
My job activities are personally meaningful to me .73
The work I do is meaningful to me .65
  B. Afsar et al.

I am confident about my ability to do my job .72

I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work activities .87
I have mastered the skills necessary for my job .89
I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job .80
I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work .87
I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom in how I do my job .75
My impact on what happens in my department is large .83
I have a great deal of control over what happens in my department .71
I have significant influence over what happens in my department .63
Entrepreneurial behavior .82 .69 .84
This employee displays an enthusiasm for acquiring new skills .86
This employee quickly changes course of action when results aren’t being achieved .77
This employee encourages others to take the initiative for their own ideas .83
This employee inspires others to think about their work in new and stimulating ways .76
This employee devotes time to helping others find ways to improve our products and services .69
This employee boldly moves ahead with a promising new approach when others might be more .71
cautious
This employee vividly describes how things could be in the future and what is needed to get us there .80
This employee gets people to rally together to meet a challenge .88
This employee creates an environment where people get excited about making improvements .76
Model fit indices
χ2 = 925.41, df = 327, χ2/df = 2.83, RMSEA = .061, GFI = .93, CFI = .95, NFI = .96, NNFI = .95