Sharing the fire

Seminal articles on organizational commitment in public organizations have assumed that employees reciprocate the attitudes of their peers, but recent studies suggest that the impact of managers´ organizational commitment on employees´ organizational commitment depends on how leaders convey their organizational commitment. In this study we investigate how transformational leadership moderates the relationship between managers´ and employees´ organizational commitment. Multilevel data from surveys of 68 principals and 1,349 teachers in the area of upper secondary education show that there is no direct relationship between principals´ and teachers´ organizational commitment, but that transformational leadership moderates the relationship.