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and improved products and services to meet the customer demands Damanpour Gopalakrishnan, 2001. Researchers Lukas and Ferrell, 2000; Bonner and Walker, 2004 have
classified product innovation in to four categories: product-line extensions, me-too products, new-to-the-world products, and product improvementsmodifications. Product-line extensions are
related to the extension of the existing product and are new to customers but not to the firm; Me- too products are related to the existing products of competitors. Firms produce and imitate the
existing products of their competitors. Such products are new to the firm but not to the existing market. New-to-the-world products are the newly developed products through research and
development and are new to the market as well as to the firm; while product improvement and modification are the products that carry even slight modifications to the old products, and so these
products will be new neither to the customer market nor to the current firm. On the other hand, process innovation is related to the changes in the processes or activities of producing final
products or services. This type of innovation is done to improve the overall efficiency of the internal processes and depends on the rate of implementation of new technology in the firms
Damanpour Gopalakrishnan, 2001. Lager 2002 classifies process innovation as 1 newness of process technology to the world --- at what extent a particular process technology is known by
the market and 2 newness of process technology to the company --- at what extent a particular process technology is implemented in the production system of a particular firm. Process
innovation helps in reducing the costs associated with the production and manufacturing processes; while product innovation aims at improving the quality of the products and at the same
time producing new products with different features and characteristics Lager , 2002. Fug sang 2010 explains that innovation in organizations means the creation of new things or adopting
new technologies. The central concept of innovation is the newness for organizations Vander Steen, 2009; Antonioli
, 2011. This ‘new’ can be a concept, idea, amenity, procedure, policy, process, structure, product, system, and much more West Farr, 1989; Windrum , 2008;
Fuglsang , 2010.
2.3 Relationship between transformational leadership and organizational
innovation
For organizations, innovation is related to the creation of valuable and useful new products or services For most organizations, innovation is a competitive strategy to outperform competitors.
The present study is related to organizational innovations in higher education institutions to attain
competitive position, thus a market oriented approach is adopted for the study. Accordingly, organizational innovation is the tendency of the organization to develop new or improved
services and providing these new services to its customers students in case of educational institutions. This approach is consistent with
Damanpours 1991 definition of product
innovations as, “new productsservices introduced to meet an external user or market need,” and is in-line with the
OECD 2004 as, “the successful bringing of the new product or service to the
market.” Transformational leadership has been found to enhance innovation within their organizations through inspiring and motivating their employees’ intellectual capabilities
Elkins and Keller, 2003.
Transformational leaders promote creative ideas within their organizations through championing of ideas
Howell and Higgins, 1990 . These leaders not only have the
vision, but also motivate their employees’ to perform beyond expectations by stimulating their intellectual senses to adopt innovative approaches in their work. Thus, in the process enhance
organizational innovation Mumford et al., 2002.
A number of empirical studies have been conducted on the role transformational leadership plays in
innovation e.g., Keller , 1992; Waldman and Atwater, 1994.
These studies examine the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation RD and in projects. However, recently, researchers have started
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looking at the influence of transformational leadership on innovation in organizational context. For example,
Jung et al. 2003 , conducted a study on the role of transformational leadership on
organizational innovation in Taiwan and found a strong and positive relationship between transformational leadership and innovation in organizational context. He opines that
transformational leaders, who articulate strong vision and champions the idea would strive to ensure the market success of the innovation. These leaders would encourage and mobilize their
employees to ensure the success of innovations
Jung et al., 2003. Keller 1992
has suggested that professional employees require more than traditional leader behaviors especially in RD
projects, where quality determines the performance. Furthermore, researchers view transformational leadership effectiveness in entrepreneurial activities and championing of ideas
and innovations necessary for understanding the market needs Howell and Higgins, 1990
. The present study proposes a positive relationship between transformational leadership and
organizational innovation which is conceptualized in this paper as including both the tendency of the organization to innovate and the success of innovations
. In line with the view suggested in the literature, the study formulates the research hypotheses as below
H
1
: There is significant relationship between transformational leadership dimensions and organizational
innovation.
H
1a:
There is significant relationship between idealized influence attribute and organizational innovation.
H
1b:
There is significant relationship between idealized influence behavioral and organizational innovation.
H
1c:
There is significant relationship between inspirational motivation and organizational innovation.
H
1d:
There is significant relationship between intellectual stimulation and organizational innovation.
H
1e:
There is significant relationship between individualized consideration and organizational innovation.
H
2
: There is significant impact between transformational leadership dimensions and organizational innovation.
H
2a:
There is significant impact between idealized influence attribute and organizational innovation.
H
2b:
There is significant impact between idealized influence behavioral and organizational innovation.
H
2c:
There is significant impact between inspirational motivation and organizational innovation. H
2d:
There is significant impact between intellectual stimulation and organizational innovation. H
2e:
There is significant impact between individualized consideration and organizational innovation.
3 Methodology
An organization that is able to improve its transformational leadership would be able to sustain academic staff. Previous research have shown that organizations with a more persuasive and
guiding leadership style would be able to improve the organization’s goals, increase the work effectiveness of employees and will increase organizational innovation. The study was conducted
under the framework as shown in figure.1. It demonstrates the variables transformational leadership dimensions Idealized Influence Attribute, Idealized Influence Behavior, Inspirational
