Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.1177/15480518261475717

Publication Title

Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

19 pp.

Abstract

Organizational support theory (OST) explains how employees develop and respond to beliefs about their organization, with perceived organizational support (POS) representing a central construct within this framework. Integrating psychological empowerment theory, we examine an intrinsic motivational pathway through which POS relates to employee in-role performance and identify transformational leadership as a contextual catalyst that may strengthen this process. We test a multilevel moderated mediation model using multisource and multi-time data from 217 employees and 41 supervisors. Results indicate that POS is positively related to in-role performance through the psychological empowerment dimensions of competence and self-determination. Moreover, transformational leadership strengthens the relationship between POS and psychological empowerment, such that the indirect effects of POS on in-role performance through meaning, competence, and self-determination are significant when transformational leadership is high, but not when it is low. These findings show how exploring additional mediating mechanisms within OST can reveal theory-driven boundary conditions that help explain why POS often, but not always, translates into performance. Practically, they suggest that organizations may improve returns on support-enhancing practices by pairing those investments with leadership behaviors that help employees convert organizational support into intrinsic motivation.

Rights

© The Authors 2026.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).  

ORCID

0000-0003-3365-5399 (Klinger), 0000-0003-4227-7043 (Siangchokyoo)

Original Publication Citation

Klinger, R. L., Siangchokyoo, N., & Sottiwan, T. (2026). Unlocking organizational support through psychological empowerment: Identification and test of transformational leadership as a catalyst of perceived organizational support. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/15480518261475717

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