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 mangers’ 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.
