Leadership and Reform : Mapping the Causal Pathways of Performance Information Use

This paper offers empirical evidence on a specific question: how does leadership foster the use of performance data? More broadly, it informs the ways in which we understand how leadership can influence the implementation of management reforms. Previous research suggests that leadership matters to performance information use among their employees, but underspecifies the causal processes by which this influence occurs. This paper uses structural equation modeling to suggest that transformational leadership has a positive but indirect effect on performance information use via two mediating factors: Goal clarity and organizational culture. The results inform studies of leadership and reform by demonstrating how leadership can foster the effectiveness of new management systems. Even where leadership does not have a direct relationship on the reform outcome, it can still exert important indirect effects that could easily be missed by most methodologies