The moderating effects of emotional intelligence on the relationship between communication climate and leadership styles with attitude toward organizational change among secondary school teachers in Selangor / Nusrah Ahmad Mukhtar

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between communication climate, leadership styles, emotional intelligence and attitude toward organizational change among secondary school teachers in Selangor based on teachers‟ perceptions. The theoretical framework for describing the attitude was adapted theory based on the three-stage model. The dependent variable for this study was the attitude toward organizational change. The independent variables for this study were communication climate, leadership styles and emotional intelligence. A total of 360 respondents from five schools in Selangor were selected. Data were obtained through a set of selfadministered questionnaire adopted from established instruments. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Results of the Pearson correlation indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between communication climate, leadership styles, emotional intelligence and attitude toward organizational change. In addition, the results of the multiple regression analysis showed a very strong contribution of transformational leadership style and emotional intelligence with 43.8% of the explained adjusted R² in attitude toward organizational change. However, emotional intelligence had the strongest relationship with attitude toward organizational change. Interestingly, emotional intelligence appeared to be a quasimoderator that moderated the relationship between transactional leadership style and attitude towards organizational change. This study contributes to scientific knowledge with regard to the role of the communication climate, leadership styles and emotional intelligence in the creation of positive attitude toward organizational change. The results of this study have various practical implications which address different target groups particularly the teachers and principals to enhance their emotional intelligence as well as to improve the leadership styles. Clearly, the study exhibited potential concept and actions to be implemented in the efforts to instill positive attitude toward organizational change and eventually to achieve successful organizational change process.