An examination of the relationships between leadership style, quality, and employee satisfaction in R&D environments

The relationship between leadership style of all managers and the establishment of a quality environment in an R&D setting is considered in this empirical study of 511 engineers. It is found that both transformational leadership and transactional contingent-reward leadership are related to the establishment of a quality environment in the R&D part of a telecommunications firm. However, the impact of transactional contingent-reward leadership ceases to be significant once both leadership styles are considered simultaneously using structural equations. A transformational leadership style is also found to be related to employee satisfaction.