Tran Thi Minh Hai, Tran Thi Minh Phuong

DOI: 10.26480//bedc.02.2025.54.63

ABSTRACT
Vietnam’s retail sector in general and Hanoi in particular, is facing increasing competitive pressures, high employee turnover rates and growing demands for service quality improvement, making the maintenance of employees’ organizational commitment a core managerial challenge. Prior studies indicate that leaders’ behaviors and leadership styles play a central role in shaping employees’ work attitudes and engagement related behaviors. However, empirical evidence regarding the magnitude and underlying mechanisms of the impact of transformational leadership remains inconclusive, particularly in labor intensive service industries and within Eastern cultural contexts such as Vietnam. Building on transformational leadership theory and social exchange theory, this study develops a multidimensional analytical framework to disentangle the distinct effects of the five components of transformational leadership idealized influence (attributes), idealized influence (behavior), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration on the three dimensions of organizational commitment, namely affective, continuance and normative commitment. This approach addresses a key limitation of prior studies that have predominantly treated transformational leadership as a composite construct, potentially obscuring the differential and even opposing effects of specific leadership components within particular organizational contexts. The study adopts a mixed methods research design, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches to refine the measurement scales and analyze survey data collected from retail employees in Hanoi. The proposed research model and hypotheses are tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS￾SEM), allowing for the simultaneous assessment of both the measurement and structural models and the quantification of the strength of each leadership component’s effect on different forms of organizational commitment. This method is particularly appropriate given the model’s structural complexity and the non￾normal distribution of the data. The study is expected to make three main contributions. First, from an academic perspective, it provides new empirical evidence on the heterogeneous effects of transformational leadership in the context of Vietnam’s retail sector, thereby extending and refining existing conclusions on the relationship between leadership and organizational commitment. Second, from a methodological perspective, the study reinforces the value of a multidimensional approach and the application of PLS-SEM in organizational behavior research. Third, from a practical perspective, the findings offer a scientific basis for retail managers to shape and prioritize appropriate leadership behaviors in order to strengthen employee commitment, mitigate turnover risks and promote sustainable organizational development.