Transforming or Transacting? The Role of Leaders in Organisational Transition Available to Purchase

Within accounts of and frameworks for organisational leadership, especially in the public sector, there is continuing enthusiasm for the distinction between transformational and transactional models, where the latter is typically compared unfavourably with the former. This paper reports on a review of the literature on organisation transition (that is mergers and acquisitions), which found this distinction helpful in ordering the material considered. Unexpectedly, the review found that more of the advice contained within the papers examined focused on interventions that could be broadly categorised as transactional rather than transformational. This seems an important finding in a context where the distinction continues to have salience and when transformational characteristics are often seen as being essential to leadership and transactional attributes are perceived as merely being suggestive of management.