A Taiwanese Empirical Study of Online Group Buying from the Perspectives of Organizational Culture and Transformational Leadership

This study examines online group-buying from the perspectives of organizational culture and transformational leadership. A convenience sampling of 400 online group-buying individuals living in Taiwan was conducted in 2011, and this yielded 300 effective questionnaires, giving a return rate of 75%. ANOVA analyses and canonical correlation were used to examine the participants’ perceptions of organizational culture and the leadership of online group-buying initiators, and the relationship between these leadership behaviors and the organizational culture in their workplaces. The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) online group-buying activities occur most often in organizations with a “supportive” culture; (2) “idealized influence” is the most influential leadership behavior with regard to the perceptions of group-buying members towards group-buying initiators; and (3) the better initiators are able to perform with regard to “individual consideration” and “idealized influence,” the greater the positive effects on online group-buying activities in the organizations with “supportive” and “innovative” organizational cultures.