Transformational school leadership and teacher work engagement: PsyCap and perceived organizational support in China

This cross-sectional, quantitative study examines how transformational school leadership relates to teacher work engagement in China and specifies when these effects are most potent. Anchored in Conservation of Resources, Social Exchange, and Job Demands-Resources frameworks, we advance a novel moderated mediation model in which psychological capital functions as the motivational mechanism linking leadership to engagement, and perceived organizational support amplifies both the direct and indirect pathways. Data from K-12 teachers across five major Chinese cities were collected via validated instruments for leadership, psychological capital, perceived organizational support, and work engagement. Using PLS-SEM in SmartPLS, we established strong reliability and validity, minimal common method bias, and robust predictive relevance. Results substantiate the theorized model: transformational leadership is associated with greater teacher engagement, psychological capital explains this association, and supportive organizational climates strengthen both routes. The novelty of the study is that both mechanism and boundary condition were tested in one and education-specific framework and context. In practice, the results can be translated into three school improvement levers, including building transformational behavior of principals, implementing short interventions based on psychological capital-building in professional learning, and making support practices visible, which are indicators of organizational care. The combination of these actions offers a scalable model of improving the teacher engagement in reform-intensive systems and educates leadership preparation, policy formulation, and the resource distribution in Chinese schools.