<![CDATA[Purpose – This study examines the unique and joint additive associations of transformational leadership and affective organizational commitment with employee work morale. It specifically addresses firm-level employee nesting and the construct-boundary separation of work morale from adjacent job attitudes. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was used with data from 215 employees across 12 manufacturing and service firms. Analyses included instrument validation, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multiple regression with cluster-aware estimation, random-intercept and firm-fixed-effects sensitivity models, and incremental-validity tests. Findings – The baseline model explained 41.2% of variance in work morale (Adjusted = .406). Both transformational leadership ( ) and affective commitment ( ) showed significant positive unique associations. Incremental tests and sensitivity models confirmed these associations remained stable after accounting for firm-level clustering. Originality/value – The study integrates Conservation of Resources theory and Affective Events Theory into an additive predictive framework. Methodologically, it demonstrates the necessity of reporting clustering diagnostics and sensitivity analyses in multi-firm samples before making inferential claims.]]>
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