Public servants’ perception of leadership style and its impact on organizational commitment

  • Received July 9, 2020;
    Accepted December 1, 2020;
    Published December 16, 2020
  • Author(s)
    Bissane Harb
    ORCID ,
    Boutheina Hachem
    ORCID ,
    Hassan Hamdan
    ORCID
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.18(4).2020.26
  • Article Info
    Volume 18 2020, Issue #4, pp. 319-333
  • TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ
  • Cited by
    3 articles
  • 1318 Views
  • 560 Downloads

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Lebanon is facing an unprecedented political and economic crisis. Consequently, the country now urgently needs more than ever committed public managers, more involved and more effective in their work responsibilities to enhance public sector performance and reduce the consequences of the crisis. Little research has been done on the role of leadership in promoting organizational commitment in the public sector in Lebanon. Thus, referring to the leadership full range theory, this study aims to investigate the association between leadership styles and organizational commitment with the mediating role of Leader-member exchange (LMX). It further aims to examine the relationships between gender, leadership style, LMX and organizational commitment in the Lebanese public context.
Data were collected via an online survey on a sample composed of 132 middle managers working in six public administrations in Lebanon. Linear and multiple regression analyses were carried out to test the direct and indirect effect of leadership styles on organizational commitment. The results indicated that both two styles of Bass are positively correlated with organizational commitment. The results also revealed a significant relationship between public servant gender and the quality of his relationship with the leader. Moreover, results showed that LMX doesn’t mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment, although it partially mediates the relationship between transactional leadership and organizational commitment. This study contributes to understanding of the mechanisms of developing organizational commitment through leadership styles. It also has implications for public service recruitment and training policies.

view full abstract hide full abstract
    • Table 1. Demographics variables
    • Table 2. Means and standard deviations
    • Table3. Inter-correlations between study variables
    • Table 4. Correlations between transformational leadership, transactional leadership, LMX and OC
    • Table 5. Comparison between women and men’s perceptions about leadership, LMX and organizational commitment
    • Table 6. Unstandardized coefficients for research models
    • Table 7. Model summary
    • Table 8. Regression results between the dimensions of leadership style and organizational commitment
    • Table 9. Mediator effect of LMX between transformational leadership and OC
    • Table 10. Mediator effect of LMX between transactional leadership and OC
    • Conceptualization
      Bissane Harb
    • Data curation
      Bissane Harb
    • Formal Analysis
      Bissane Harb
    • Funding acquisition
      Bissane Harb, Boutheina Hachem
    • Methodology
      Bissane Harb, Boutheina Hachem, Hassan Hamdan
    • Project administration
      Bissane Harb
    • Resources
      Bissane Harb, Boutheina Hachem, Hassan Hamdan
    • Software
      Bissane Harb
    • Supervision
      Bissane Harb
    • Validation
      Bissane Harb
    • Visualization
      Bissane Harb
    • Writing – original draft
      Bissane Harb
    • Writing – review & editing
      Bissane Harb
    • Investigation
      Boutheina Hachem, Hassan Hamdan
Related Articles

  • Transformational leadership for organizational change in the Lebanese public sector

    Bissane HarbORCID , Dina SidaniORCID doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.15
    Problems and Perspectives in Management Volume 17, 2019         Issue #2         pp. 205-216 Views: 2631 Downloads: 1221 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    The public sector is facing multiple changes. In a constantly changing environment, that is more and more demanding in terms of innovation and performance, the concept of leadership is of particular importance, as it is one of the few tools available to public managers.
    Based on the transformational leadership theory, the aim of this study is to explore how transformational leadership characteristics influence organizational change within the public sector in Lebanon. To serve this purpose, a qualitative approach is adopted based on a series of semi-focused interviews conducted with ten public managers running 10 public administrations. These administrations have undergone significant changes over the past five years.
    The results point out the importance of transformational behaviors adopted by public managers in leading change within the public sector in Lebanon, despite the multiple obstacles. They confirmed the role of two transformational dimensions related to idealized influence and inspirational motivation in the successful implementation of organizational change. This study contributes to better understanding of the role of transformational leadership in promoting change in the public sector.

  • Public finances, governance control and economic growth: a macroeconomic history approach

    Ola Honningdal GryttenORCID Researcher ID doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/imfi.16(1).2019.15
    Investment Management and Financial Innovations Volume 16, 2019         Issue #1         pp. 189-202 Views: 2553 Downloads: 499 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    The size of the public sector is an important tool in public governance. Public sector size may fuel both economic growth and political influence over the economy.
    By compiling and processing data from different sources of public accounts the paper aims at mapping the development of key financial indicators for the Norwegian central government sector during the transition period from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. The data enable us to give measures of the size of the public sector alone and compared to the overall economy.
    It is found that the sector started its continuous growth before politicians deliberately started to increase the sector’s size of the total economy. The paper also finds that an increase of the public sector often, but not always, reflects political economy regimes. Persistent growth in public finances as a tool for economic policy making did not take place before the introduction of the social-democratic regime in 1935.
    The paper also concludes that economic growth started before the growth in the public sector, suggesting that public sector growth might as well be a result of economic growth or vice versa.

  • Transformational leadership and change readiness and a moderating role of perceived bureaucratic structure: an empirical investigation

    Badri Abbasi doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.15(1).2017.03
    Problems and Perspectives in Management Volume 15, 2017         Issue #1         pp. 35-44 Views: 2300 Downloads: 969 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and change readiness through perceived bureaucratic structure among government employees in Rasht. As a methodology, descriptive method was applied using questionnaire to collect data. The studied population consisted of 600 employees from three state organizations including Municipality, Gilan Tax Department and Gilan Justice Court. According to Morgan table, the sample size was estimated at 234. This study examined six hypotheses, which were tested using multiple regression method. The results showed that transformational leadership had a positive direct effect on employee change readiness and its dimensions. However, substitution of the bureaucratic structure in the model eliminated the effect. Finally, the hypothesis on the effect of transformational leadership on change readiness through perceived bureaucratic structure was rejected.

Download Preview
Close
Problems and Perspectives in Management
Problems and Perspectives in Management