Impact of Servant Leadership on Employee Work Engagement: Mediating Role of Psychological Climate

Authors

  • Syeda Sana Zainab Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
  • Ungku Norulkamar Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
  • Muhammad Irfan Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to examine the relationship between servant leadership on employees’ work engagement. It also examined psychological climate as mediating variable in this relationship. Moreover, this study has considered social exchange theory as an underpinning theory to explain the relationship between servant leadership, psychological climate and work engagement. This study applied quantitative research design and data was collected using questionnaires from faculty members working in the universities of Pakistan. A total of 276 sets of data have been analysed through Structural Equation Modeling using SPSS version 27.0 and Smart-PLS 3. The findings of this study provide evidence that servant leadership is the key leadership style for Pakistani universities. In addition, the psychological climate significantly mediates the relationship between servant leadership and faculty members’ work engagement. In sum, the present study has extended the social exchange theory by incorporating psychological climate as mediator on the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement of faculty members working in the universities of Pakistan. The findings are useful to the universities of Pakistan to consider the servant leadership practices that are important in shaping powerful motivational process of psychological climate to enhance the level of work engagement among faculty members.

Author Biographies

Ungku Norulkamar , Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Ungku Norulkamar Ungku Ahmad is currently an Associate Professor of Management in the Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She received her PhD in 2011 from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Her work mostly focuses on organizational behaviour field which includes technostress, organizational commitment, OCB, emotional intelligence, leadership and organizational justice. She has co-authored three text books and is an editorial board member of several publications. She actively contributes as peer reviewer to various publications and also as research grant reviewer. She was the Head of Department for Business Administration Department from 2015 till 2018 and held the post of Director (Business Administration) in 2018 to March 2020.

Muhammad Irfan, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Muhammad Irfan Sheeraz is a Ph. D. Scholar in Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He is also Deputy Director in Higher Education Commission Pakistan. His area of expertise is organizational behaviour which includes organizational justice, Organizational citizenship behaviour, and leadership. He has several publications in renowned journals.

Published

2022-10-10

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 3 (2022): Fall 2022

Section

Articles

License

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