The influence of paternalistic leadership on organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour at selected organisations in the Western Cape Province

• Main Author: Veloen, Monita
• Other Authors: Mahembe, Bright
• Language: en
• Published: University of the Western Cape 2016
• Subjects: Organisational citizenship; Organisational effectiveness; Organisational citizenship behaviour; Paternalistic leadership; Western Cape Province
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5274

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) === Achieving organisational effectiveness and sustainable growth is the ultimate goal of organisations in their quest to deliver the services required by society. The achievement of organisational effectiveness is not a random event; organisations rely on their employees' ability to go the extra mile by exhibiting some organisational citizenship behaviours. In order to elicit organisational citizenship behaviours, organisations need leaders who can cultivate some commitment in employees which can arguably lead to the enactment of organisational citizenship behaviours. The culture of an organisation is often determined by the beliefs, values and behaviour of the leader. A paternalistic leadership style is likely to create a culture in which caring for subordinates is crucial, moral integrity is greatly esteemed and authority is respected. When this type of culture is evident in the organisation certain desirable behavioural patterns will come forth from the employees. The purpose of the current research study is to answer the question, "Does paternalistic leadership have a significant influence on organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour among employees working in selected organisations in the Western Cape?". In order to answer the research question explaining the hypothesised relationships, the manner in which paternalistic leadership affect organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour was discussed culminating in a theoretical model which was developed and tested in the present study. The study was conducted using employees drawn from selected organisations in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The participants were asked to complete three questionnaires comprising the Paternalistic Leadership questionnaire developed by Cheng, Chou and Farh (2000); an adapted version of the Organisational Commitment questionnaire by Allen and Meyer (1991) and the Organisational Citizenship Behaviour questionnaire Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Moorman and Fetter (1990). Out of 300 questionnaires that were distributed to the employees, 230 (n=230) completed questionnaires were returned. Item and dimensionality analyses were conducted on all of the dimensions using SPSS version 23. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was executed on the measurement models of the instruments used. The proposed model was evaluated using structural equation modelling (SEM) via the LISREL version 8.80 software. It was found that both the measurement and structural models fitted the data reasonably well. The results indicated positive relationships between benevolent leadership and organisational commitment; authoritarian leadership and organisational commitment; moral leadership and OCB; and organisational commitment and OCB. There was, however, no significant relationship between moral leadership and organisational commitment; benevolent and OCB. Due to the fact that a few studies on paternalistic leadership exist in South Africa this study adds to the board of knowledge on paternalistic leadership and how it affects employee commitment and OCB. The practical implications of the study and limitations are discussed as well as the direction for future studies.