The effect of organisational culture and leadership style on job satisfaction and organisational commitment

TLDR

The study investigated how organisational culture and leadership styles influence job satisfaction and organisational commitment among Hong Kong and Australian managers. Across the two samples, Australian managers scored higher on innovative and supportive cultures, job satisfaction, and commitment, but these differences disappeared after controlling for culture, leadership, and demographics; in the combined sample, innovative and supportive cultures and consideration leadership increased satisfaction and commitment (especially in Australia), initiating‑structure leadership lowered satisfaction, education slightly reduced satisfaction but boosted commitment, and national culture moderated age’s positive effect on satisfaction, stronger among Hong Kong managers.

Abstract

This study examined the effects of organisational culture and leadership styles on job satisfaction and organisational commitment in samples of Hong Kong and Australian managers. Statistically significant differences between the two samples were found for measures of innovative and supportive organizational cultures, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, with the Australian sample having higher mean scores on all these variables. However, differences between the two samples for job satisfaction and commitment were removed after statistically controlling for organizational culture, leadership and respondents' demographic characteristics. For the combined samples, innovative and supportive cultures, and a consideration leadership style, had positive effects on both job satisfaction and commitment, with the effects of an innovative culture on satisfaction and commitment, and the effect of a consideration leadership style on commitment, being stronger in the Australian sample. Also, an “initiating Structure” leadership style had a negative effect on job satisfaction for the combined sample. Participants' level of education was found to have a slight negative effect on satisfaction, and a slight positive effect on commitment. National culture was found to moderate the effect of respondents' age on satisfaction, with the effect being more positive amongst Hong Kong managers.