The Interplay of Leadership Styles, Innovative Work Behavior, Organizational Culture, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

TLDR

Leadership styles influence follower performance in innovative work behavior, yet research on this in Pakistani higher education is lacking. This study examines how leadership styles affect innovative work behavior, with organizational culture and organizational citizenship behavior acting as mediators and moderators among department heads in higher education institutions. A survey of 160 department heads was conducted to assess the impact of academic leaders’ styles on employee performance in universities. Results show a strong positive effect of leadership styles on innovative work behavior, with organizational culture and OCB mediating and moderating this relationship, and highlight implications for theory and practice that can be extended to other contexts.

Abstract

Leadership stains affect the follower’s performances regarding innovative work behavior, and a gap is found in leadership research in higher education, specifically in Pakistan. The basic purpose of this research is to point out the effect of leadership styles on innovative work behavior under the mediating and moderating roles of organizational culture and organizational citizenship behavior among the Head of the Departments (HODs) in higher education institutions (HEIs). A survey method has been carried out to collect data from 160 respondents to, further, verify how leadership styles of academic leaders affect employees’ performances in universities. The statistical study exposes a substantial positive effect of leadership styles on innovative work behaviors of employees highlighting mediating and moderating effects of organizational culture and OCB on such a relationship. This study carries various implications for prior research in both theoretical and practical fields, and its scope may also be enlarged, geographically or institutionally, to another context. This research uncovers the relationship of leadership styles and innovative work behavior in academic research, which has been ignored before in higher education of Pakistan.