Organisational commitment influences on the relationship between transactional and laissez- faire leadership styles and employee performance in the Ghanaian public service environment

Abstract

This study explored organisational commitment influences on the relationship between leadership style and employee performance in a developing country’s public sector enterprises. The study participants were 330 full-time employees in ten units in the Ghanaian public sector commission (female = 41.5%; mean tenure experience = 2.93 years, SD = 0.79 years; age ranges <30 to >50). The employees completed the selection of items on transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaires. Additionally, the employees completed an employee commitment survey. We accessed their performance appraisal records from their human resources department. Structural equation modelling of the data showed high continuance commitment to mediate the relationship between transactional and laissez- faire leadership styles and employee performance. The results indicated that public sector leadership should adopt strategies to inculcate continuance commitment in organisational activities towards enhanced employee performance. Continuance commitment appears to be a robust resource for employee performance in developing the country’s public services sector and across leadership styles.

Keywords:

• employee performance
• laissez-faire leadership
• organisational commitment
• public service organisations
• transactional leadership

Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation, P.R.C (Project Name: Cross-level Study of the Impact of Community Participation on Resource Acquisition of Start-ups on the Crowdfunding Platform). Approval No. 71602018.

ORCID

Francis Donkor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0090-0784