Promoting work engagement in public administrations: the role of middle managers’ leadership

ABSTRACT

This study aims at exploring the role of middle managers’ leadership style in promoting work engagement in public administrations. Building on leadership theory, the work engagement literature and change management research, the study develops and empirically tests a model envisaging the impact of leadership on engagement as partially mediated by leaders’ support for key aspects of public sector reforms. An empirical study carried out on 2721 Italian local government workers shows that transformational leadership is positively linked to work engagement both directly and indirectly. Mixed results emerge for the other leadership styles.

KEYWORDS:

• Work engagement
• leadership
• middle managers
• organizational climate
• public administration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alessandro Ancarani

Alessandro Ancarani, PhD, is full professor in Management Engineering, University of Catania, Italy. He has been co-editor in chief of Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management and is currently editor of the Journal of Public Procurement. His research focuses on analysis of intangibles in public service organizations, public procurement, behavioral operations. He has published in leading journals including British Journal of Management, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production & Operations Management.

Francesco Arcidiacono

Francesco Arcidiacono, is a PhD student at the University of Catania, Italy. His current research interests focus on human resource management, digitalization and Industry 4.0.

Carmela Di Mauro

Carmela Di Mauro, DPhil, is associate professor in Management Engineering, University of Catania, Italy. Her most recent research has been published in international refereed journals, including the Journal of World Business, International Journal of Production Economics, British Journal of Management, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management. She is associate editor of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management.

Maria Daniela Giammanco

Maria Daniela Giammanco, MA, is assistant professor in Economics, University of Catania, Italy. Her research interests encompass health care organization and management, organizational behavior, analysis of organizations’ intangibles. Her research has been published in international refereed journals, including the International Journal of Production and Operations Management, European Journal of Operational Research, Social Science and Medicine.