The impact of transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour: Evidence from Malaysian higher education context

2.1 Research universities in Malaysia

According to Alsenwi [28] establishing Research Universities (RUs) is the milestone of the Ministry of Higher Education in Malaysia. The Malaysian National Higher Education Strategic Plan Beyond 2020 has implemented several thrusts for future directions. One of these thrusts is selecting five Malaysian public universities as Research Universities to change Malaysian universities’ status to world class and to facilitate the transformational process of national higher education [29]. In 2006, four public universities were granted with RU status, namely Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). The fifth Research University which is Universiti Teknologi Malaysia was selected in 2010.

There are six goals of the Malaysian research universities (MRUs). First, to be a leader in innovation. Second, to set up and enhance centers of excellence in prioritized areas of the nations. Third, to produce world class research outputs. Fourth, to generate high impact research publications. Fifth, to attract quality postgraduate students, and finally, to provide a conducive environment for research [28]. The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) recognized these five universities as research universities based on eight selection criteria which has been determined by the Assessment of Research Universities Committee. The marking criteria are: (i) Quantity and Quality of Researchers; (ii) Quantity and Quality of Research; (iii) Quantity of Postgraduates; (iv) Quality of Postgraduates; (v) Innovation; (vi) Professional Services and Gifts; (vii) Networking and Linkages; and (viii) Supporting Facility (Ministry of Education [29].

The needs for this study arise because Malaysian Research universities seek to be at the high ranked universities. Thus, there is a need to maintain academic staffs’ organizational citizenship behaviour which is essential in maintaining the pursuit of public universities in offering a quality of education [30–34].

2.2 Transformational leadership (TFL)

There is no true definition of leadership. The definition continues to evolve and change each and every day just as the workforce changes and the need for a company to look for their place in a global economy [35]. Organizations now need to look for what they do best and capitalize on the positive assets in order to be successful [36]. The most essential traits in a good leader are honesty, integrity, accountability, availability, respectfulness, focus, fairness, and consistency [37]. These are of utmost importance in leadership roles as well and these behaviors can be obtained through training: accountability, availability, and confidentiality [38]. Communication is also most important thing which helps transformational leadership [39]. A leader should be effective by helping to guide subordinates toward their goals [40]. Leaders are influential individuals who should be positive, open-minded, and good listeners because they need to understand that even though they are leaders, they need to bring themselves down to the level of their followers [41]. Transformational leadership is a type of New Leadership style [42]. According to Kohan et al. [43] transformational leadership theory is one of the well-known theoretical frameworks on leadership. According to Odumeru & Ogbonna [44] transformational leadership is a theory of leadership where a leader works with teams to identify needed change, creating a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and executing the change in tandem with committed members of a group. According to Porter [45] transformational leadership is generally understood as a process whereby leaders take conscious action to develop followers into leaders, exhibit behaviors that elicit trust, display self-sacrificial perspectives to build commitment and influence, and demonstrate a moral compass towards mission and purpose. Northouse [46] stated that transformational leadership is the process whereby a person engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower. Therefore, transformational leadership involves an extraordinary form of influence that moves followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected from them. This type of leader is attentive to the needs and motives of followers and attempts to help followers reach their full potential [47].

2.3 Organizational commitment

So many definitions have been given to organizational commitment. Porter [48] defined organizational commitment as the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization.

According to Mowday et al. [49] definitions, organizational commitment is characterized by three components: (1) a strong acceptance of and belief in the values and objectives of organizations, 2) Effort commitment: a willingness to exert considerable effort to an organization and 3) Retention commitment: a strong desire to maintain membership in the organization and to continue being a part of the organization.

Chow [50] defined organizational commitment as the degree to which employees are identified with the organization and its managerial objectives, and show a willingness to exert efforts to participate in decision making and internalize organizational values.

Organizational commitment is an individual’s psychological attachment to the organization. According to an individual is considered as committed to an organization if he is willing to continue his membership in the organization and exerts considerable efforts to accomplish the objectives of the organization [51].

Kreitner & Kinicki [52] stated that organizational commitment is a state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.

Meyer & Allen [53] defined organizational commitment as a psychological link between the em-ployee and his or her organization that reflects three broad themes: Affective, Continuance, and Normative. Thus commitment is viewed as reflecting an affective orientation toward the organization, recognition of the costs associated with leaving the organization, and a moral obligation to remain with the organization. Robbins [54] defined organizational commitment as the situation where the individual identifies with the organization and its objectives and his desire to continue his membership in the organization. Arnold [55] defined organizational commitment as the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in the organization.

2.4 Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB)

OCB is described as an “individual behaviour, which, in an overall way, promotes effective functioning of an entity, is discretionary, not expressly or specifically acknowledged by a formal system of compensation.” OCB applies, naturally, and of its own free will, to anything workers choose to do, often beyond their specific contractual obligations [3]. Since then, researchers have distinguished between two dimensions of employee behaviour, namely; general compliance, and altruism [56, 57]. However, later, the concept of OCB has undergone several transformations. There are five different aspects to the literature defined by the OCB as discussed by Organ [3] namely altruism (helping to particular others); civic virtues (conscientiousness) (compliance with standards), courtesy (consulting certain individuals before taking action) and sporting (not complaining of trivial affairs). However, further divided OCB’ dimensions into three parts: assistance, compassion and understanding. Williams & Anderson [58] classified OCB from a different perspective into two kinds: (1) behaviours which are oriented towards certain people in the organisation, such as courtesy and altruism (OCBI), and (2) behaviours which are related to how to benefit all people in the organization. This later type of behaviours includes, for example, conscientiousness, sportsmanship and civic virtue (OCBO).

Organizational citizenship behaviour refers to a behaviour that is taken as an immediate means to benefiting certain or particular people in a given organization. Such behaviours play a role in contributing to organizational effectiveness [59, 58]. According to Podsakoff et al. [60], it is called as a helping behaviour since it underlies any voluntary help or assistance provided to others to solve their problems relevant to work. Furthermore, previous studies show that high organizational citizenship behaviour is important in preserving the striving of public universities toward offering a high quality of education [30–32]. Furthermore, this behaviour refers to these behaviours that are intended to benefit the entire organization without taking any actions that specifically target any certain members of that organization (e.g., adhering to informal rules, volunteering for committees). As the context of this study are academic staff at Malaysian research universities, who are qualified, and have freedom to pursue excellence and have chance to participate in decisions making in relation to research and curriculum, understanding how to enhance their positive behaviour is an essential managerial need.

Moreover, few researches about the organizational citizenship behaviours has been conducted in the Malaysian higher educational sector which were focus more in private higher learning institutions [61, 62]. Few studies, however examine the Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) among academic staff in Malaysian research universities [63, 64].

3.1 Relationship between transformational leadership (TFL) and organizational commitment (OC)

What is referred as transformational leadership is a form of leads that is employed to transform followers and make them rise above their self-interest. This is achieved by shifts in culture, morals, interests and values and by inspiring them to do more than expect. This is also seen as a leadership that generates awareness and acceptance among subordinates, enables its followers to grow, inspire them to go beyond their own needs to achieve the organizational goals and to empower them through leading actions [5]. The transformational leaders’ positive and evolutionary essence will overcome neuroticism and introversion, and direct workers to be more committed. Besides, Jha [15]; Zacher & Jimmieson [65]; and Koh et al. [66] asserted that transformation leadership behaviours have a stronger positive effects on organizational citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, transformational leadership plays a critical role in building positive feelings in their followers which enhance favourable attitudes and behaviours and encourage them to perform their work effectively to behave in their organization as a good citizen [16–18, 67].

Furthermore, the literature has confirmed the existence of the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment [68–73]. Rahmawati & Tobing [74] contended that transformational leadership promotes greater feelings of organizational commitment among employees of Tax Service Office (KPP) in Banjarmasin which numbered 89 people that help them to increase their commitment to their organization. Besides, Jain & Duggal [71] revealed that, all four dimensions of transformational leadership had a significant effect on organizational commitment. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

3.2 Relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior

The word “organizational commitment” is characterized as “attachment” of the employee to the business [53]. The most commitment distinctive from between is presented by Meyer & Allen [53] Meyer & Allen [75] who adopted three forms of interaction. Affective commitment: This form of commitment has to do with understanding and engaging with the organizations’ emotional attachment. This feeling improves the desire of employees to stay with one company. Continuing commitment: this dedication is related to the high costs associated with leaving the company and creates a sense of need for more jobs. Normative commitment: it is a kind of sense of an obligation of the individual to his organization and a sense of continued work. Meyer et al. [75] point out that emotional commitment is positively related to the willingness of the employee, in relation to the ability of the employee to share and gain know-how, to make an extra effort in his job. As Baumann et al. [76] stated, people are willing to share their knowledge with others if they are certain that doing so is useful. Hinds & Pfeffer [77] sum up factors affecting knowledge sharing, one of which is the organizational commitment. In literature, there are a number of evidence reveals that organizational commitment positively correlated with organizational citizenship behaviour. Hence, it is hypothesized as follows:

3.3 Organizational commitment as a mediator

Previous research has confirmed the existence of the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment. For example, Buda & Ling [78] found that transformational leadership had a positive impact on organizational commitment among the academic staff. Besides, Ahmad et al. [79] indicated that transformational leadership was significantly correlated with organizational commitment in public tertiary institutions. Further Pomper & Malbašić [73] found that transformational leadership had a positive impact on all three components of organizational commitment (affective, continuance, and normative). Another study conducted by Zacharo et al. [80] found that teachers feel substantial commitment to school goals when the school principal acts as transformational leader.

On the other hand, many studies have confirmed a positive relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour. For example, Donglong et al. [24] reported that Affective organizational commitment is the most influential predictor for university faculty members’ OCB. Further, a study was conducted by Grego-Planer [26] to demonstrate that organizational commitment positively affects organizational citizenship behaviour. Most positively correlated with OCBs is the affective dimension of organizational commitment. Besides, Jin & Hahm [81] argue that the higher the level of employees’ commitment, the more motivated employees are to perform well at work and while employees have positive feelings about their commitment toward their organization, they are motivated to demonstrate more organizational citizenship behaviour.

Based on previous studies, organizational commitment may have a role in the relationship between transformational leadership and the actions of organizational citizenry. The social exchange method will clarify such a relation. Social Exchange Theory suggests that perceptions, attitudes and behaviours interact. This kind of leadership can improve em-ployee organization commitment, which can in turn motivate employees to show more when the leader in an organization demonstrates a transformational leadership approach (growing awareness and acceptance among subordinate people, empowering their followers to develop and encouraging them to exceed their organizational goals),. This study argues therefore that organizational involvement mediates the effects of transformational leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

The proposed hypothesis is demonstrated in Fig. 1.

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Fig. 1

The proposed model.

4.1 Sample

This analysis employs a stratified sampling approach to choice the sample (academic staff in Malaysian research universities) from the population of the study. Sekaran & Bougie [82] stated that the stratified random sampling provides every person with the same opportunity to be chosen as the sample, although it can be either proportionate or disproportionate. Since the study samples are academics staff in Research Universities in Malaysia, the stratified sampling technique is suitable to the given situation since the researchers are in a position to divide the subjects into relatively homogeneous and non-overlapping sub-groups. It is the most efficient among all probability strategies and is consistently sampled by all population groups. The sampling frame for this study consists of academic staff that can be found through the staff directory of each university‘s website. The academics, from lecturers to professors are the sampling elements or the suitable respondents that will take part in this study. As such, unit of the analysis for the present study is the individual academic staff.

The sample for this study consists of 250 academic staff working in the five Malaysian research universities. Among the academic staff surveyed, 61.2 per cent (N = 153) were female and 38.8 per cent (N = 97) were male. Regarding the age groups of the sample, 2.8% of them are in the age group less than 30, and 52% of total respondents are between 30 and less than 45, while 42.8% of them are in the age group of 45 to 60 years, and 2.4% of total respondents are in the age group of above 60. In terms of their marital status, 84% of the respondents are married, 14.4% are single, 0.8% are divorced, and 0.8% are widowed. In terms of education background, the majority of the respondents 92.8% have doctorate degrees. Meanwhile, 7.2% of the respondents have master degree qualifications. Furthermore, the majority of the respondents are senior lecturers who represent 61.6%, whilst 20% of respondents are associate professors, 13.6% of them are professors, and 4.8% of respondents are lecturers.

4.2 Procedures

The data of this study have been collected through questionnaires. An approval from the management of each research university in Malaysia has been required before distributing the questionnaires to the selected respondents. After getting the approval, the questionnaires directly distributed by enumerators to the respondents. Through visiting each university personally, the surveys were distributed to the respondents alongside the enumerators. Help from the enumerators decreases the length of time the questionnaires are circulated and compiled. The Researcher explained the purpose of the interview to the respondents during the meeting and their participation is voluntary so that the questionnaire is complete and returned by interviewees on the same or the next day of the visit.

4.3 Measures

5.1 Descriptive analysis

In the present study, Table 1 defines each variable as its mean and standard deviation. Organizational commitment with a standard deviation of 0.741, reported the highest mean score of 3,965 out of 5.0, suggesting that people are generally feel a connection with their organization. The study also indicated that transformational leadership expressed mean score of 3.323 out of 5.0, with a standard deviation of 0.841. The majority of respondents believed that their managers go beyond self-interest for the good of the group; their managers discuss the future optimistically. They wanted different viewpoints when solving problems. Likewise, Organizational citizenship behavior expressed a mean score of 3.709 out of 5.0, with a standard deviation of 0.541, showing that the majority of academic staff agreed that to show genuine concern and courtesy toward colleagues, and defend the organization when other employees criticize it.

Measurement model was assessed by construct reliability and validity (convergent and discriminating validity). In order to determine the reliability of the study variables, this analysis evaluated the individual Cronbach alpha coefficient. The result showed that values of Cronbach alpha coefficient ranging from 0.811 to 0.967, which are shown to be above the optional value of 0.7 [82]. The Cronbach’s alpha and CR were therefore completely error-free for all constructs. Factor loading has been used to assess the reliability of the items. High loads on a structure suggest that there seems to be something popular in the related indicators that the structure collects [86]. Loading factor over 0.50 was considered significant. This analysis used the average variance extracted (AVE) for measuring convergent validity (the degree to which a variable positively correlates with other measurements of the same construct) and showed that all the values for AVE were above the suggested value of 0.50 [87].

The discriminant validity of the measuring model was assessed with two criteria, Fornell-Larcker and cross-loadings. The study of Hair et al. [86] stated that the cross-loading is an important method to measure the indicators’ discriminant validity. The AVE square root in the diagonals was greater than the correlation between constructs, as shown by a bold value. It indicates that the constructs are related to their relevant indicators compared to other constructs. Good discriminant validity has been proposed [88]. There is therefore a correlation between independent variables of less than 0.85 [89]. Consequently, the discriminant validity of all constructs is fulfilled.

5.3 Assessment of structural model

Hair et al. [86] recommended measuring of the structural model with a resample of 5000 by observing the beta (β) value, R2 and t-values. Furthermore, they suggested assessing effect sizes (f²) and predictive relevance (Q²).