BACKGROUND:

Research on Transformational leadership has received attention among scholars, particularly in the field of management. However, the discussion about this issue in the context of higher education is still limited, particularly in the context of Research Universities in Malaysia. Therefore, this study is conducted to address this gap.

OBJECTIVE:

This study aims to examine the role of organizational commitment in mediating the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB).

METHODS:

The study was conducted by a structured survey questionnaire on 250 academic staff in Malaysian public universities (MRUs). Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) via SmartPLS software was utilized to examine study hypothesis.

RESULTS:

The findings of this study showed that transformational leadership has significant direct effect on organizational commitment and organizational commitment has significant direct effect on OCB. These results highlight the importance of mediating role of organizational commitment in predicting transformational leadership –OCB relationship.

CONCLUSIONS:

The leaders in Malaysian research universities could utilize these findings by setting up strategies to promote transformational leadership and maximize the feeling of academic staff of being committed; this will enhance citizenship behaviour of academic staff. It adds empirical evidence in the existing literature that organizational commitment has a mediation effects on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour, especially in the Malaysian higher education context.