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Servant leadership, trust, and the organizational commitment of public sector employees in China
journal contribution
posted on 2014-09-01, 00:00 authored by Q Miao, Alexander Newman, G Schwarz, L Xu© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. So-called servant leaders strive selflessly and altruistically to assist others before themselves, work to develop their followers' greatest potential, and seek to benefit the wider community. This article examines the trust-based mechanisms by which servant leadership influences organizational commitment in the Chinese public sector, using data from a survey of civil servants. Quantitative analysis shows that servant leadership strongly influences affective and normative commitment, while having no impact on continuance commitment. Furthermore, we find that affective trust rather than cognitive trust is the mechanism by which servant leadership induces higher levels of commitment. Our findings suggest that in a time of decreasing confidence levels in public leaders, servant leadership behaviour may be used to re-establish trust and create legitimacy for the Chinese civil service.
History
Journal
Public administrationVolume
92Issue
3Pagination
727 - 743Publisher
WileyLocation
London, Eng.Publisher DOI
ISSN
1099-162XeISSN
1467-9299Language
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal; C Journal articleCopyright notice
2014, WileyUsage metrics
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