Servant leadership and organizational deviant behaviour: interpreting some contradictory results from public sector of Pakistan

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims at ascertaining the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ organizational deviant behaviour in public sector organizations of Pakistan. Drawing on social cognitive and social exchange theories, this research also proposes to determine the mediating role of self-efficacy and trust in leader in this relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing convenience sampling method, three-wave time-lagged data were collected from 204 employees working in secretariats of two federal ministries in Pakistan.FindingsThe results derived from partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis using SmartPLS 3.2.9 software revealed that servant leadership is not negatively related to employee organizational deviant behaviour. Although the findings indicate that servant leadership is positively related to employee self-efficacy and trust in leader, these factors do not mediate the relationship between servant leadership and organizational deviant behaviour.Practical implicationsEmpirical evidence of this research emphasizes the role of servant leadership in fostering employees’ trust and self-efficacy. Additionally, this research suggests that alongside servant leadership, a moral climate and fairness in organizational policies and decisions are also inevitable to prompt employees to feel obligated to reduce undesirable workplace behaviours, particularly in public sector organizations.Originality/valueThis is amongst the earlier studies that investigates the association between servant leadership and organizational deviant behaviour of public sector employees in a developing context and examines the mediating role of trust in leader and self-efficacy simultaneously. Being contradictory to the underlying theories, findings of this research open the debate on effectiveness of servant leadership in public sector organizations of developing countries and expose avenues for future research.

Servant leadership and employee prosocial rule-breaking: The underlying effects of psychological safety and compassion at work

“…Teachings of Islam emphasize serving others through financial, physical, and psychological means which are some of the unique features of SL. Moreover, SL is found as one of the most commonly practiced leadership behavior in the organizational sphere of Pakistan, and some earlier studies have noted the effects of SL on other employees’ outcomes including promoting productive voice behavior [ 74 ] and demoting deviant behavior in the public sector context of Pakistan [ 75 ], which improves the likelihood that SL may promote the beneficial but risky PSRB behavior as well. Moreover, our study has noted the significant impact of SL on psychological safety.…”

“…Because religious texts emphasize that caring, sharing, and serving the miseries of others will give them both seen and divine rewards. Attitudes and tendencies toward compassion and co-suffering can be observed in the prevalence of many globally recognized charitable and welfare organizations such as "The Edhi Foundation" [ 75 ]. Compassion by definition is someone feeling the personal and professional worries of others which encourages to alleviate such sufferings.…”

Authoritarian leadership and organizational deviance: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion

“…Workplace deviant behaviors hinder organizational effectiveness and performance (Iqbal et al, 2021;Lugosi, 2019). In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of research focused on identifying the causes of organizational deviant behaviors and finding ways to minimize such counterproductive actions (Iqbal et al, 2021;Khattak et al, 2019;Verdorfer et al, 2015). Mitchell and Ambrose (2007) have noted that deviant behaviors can be directed towards various targets, including supervisors and coworkers (Wulani and Junaedi, 2021).…”

“…On the other hand, organizational deviance behaviors (ODBs) are directed at the organization itself and involve actions such as withholding effort and stealing (Erkutlu and Chafra, 2018). ODB is a prominent issue in public sector institutions in developing countries (Aryati et al, 2018;Iqbal et al, 2021;Yasir and Rasli, 2018).…”

“…According to Robinson and Bennett (1995, p. 556) workplace deviance behaviors are voluntary acts that violate important organizational norms, posing a threat to the well-being of employees, organizations or both. This issue is a widespread problem, and has been extensively studied in developed countries (Iqbal et al. , 2021; Narayanan and Murphy, 2017).…”