Effect of Self-Sacrificial Leadership on Organizational Creativity, Efficiency, Counter productivity, and Citizenship Behavior in Pakistan: The Role of Organizational Social Capital

Abstract

Self-sacrifice involves forgoing self-interest and taking on personal costs for the benefit of Others. Leader self-sacrifice communicates the leader’s commitment to the collective and therefore helps elicit positive leadership perceptions. We argue that this would enhance the character of social relationships within an organization, the resource known as Organizational social capital (OSC). Drawing on the social exchange theory, we further argue that self-sacrificial leadership through OSC results in positive outcomes in terms of creativity, efficiency, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), whereas curbs Counter productivity behavior. Hence, we proposed a theoretical framework modifying Mostafa & Bottomley (2020) model and combining it with the theory of (Fikret S¨ozbilir,2017) to include other outcomes like Organizational Efficiency (OE) and Organizational Creativity (OC), besides OCB, and Counter productivity behavior (CPB). Empirical validity was established by conducting a survey using a close-ended questionnaire. Data was collected from 300 employees and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modeling. The results suggested that self-sacrificial leadership (SSL) has a direct and positive impact on Organizational Efficiency, creativity, and on the contrary, Counter productivity behavior. It also positively impacts organizational social capital, OSC, in turn, has a positive impact on creativity OCB, and efficiency, whereas a significant negative effect on Counter productivity behavior. Hence, OSC seems to have a positive meditation effect on the relationship of SSL on Creativity, efficiency, and OCB. At the same time, it negatively mediates SSL and CPB nexus. Overall, the findings suggest that self-sacrificial leaders are more likely to achieve desirable employee behaviors by improving the quality of social relationships among employees.