How Are Leadership, Virtues, HRM Practices, and Citizenship Related in Organizations? Testing of Mediation Models in the Light of Positive Organizational Studies

Gisela Demo,Karla Coura,Natasha Fogaça,Lana Montezano,Fernanda Scussel,Ana Carolina Costa

doi:10.3390/su14031508

Abstract

Studies show that Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, the role of leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, and organizational virtues influence the greater involvement of professionals at work and, consequently, the organizational performance. However, there is a lack of investigations encompassing these four variables in the same research model. Thus, the main objective of this study was to identify the relationship between leadership, organizational virtues, HRM practices, and organizational citizenship behaviors in a sample of employees of Brazilian companies. A printed questionnaire was administered to a valid sample of 659 subjects, who participated voluntarily, from public and private organizations in a Brazilian State. A total of seven hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis to assess the fit of the measurement models of the four studied variables, in addition to path analysis, using structural equation modeling to specify and estimate the mediation models. All hypotheses were confirmed, attesting to the positive predictive associations between the variables. We also confirm the partial mediation of HRM practices in the relationship between leadership and citizenship and the total mediation in the relationship between virtues and citizenship. This research advances the efforts to test more complex and unexplored structural models in which HRM practices are mediating variables, fulfilling a gap in the literature, as well as providing investigations of antecedents and consequents of the variables adopted in the research. As practical implications, the findings constitute a diagnosis for managers to understand how these relationships happen, supporting decision-making towards an increasingly effective, strategic, and humanized HRM.

Highlights

The organizational environment and changes in the labor market pose challenges for researchers and managers, highlighting the need to broaden the understanding of human behavior and social interactions in the work context [1]
Nemr and Liu [32] concluded that ethical leadership has both direct and indirect effects on organizational citizenship behaviors, signaling the importance of studying variables that mediate the relationship between leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors, as we examined in the present study
We identified a correlation between errors 11 and 12 of the Performance Evaluation and Competencies (PEC) and Remuneration and Rewards (RR) factors, respectively, adding this correlation in the model to improve the fit, based on the theoretical support from the scientific literature

Summary

Introduction

The organizational environment and changes in the labor market pose challenges for researchers and managers, highlighting the need to broaden the understanding of human behavior and social interactions in the work context [1] This perspective arises from the idea that people represent essential competencies for organizational differentiation strategies [2]. In this sense, the theoretical movement of positive organizational studies has gained prominence in the last decade, understood as an investigation track dedicated to improving organizations based on their internal strengths [3]. The theoretical movement of positive organizational studies has gained prominence in the last decade, understood as an investigation track dedicated to improving organizations based on their internal strengths [3]

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