Impact of Authoritarian Leadership on Employee Performance and Job Role Clarity. By Moderating Role of Power Distance. (In Project Line Base Company)

Abstract

Authoritarian leadership is an important topic in management research. The findings in different previous research are inconsistent. This research aims to explore the role of authoritarian leadership for employee’s performance in project line. Based upon goal setting theory, this research wants to find the moderating role of power distance for authoritarian leadership on employee performance and job role clarity. 250 Supervisors and crew leads are taken as sample for data collection in Al Yusr industrial contracting company Oil & Gas Saudi Arabia. Questionnaire is used for data collection with random sampling technique. Authoritarian leadership is measured by nine items scale developed. To find the results for research questions, Mplus 7 and SPSS used for data analysis. After analysis, this research confirmed the positive co-relationship of authoritarian leadership for employee’s performance in project line. Furthermore, this study finds that with increase in individual power distance, the effect of authoritarian leadership on employee job role clarity is positively significant. The moderating role of power distance and indirect impact, findings revealed that with higher power distance, the indirect impact of authoritarian leadership on employee performance and job role clarity is positively significant. In the market of Saudi Arabia and project line, use of authoritarian leadership approach is very common during short term shutdowns of plants. This research aims to investigate how authoritarian leadership approach positively or negatively impacts the employee performance and how it’s helpful for job role clarity of employees at working place. It is expected that this paper will be helpful for companies and HR Managers for understanding the vital role of authoritarian leadership in project line.