Mediating Role of Leadership Style on Organizational Culture and Total Quality Management

Abstract

Scholars consider leadership style as a powerful tool for improving school managers’commitment on total quality management (TQM), yet few studies have empirically examinedthe linkages on organizational culture, leadership styles, and TQM in tertiary institutions.This study determined the mediating role of leadership style on organizational culture andTQM. The researcher employed the descriptive correlational design to analyze the level oforganizational culture, the extent of leadership style as mediating variable, the extent of TQMin education as perceived by the respondents, and the relationship between those variablesamong school managers. There were 295 school managers from 13 tertiary institutions inAsia who responded to the study. The results of the study showed that the respondents havevery high practices of organizational traits of involvement, adaptability, consistency, andmission with an indirect effect on leadership style. The extent of the respondents’ TQM ishigh on the following dimensions: a process-systems approach, customer-supplier focus,consistent quality leadership, continuous improvement and self-evaluation .The extent ofleadership styles in both transformational and transactional as practiced by managers is high.However, the organizational culture had no direct effect on TQM. Thus, leadership style fullymediates organizational culture and TQM. Further, the school managers are committed toTQM in education regardless of age, civil status, educational attainment, and years ofexperience. As a contribution to the mediating mechanism, the emerging model showed thattransformational and transactional being the components of leadership styles have loadings of.89 and .49, respectively. This means that the respondents’ leadership style practices havecorresponding weights of 64.49% of transformational and 35.51% of transactional leadershipstyle to fully mediate on the relationship between organizational culture and TQM. Thisresearch therefore, indicates the significance of the mediating role of leadership style onorganizational culture and TQM in tertiary institutions. The outcome of this study shall beutilized as basis for conducting seminar-workshops and training programs. The study willcontribute to future research on other dimensions on OC, LS and moderating variables inrelation to TQM.