Principals’ Contextual Leadership on Teachers’Organizational Commitment: Teacher Empowerment and Teachers’ Workplace Well-Being as a Serial Mediator

Abstract

As integration of Theory Z and Fiedler’s Contingency Theory in leadership, this study proposed a new model to reveal the underlying mechanism of psychological elements such as leadership practices, teacher empowerment, and teachers’ workplace wellbeing towards teachers’ organizational commitment (TOC). Despite the relevance of contextual leadership practices (CLP) and teachers’ emotion in school effectiveness, little is known about the implication, specifically on TOC. Data were gathered from a sample of 371 secondary school teachers selected by multi-stage random sampling method from one of the states in Malaysia and structural equation modelling was employed to assess the proposed model. Results using Structural Equation Modeling confirmed that these psychological elements directly and positively influence TOC. Additionally, teacher empowerment (TE) and teachers’ workplace wellbeing (TWW) as serial mediators significantly explained the indirect relationship sequentially. Findings provide an evidence of how a novel and comprehensive model can be practiced to enhance TOC through a serial mechanism as proposed by the integration of Theory Z and Fiedler’s Contingency Theory in leadership.