The joint effect of leadership style and organisational justice on employees' work engagement

Abstract

Despite the existing body of literature devoted to the topic of work engagement, this study examined the effect of some important variables, such as transformational and transactional leadership styles, on work engagement. In addition, it examined the mediating impact of organisational justice on the said relationships. Data was collected from the employees of telecommunication companies in Malaysia using a survey questionnaire. Structural equation modelling by AMOS was then employed to examine the model. The results provided strong evidence for the positive significant effect of transformational and transactional leadership and organisational justice on work engagement. More importantly, while organisational justice was found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement, its mediating effect on the transactional leadership-work engagement relationship was not confirmed. This study enriches the current literature on work engagement by relating it to crucial factors such as leadership styles and organisational justice and provides empirical evidence.