Transactional Leadership, Effective Commitment, and Workplace Deviance: Does Onboarding Experience Moderate the Relationship? Evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

Workplace Deviance (WD) as a global phenomenon has become pervasive among academics and a thorn in the flesh of the management of Nigerian high institutions. How to mitigate it has become a major concern to policymakers and researchers. Based on the precepts of social exchange and organisational support theories, we examined the relationships between Transactional leadership (TL), Affective commitment (AC) and WD. Using a moderated mediation model, this paper also examined how Onboarding experience (OE) moderates the mediated relationship between TL and WD through AC. Partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse data elicited from 308 participants in a cross-sectional design conducted across federal polytechnics in Northwestern Nigeria. The data revealed that an employee’s commitment mediated the relationship between TL and WD. Additionally, the direction of this mediated interaction was moderated by OE. The current study adds a novel perspective to the literature on deviant workplace behaviour with its moderated mediation model that investigates AC and OE as underlying processes via which TL affects WD. Theoretical and practical implications for enhancing AC and OE are discussed.