Effects of Organizational Leadership on Project Citizenship Behavior and Management Performance in Complex Construction Projects

Abstract

Organizational leadership is a key factor affecting the management performance of complex construction projects, but seldom have studies attempted to explore the effect mechanisms of organizational leadership on the project management performance, especially the mediating role of project citizenship behavior. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by investigating the effects of organizational leadership on project citizenship behavior and management performance in complex construction projects. The theoretical model is constructed based on a literature review, and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) are performed on 169 valid questionnaires collected to measure organizational leadership, then partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypotheses. The results show that (i) organizational leadership is measured as vision guiding, context interacting, team building, and systems thinking; (ii) vision guiding and context interacting have both direct and indirect effects on the project management performance, and team building can only improve the project management performance by influencing the project citizenship behavior, whereas systems thinking has no significant effect on project citizenship behavior and the project management performance in complex construction projects; (iii) and project citizenship behavior partly mediates the influence of organizational leadership on the project management performance, and the effect of organizational leadership on the project management performance is more realized through the mediating role of project citizenship behavior. The results have a significant theoretical and practical significance for improving the project management performance.