Servant leadership and organizational performance: Mediating role of organizational culture

Abstract

Servant leadership positively influences the performance of organizations since it focuses on developing the most critical capital of organizations – human beings. The study aims to analyze the influence of servant leadership on organizational performance mediated by organizational culture focusing on administrative staff in Peru. It uses a quantitative approach and non-experimental design. The data were obtained transversally from 465 union members-administrative staff through a virtual survey with a 20-item Likert-type questionnaire, verifying the data for compliance with the underlying assumptions. For data processing, the SPSS AMOS program was chosen, subjecting the data to confirmatory factor analysis and using the structural equation model to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that, for administrative staff, organizational culture partially mediates the influence of servant leadership on organizational performance at 0.127. While servant leadership positively influences organizational performance (β = 0.341, p < 0.01), it also positively influences organizational culture (β = 0.492, p < 0.01). Furthermore, organizational culture positively influences organizational performance (β= 0.262, p < 0.01). The study confirms the importance of servant leadership in the performance of organizations. Also, it provides evidence to affirm that organizational culture is fundamental in explaining this influence, thus filling the research gap.