Mediating role of employee commitment in the relationship between transactional leadership and employee performance

Abstract

For any organization to accomplish its key goals and survive in the aggressive market, employees’ job performance plays a fundamental role (Falola, Osibanjo, & Ojo, 2014). The type of leadership style affects the level of employees’ commitment. Besides, employee commitment is extremely important for leaders to keep their workers driven and satisfied (Riaz et al., 2017). This study intends to examine the significance of employee commitment as a mediator in the relationship between transactional leadership style and employee performance among Malaysian construction sector employees. Using the simple random sampling technique, this target population completed a self-administered questionnaire which was assessed using structural equation modelling (SEM) through IBM-SPSS-AMOS 24.0. Resultantly, transactional leadership style proved insignificant in forecasting employee performance while employee commitment substantially affected employee performance. Meanwhile, transactional leadership significantly impacted employee commitment while employee commitment fully mediated the relationship between transactional leadership and employee performance. The research’s implications are furthermore reviewed.