A Study on the Influence of Paternalistic Leadership on Organizational Commitment: Focus on the Mediating Effect of Organizational Identification

Abstract

Rooted in the Chinese tradition of Confucianism, research on Paternalistic leadership (PL) has been born in Taiwan and boomed in western scholars in the past thirty years, while studies in this aspect is still relatively scare in South Korea. This study regards PL as research object, introduces organizational identification (OI) as intermediary variable to find out the impact on organizational commitment (OC), while the status of behavior of employees in South Korea, organizations is analyzed, using a sample(N=300) of working professionals enrolled in an executive MBA program in a university in South Korea. Results showed that the authoritarian dimension of PL had no impact on OC, while the benevolence dimension and morality dimension related positively to OC. In addition, Authoritarianism related negatively to OI, while both benevolence and morality related positively to OI; OI had intermediary roles in the impact of benevolence dimension and morality dimension on value commitment (VC). And the mediating effect of OI was investigated relationship between morality dimension and commitment to stay (CTS). Limitations of the study, directions for future research, and implications of the findings are discussed.