The Effect of Paternalist Leadership on Work Engagement: A Research on Health Workers

Year 2020, Volume: 6 Issue: 10, 90 - 107, 24.04.2020

Mustafa Nal Ekrem Sevim

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether paternalistic leadership behavior shown by health managers has an effect on work engagement behavior of health workers. A total of 410 volunteer health workers participated in this study. In this study, paternalistic leadership scale and work engagement scale (UWES-TR) were used. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) program was used for the analysis of the data obtained as a result of the survey application and descriptive statistical methods were used. Correlation Analysis and Simple Linear Regression Analysis were used to examine the relationship between the measured variables. As a result of the study, it was found that paternalist leadership had a positively and medium level effect on work engagement behavior. In addition, in this study, it was found that paternalist leadership had a positively effect on all dimensions of work engagement. As a result, it can be said that paternalist leadership can be an effective leadership model in health sector in terms of work engagement. Health managers can demonstrate paternalistic leadership behavior and enable healthcare workers to exhibit more work engagement behavior. There are not many studies investigating the relationship between paternalistic leadership and work engagement. This study investigated the influence of paternalistic leadership on work engagement of health workers is the first study in Turkey.

Keywords

Paternalist leadership, , Work engagement, , Health workers.

Supporting Institution

We have no significant relationship or financial interest with any commercial company related to this research.

References

• Agarwal, U. A., Datta, S., Blake-Beard, S., and Bhargava, S. (2012). Linking LMX, innovative work behaviour and turnover intentions: The mediating role of work engagement. Career Development International, 17(3), 208-230.
• Akdeniz, M. Z. (2016). The effect of paternalistic leadership and organisational justice to the happines of employees: A practise in health sector. Bahcesehir University Institute of Social Sciences, Master Thesis, Istanbul.
• Alfes, K., Shantz, A. D., Truss, C., and Soane, E. C. (2013). The link between perceived human resource management practices, engagement and employee behaviour: a moderated mediation model. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(2), 330-351.
• Aycan, Z. (2006). Paternalism: Towards conceptual refinement and operationalization”, in K. S. Yang, K. K. Hwang, & U. Kim (Eds.), Indigenous And Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context, Springer, ,New York, NY, pp. 445-466.
• Aycan, Z., and Fikret-Pasa, S., (2003). Career choices, job selection criteria, and leadership preferences in a transitional nation: The case of Turkey. Journal of Career Development, 30(2), 129-144.
• Aycan, Z., Kanungo, R., Mendonca, M., Yu, K., Deller, J., Stahl, G., and Kurshid, A. (2000). Impact of culture on human resource management practices: A 10‐country comparison. Applied Psychology, 49(1), 192-221.
• Bakker, A. B., Albrecht, S. L., & Leiter, M. P. (2011). Key questions regarding work engagement. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 20(1), 4-28.
• Bakker, A. B., & Bal, M. P. (2010). Weekly work engagement and performance: A study among starting teachers. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(1), 189-206.
• Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement. Career Development International, 13(3), 209-223.
• Bakker, A. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2010). Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research. Psychology Press, London.
• Bamford, M., Wong, C. A., & Laschinger, H. (2013), “The influence of authentic leadership and areas of worklife on work engagement of registered nurses”, Journal of Nursing Management, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp.529-540.
• Buckıngham, M. & Coffman, C. (1999). First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differentl. Simon & Shuster, New York.
• Buyukyavuz, S. (2015). The effects of leadership styles on employee motivation (Konya healthcare organizations employees). Beykent University Institute of Social Sciences, Master Thesis, Istanbul.
• Caglar, E. S. (2012). Work engagement, empowerment and leadership styles: Analyses from cultural perspectives in hotel management. Journal of Global Strategic Management, 6(1), 17-31.
• Cakir, B. (2016). The effect of the work engagement and burnout on organizational citizenship behavior and an application. Istanbul University Institute of Social Sciences, Phd Thesis, Istanbul.
• Cenkci, A. T., & Ozcelik, G. (2015). Leadership styles and subordinate work engagement: the moderating impact of leader gender. Global Business & Management Research, 7(4), 8-20.
• Cerit, Y. (2013). The relationship between paternalist leadership and teachers' intimidation behaviors. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 13(2), 839-851.
• Cheng, B. S., Chou, L. F., & Fang J. L. (2000). Paternalistic leadership scale: Construction and measure of a triple model. Indigenous Psychology Journal, 14(1), 3-64.
• Crisp, R. (2004). Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge University Press, Oxford.
• Demirer, P. (2012). Empowering: A Contingency Framework. Koc University Graduate School of Social Sciences, Master Thesis, Istanbul.
• Den Hartog, D. N., & Belschak, F. D. (2012). Work engagement and machiavellianism in the ethical leadership process. Journal of Business Ethics, 107(1), 35-47.
• Dorfman, P. W., Howell, J. P., Hibino, S., Lee, J. K., Tate, U., & Bautista, A. (1997). Leadership in Western and Asian countries: Commonalities and differences in effective leadership processes across cultures. The Leadership Quarterly, 8(3), 233-274.
• Erben, G. S., & Guneser, A. B. (2008). The relationship between paternalistic leadership and organizational commitment: Investigating the role of climate regarding ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 82(4), 955-968.
• Erben, G. S., & Otken, A.B. (2014). The role of work-life balance in the relationship between paternalist leadership and work-related happines. Journal of Management and Economics Research, 22,103-121.
• Erben, G. S. (2004). Social culture family cultural interaction in context paternalism size by business culture: The case of Turkey. 1 Family Businesses Congress, Istanbul Kültür University ,Istanbul, pp. 345-356.
• Eryilmaz, A., & Dogan, T. (2012). Subjective well-being at work: Investigating of psychometric properties of Utrecht Work Engagement scale”, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 15(1), 49-55.
• Farh, J. L., & Cheng, B. S. (2000). A Cultural analysis of paternalistic leadership in Chinese organizations, in J. T. Li, Tsui, A. S. & E. Weldon (Eds.), Management and Organizations in the Chinese Context. Springer, London.
• Garczynski, A. M., Waldrop, J. S., Rupprecht, E. A., & Grawitch, M. J. (2013). Differentiation between work and nonwork self-aspects as a predictor of presenteeism and engagement: Cross-cultural differences. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18(4), 417-429.
• Gelfand, M. J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007). Cross-cultural organizational behavior. Annu Review Psychology, 58, 479-514.
• Green, J., Liem, G. A. D., Martin, A. J., Colmar, S., Marsh, H. W., & Mcinerney, D. (2012). Academic motivation, self-concept, engagement, and performance in high school: Key processes from a longitudinal perspective. Journal of Adolescence, 35(5), 1111-1122.
• Hofsteds, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences. Sage Publications, London.
• Jackson, T. (2016). Paternalistic leadership: The missing link in cross-cultural leadership studies?”. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management,16(1), 3-7.
• Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724.
• Kanten, P. (2012). The role of organizational confidence and organizational confidence in the establishment of commitment and proactive behavior in workers. Süleyman Demirel University, Social Sciences Institute, PhD Thesis, Turkey.
• Keser, A., & Yilmaz, G. (2018). Work Engagement, in Keser, A., Yilmaz, G., & Yurur, S. (eds), Behavior in Working Life: Current Approaches. Umuttepe Press, Kocaeli.
• Kiyat, G. B. D., Ozgules, B., & Gunaydin, S. C. (2018). Effects of percieved corporate reputation and commitment to work on emotional labor: Example of healtcare employees. Hacettepe Journal of Health Administration, 21(3), 473-494.
• Konermann, J. (2012). Teachers' work engagement. A deeper understanding of the role of job and personal resources in relationship to work engagement, its antecedents, and its outcomes. Universiteit Twente, Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences, PhD Thesis, Netherlands.
• Korkmaz, F., Gokdeniz, İ,. & Zorlu, K. (2018). The mediating role of employee’s work engagement in the effect on organizational identification of paternalistic leadership behaviour. Journal of Business Research-Turk, 10(3), 950-973.
• Leiter, M. P., & Maslach, C. (2010). Building engagement: The design and evaluation of interventions, in Barker, A. B., & Leiter, M. P. (Eds), Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research, Psychology Press, New York.
• Markos, S., & Sridevi, M. S. (2010). Employee engagement: The key to improving performance. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(12), 89-96.
• Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2008). The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco.
• Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W.B., & Leiter, M.P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 397-422.
• Mustafa, G. & Lines, R. (2012). Paternalism as a predictor of leadership behaviors: A bi-level analysis. Eurasian Business Review, 2(1), 63-92.
• Nal, M., & Tarim, M. (2017). The effect of paternalist leadership behaviors of health managers on job satisfaction of employees. Artvin Coruh University International Journal of Social Sciences, 3(2), 117-141.
• Oge, E., Cetin, M., & Top, S. (2018). The effects of paternalistic leadership on workplace loneliness, work family conflict and work engagement among air traffic controllers in Turkey. Journal of Air Transport Management, 66, 25-35.
• Ozsoy, E., Filiz, B., & Semiz, T. (2013). A research in the health sector for determining the relationship between workism and passion to study sector. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 5(3), 59-68.
• Pellegrini, E. K. & Scandura, T. A. (2008). Paternalistic leadership: A review and agenda for future research. Journal of Management, 34(3), 566-593.
• Pellegrini, E. K., & Scandura, T. A. (2006). Leader-member exchange (LMX), paternalism and delegation in the Turkish business culture: An empirical investigation”, Journal of International Business Studies. 37(2), 264-279.
• Pellegrini, E. K., Scandura, T. A., & Jayaraman, V., (2010). Cross-cultural generalizability of paternalistic leadership: An expansion of leader-member exchange theory. Group and Organization Management, 35(4), 391-420.
• Reeve, C. D. C. (1998). Aristotle: Politics. Hackett Publishing, Cambridge.
• Roberts, D. R., & Davenport, T. O. (2002). Job engagement: Why it's important and how to improve it. Employment Relations Today, 29(3), 21-29.
• Salminen-Karlsson, M. S. (2015). Expatriate paternalistic leadership and gender relations in small European software firms in India. Culture and Organization, 21(5), 409-426.
• Schaufeli, W. B. (2012). Work engagement: What do we know and where do we go. Romanian Journal of Applied Psychology, 14(1), 3-10.
• Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2001). Werk en welbevinden: Naar een positieve benadering in de Arbeids-en Gezondheids psychologie (Work and well-being: towards a positive approach in Occupational Health Psychology). Gedrag and Organisatie, 14, 229-253.
• Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi‐sample study, Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial. Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 25(3), 293-315.
• Schaufeli, W. B., & Van Rhenen, W. (2006). Over de rol van positieve en negatieve emoties bij het welbevinden van managers: Een studie met de Job-related Affective Well-being Scale (JAWS) (About the role of positive and negative emotions in managers’ well-being: A study using the Job-related Affective Well-being Scale (JAWS)). Gedrag & Organisatie, 19(4), 323-344.
• Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 71-92.
• Schaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., & Van Rhenen, W. (2008). Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: Three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well‐being? Applied Psychology, 57(2), 173-203.
• Schroeder J. (2011). The impact of paternalism and organizational collectivism in multinational and family-owned firms in Turkey. University of South Florida, College of Arts and Sciences, Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Florida.
• Shirom, A. (2003). Feeling Vigorous At Work? The Construct Of Vigor And The Study Of Positive Affect In Organizations, in Perrewe, P. and Ganster, D. (Ed.) Emotional and Physiological Processes and Positive Intervention Strategies (Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being, Vol. 3). Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley.
• Tuan, L. T. (2018). Driving employees to serve customers beyond their roles in the Vietnamese hospitality industry: The roles of paternalistic leadership and discretionary HR practices. Tourism Management, 69, 132-144.
• Turesin Tetik H., & Kose, S. (2015). Investigation of the relationship between the employees' paternalistic leadership perceptions and the level of learned resourcefulness. International Journal of Economics and Business Administration, 11(26), 29-56.
• Ugurluoglu, O., Ugurluoglu Aldogan, E., & Urek, D. (2017). Factors affecting the perceptions of paternalistic leadership of health workers. KMU Journal of Social and Economic Research, 19(32), 1-7.
• Van Wijhe, C., Peeters, M., Schaufeli, W., & Van Den Hout, M. (2011). Understanding workaholism and work engagement: The role of mood and stop rules. Career Development International, 16(3), 254-270.
• Weber, M. (1968). Economy and Society, in Roth. G., & C. Wittich (Eds). Bedminster Press, New York.
• Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A.B., & Fischbach, A. (2013). Work engagement among employees facing emotional demands: The role of personal resources. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 12(2), 74–84.
• Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A.B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W.B. (2009). Work engagement and financial returns: A diary study on the role of job and personal resources. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(1), 183-200.
• Yaman, T. (2001). The effect of managers' paternalist leadership behaviors on organizational identification of employees, Their Business Performance and their Intention to Leave: Application in private sector. Turkish Military Academy Defense Sciences Institute, Master Thesis, Ankara.
• Yeh, C. M. (2013). Tourism involvement, work engagement and job satisfaction among frontline hotel employees. Annals of Tourism Research, 42, 214-239.
• Yesiltas, M. (2013). The mediating role of distribution justice in the impact of paternalist leadership on organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Business Studies, 5(4), 50-70.