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Servant Leadership among Corporate, Bureaucratic, and Political Actors: Implications for Organisational Citizenship Behaviour
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: Leadership, Organisational research
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I10-1716467
Abstract
This study examines servant leadership and its associations with organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) across a composite sample of corporate leaders, bureaucrats, and politicians in India. Drawing on primary data from 350 purposively sampled respondents, the study employs chi-square analysis and Spearman's rank-order correlation to address two objectives: first, to determine whether emotional recognition — a core servant leadership attribute — varies across the three categories; and second, to map associations between servant leadership behaviours and OCB dimensions. Findings indicate that emotional recognition endorsement differs meaningfully across the three groups, with politicians exhibiting the most affirmative distribution and bureaucrats the least — a pattern consistent with the distinct cultural expectations and role demands of each category. Across multiple servant leadership–OCB pairings, consistent positive associations were observed, spanning autonomy support, career mentoring, emotional attunement, ethical integrity, and community engagement. These findings suggest that OCB may serve as a pathway through which servant leadership shapes organisational conduct, though causal and mediating mechanisms remain to be tested. The study extends servant leadership scholarship beyond its predominantly Western-centric foundations and calls for longitudinal, multi-source research to build a more complete picture of how servant leadership operates across India's diverse organisational landscape.
Keywords
Servant Leadership, Organisational Citizenship Behaviour, India, Cross-Sectional Study
How to cite this paper
@article{1716467,
author = {Prof. (Dr.) Sunita Nambiyar, Dr. Hemang Joshi},
title = {Servant Leadership among Corporate, Bureaucratic, and Political Actors: Implications for Organisational Citizenship Behaviour},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2026},
volume = {9},
number = {10},
pages = {2417-2426},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1716467.pdf},
abstract = {This study examines servant leadership and its associations with organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) across a composite sample of corporate leaders, bureaucrats, and politicians in India. Drawing on primary data from 350 purposively sampled respondents, the study employs chi-square analysis and Spearman's rank-order correlation to address two objectives: first, to determine whether emotional recognition — a core servant leadership attribute — varies across the three categories; and second, to map associations between servant leadership behaviours and OCB dimensions. Findings indicate that emotional recognition endorsement differs meaningfully across the three groups, with politicians exhibiting the most affirmative distribution and bureaucrats the least — a pattern consistent with the distinct cultural expectations and role demands of each category. Across multiple servant leadership–OCB pairings, consistent positive associations were observed, spanning autonomy support, career mentoring, emotional attunement, ethical integrity, and community engagement. These findings suggest that OCB may serve as a pathway through which servant leadership shapes organisational conduct, though causal and mediating mechanisms remain to be tested. The study extends servant leadership scholarship beyond its predominantly Western-centric foundations and calls for longitudinal, multi-source research to build a more complete picture of how servant leadership operates across India's diverse organisational landscape.},
keywords = {Servant Leadership, Organisational Citizenship Behaviour, India, Cross-Sectional Study},
month = {April},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I10-1716467}
}