Relationship between Exemplary Leadership Practices and Organizational Citizenship Behavior of Academic Staff in Malaysian Research Universities

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between exemplary leadership practices and organizational citizenship behavior of academic staff in Malaysian Research Universities. This study employed a quantitative descriptive survey whereby a total of 372 academic staff from five Research Universities were selected as samples for the study. An instrument consisting of 54 items were used to measure academic staff’ perceptions towards their level of organizational citizenship behavior (24-items) and exemplary leadership practices (30-items) at the workplace. The data were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistical tools (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation), while the research hypotheses were analyzed using inferential statistical tools (Pearson correlation). The descriptive analysis showed that the level of organizational citizenship behavior (mean = 5.91, SD = 0.56) was high while the level of exemplary leadership practices (mean = 7.48, SD = 1.67) was also reported as high. The result of this study also found that there is a significant relationship between exemplary leadership practices and organizational citizenship behavior (r = 0.252, p < 0.05). Thus, exemplary leadership practices were confirmed as contextual factors within academic staff in Malaysian Research Universities that would significantly contribute to their level of citizenship behavior toward the organization they served for.