The mediating role of leader member exchange in the impact of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour: A research in non-profit organizations in Adana

Improved technology and globalization have generated environmental uncertainty for organizations. Together with frequency and rapid pace of the environmental shift, organizations started to lose their power of survival. Organizations must lead effectively in order to survive in fluctuating and uncertain environment. Leadership is a vital process which involves foreseeing future beforehand, articulating and sharing a vision, keeping follower's performance high through understanding and affecting them. In this context, this study aims to make a contribution to literature and practitioner's knowledge by handling the impact of servant leadership, which is an effective leadership style in nowadays, on the organizational citizenship behaviour, the term which emcompasses supporting main functions of organization, helping organizations to gain competitive advantage and enhancing organizational performance. On the impact which is sought in this study, the mediating role of leader-member exchange; which investigates the quality of the relationship between the leader and the member is discussed. In regards to research model, leaders induce organizational citizenship behaviour of followers by making their needs a priority, interesting in their development, knowing them closely, listening them effectively, learning about their goals, their level, their needs and developing qualified relationships with them. As a response, followers expected to engage in behaviours that are beyond the formal role requirements and discretionary in nature. Research conducted in non-profit organizations in Adana. Data were collected with the involvement of 191 respondents. 18 respondents were eliminated due to inadequate filling of surveys and only 173 were included in the analyzing process. The findings shown that the impact of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour was positive. When integrating the leader-member exchange as a mediating variable in the model, the impact of servant leadership on the organizational citizenship behaviour became insignificant. This finding confirms the full mediation role of leader-member exchange on the impact of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour. As a result of the analysis, all hypotheses in the study were supported. Keywords: Servant leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, leader-member exchange, non-profit organizations