Benevolent leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors in a higher education context: a moderated mediation model

Purpose Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this paper investigates the moderated mediation model linking benevolent leadership to organizational citizenship behaviors towards the organization (OCBO) and towards individuals (OCBI) in the context of higher education. The mediating roles of leader-member exchange and affective commitment as well as the moderating roles of the two attachment styles—attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance—are also examined. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from a sample of 333 university lecturers and analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings The results demonstrate that leader-member exchange and affective commitment are mediating resources that help benevolent leaders motivate university lecturers to engage in two types of OCBs. Moreover, attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance act as the respective enhancer and inhibitor for the indirect effects of benevolent leadership on both OCBs through leader-member exchange. In contrast, the relationships between benevolent leadership and two types of OCBs through the mediating role of affective commitment are not contingent on the attachment styles of lecturers. Practical implications The findings suggest that university leaders who aim at promoting OCBs among lecturers should deploy benevolent leadership style to facilitate a positive social exchange relationship as well as foster their affective commitment. Such leadership style is especially effective in influencing lecturers who possess attachment anxiety personality traits. Originality/value This pioneer research develops and empirically tests a COR theory-grounded moderated mediation model pertaining to benevolent leadership and lecturers' OCBs. The findings contribute to the educational management literature by demonstrating that benevolent leadership, a crucial organizational resource, significantly motivates lecturers' voluntary and extra-role behaviors in a dynamic and contingent manner. Leader-member exchange and affective commitment are important mediating resources in the process of transforming benevolent leadership into beneficial behaviors. Further, the effectiveness of benevolent leadership largely depends on lecturers' personality traits of attachment anxiety and avoidance. These novel mediating and moderating findings demonstrate the sequential and interaction effects of various organizational and individual resources on lecturers' OCBs; thus, adding value to the COR theory's core principles, including resource caravans and resource investment behaviors.