Spiritual leadership and organizational citizenship behavior: Exploring the conditional effects of self-determination and Confucian mindset

Today’s workers are increasingly expected to work autonomously while also working beyond assigned responsibilities as organizational citizens. Effective leadership facilitates this process. This paper proposed that the intrinsic motivational aspects of self-determination mediate the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Moreover, given that the effectiveness of leadership theory requires a congruency with cultural values when testing in non-western cultures, this paper proposed that Confucian values moderate the relationship between one’s perceived self-determination and OCBs in Confucian-centric cultures. Results confirmed that self-determination mediated the proposed relationship. Additionally, the results confirmed that Confucian values moderate the relationship between self-determination and citizenship behavior to the organization (OCBO). The results of this study increase our understanding of how and under what conditions spiritual leadership influences employee participation in citizenship behaviors.