Servant leadership, transformational leadership, and organizational citizenship behavior: Evidence on motivational mediators in a verified corpus

Abstract

Introduction: Servant leadership and transformational leadership are related to organizational citizenship behavior; however, the motivational mechanisms that explain this relationship remain dispersed among different theoretical traditions. Objective: To analyze the published evidence on the relationship between both leadership styles and organizational citizenship behavior, identifying the function attributed to work engagement, perceived organizational support, and organizational identification as motivational mediators. Methodology: An integrative documentary review was carried out with a systematic search strategy and descriptive-comparative synthesis. The analytical corpus was made up of 22 sources, complemented by 15 theoretical and methodological references. The information was organized through a file of nine fields and two successive coding processes. Results: 50.0 % of the sources used cross-sectional surveys with structural equations and no longitudinal or experimental studies were identified. Work engagement was the only motivational mediator verified in a complete trajectory towards organizational citizenship behavior, present in three studies. Perceived organizational support showed variable functions as a mediator, moderator and direct predictor, while organizational identification did not appear as a mediator. No study simultaneously integrated organizational citizenship behavior, motivational mediation and Ibero-American population. Conclusions: The available evidence confirms an important accumulation on leadership and organizational citizenship, but reveals a still limited integration of motivational mechanisms, especially in Ibero-American contexts.