Transformational Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Mediating Role of Job Involvement among Indonesian Lecturers

Abstract

Background: Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) contributes substantially to organizational effectiveness, most notably within knowledge-intensive contexts such as higher education. While a connection between transformational leadership and OCB is well documented, the psychological pathway that converts leadership into extra-role behavior—particularly by way of job involvement—has yet to be adequately clarified. Objective: This research investigated how transformational leadership relates to OCB when job involvement serves as an intervening variable. Methods: Employing a quantitative cross-sectional design, the survey drew on 225 lecturers recruited by convenience sampling from private higher-education institutions in Indonesia. Responses were gathered through a self-completed Likert-scale instrument and examined with Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) in SmartPLS 4.0, complemented by descriptive and correlational procedures run in SPSS 27. Results: Transformational leadership showed a positive link with both OCB (β = 0.344; t = 4.931; p < 0.001) and job involvement (β = 0.371; t = 5.639; p < 0.001), and job involvement was likewise positively related to OCB (β = 0.401; t = 6.219; p < 0.001). The mediated path from transformational leadership to OCB via job involvement proved significant (β = 0.149; t = 3.913; p < 0.001), yielding a VAF of 30.2% that signals complementary partial mediation. Overall, the model accounted for 38.1% of the variance in OCB. Conclusion: Job involvement operates as a key psychological channel that ties transformational leadership to OCB. Institutions of higher education can reinforce OCB by pairing transformational leadership practices with initiatives that deepen staff members' psychological involvement in their work.