Date of Graduation

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

College of Business and Economics

Department

Management

Committee Chair

Jeffery D Houghton

Committee Co-Chair

David D Dawley

Committee Member

Kathi J Lovelace

Committee Member

Abhishek Srivastava

Abstract

This dissertation will test a model of self-leadership that involves direct relationships with work engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), mediating mechanisms of emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment, and a moderating variable of perceived organizational support. The proposed model that will be examined can be seen in Figure 1. Work engagement has received prominent attention within the organizational behavior and human resources field, yet there has been scant detail paid to how self-leadership strategies may influence an employee's level of work engagement. In addition, OCBs have also received prominent attention within these fields, yet there is again a gap remaining regarding how self-leadership may influence an employee participating in OCBs. Using data from a sample of transportation workers, results suggest that self-leadership does positively impact levels of OCBs in employees. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion serves as a key mediating variable between self-leadership and both work engagement and OCBs. However, organizational commitment does not appear to have the same impact as emotional exhaustion as a mediating variable. Moderating hypotheses regarding how perceived organizational support would moderate the relationship between self-leadership and emotional exhaustion were found to be supported. However, moderating hypotheses suggesting that perceived organizational support would moderate the relationship between self-leadership and organizational commitment, work engagement, and OCBs were not supported. In all, these results suggest that self-leadership does in fact influence OCBs and work engagement. These findings encourage future research that seeks to better understand the complex relationships that are at work involving self-leadership.

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