The influence of authentic leadership on organizational citizenship behavior: The case of Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy, Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of authentic leadership on organizational citizenship behavior of employees in Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy. As being the leading airlines in Africa, it is essential to have a leadership that engages employees that have willingness to go beyond their requirements’, with the intention of continues competition and to maintain its quality service in this dynamic aviation industry. Currently employees in the Aviation academy are being faced with a demanding work environment which includes a lack of high level of OCB. This necessitated the need to determine whether authentic leadership ultimately leads to extra-role behaviors. In order to meet the objectives of the study, descriptive research design was used and from, the total populations of the study 367 management and non-management employees, who were working at Ethiopian Airlines aviation academy of 5 schools and supporting staff. The study considered 173 nonmanagement and 36 management employees working at headquarters that were believed to be representative of the whole using a non-probability sampling method. However, the study did not consider employees who are working abroad and regional stations. For data collection two different standard questioners were used to assess the variables. The data obtained were analyzed by descriptive statistics (such as mean, standard deviation) and Correlation between Authentic leadership styles and OCB was calculated by applying Pearson coefficient. In addition to measure the effect of the AL on the OCB of respondents Linear Regression was used. The results indicated that authentic leadership has a strong positive significance on OCB and on all the five dimensions of OCB. The main findings suggest that Ethiopian aviation academy as an institution would benefit if leaders are encouraged to be more authentic as this might result in high level of employee engaged in OCB in the organization. As a result, employees can be more likely to work extra miles than what their work requires without additional payment.