The Mediating Role of Leader Member Exchange in the Relationship between Job Characteristics and Organisational Commitment:ACase of Ugandan Public Universities

Abstract

In a major education set up and work environment management,
leadership support concerns of academic staff in public Universities
in Uganda are slowly emerging as a major inhibitor to job satisfaction,
organization commitment which has led to occupational stress, employee
turnover, burn out and brain drain . Many scholars have argued that
consideration of job characteristics as means of enriching jobs and
ultimate personal job fit on employees (academic staff) would lead to
organizational commitment. It is on this premise that this study is aimed
at examining the relationship between job characteristic and
organizational commitment and the role of leader member exchange in
the relationship between Job characteristic and organizational
commitment of academic staff. Data were collected from a population
of 1935 academic staff from three public universities in Kampala,
Uganda with a sample size of 260 academic staff using the
proportionate sampling technique.
The study found that job characteristic and Leader Member  Exchange were positively related with organizational commitment;
however the contribution of the two variables on organization
commitment was quite small with a variance of 13%. Findings further
revealed that Leader Member Exchange mediates the relationship
between job characteristic and organizational commitment. Academic
staff felt that job fit was not enough for them to realize organizational
commitment especially affective commitment. There was need for
leadership support, trust, profession, mutual contribution, and constant
communication in form of leader member exchange on academic staff
development, and enhancement of organization commitment at the
Universities.

Key words: Leader Member Exchange, Job characteristic and
Organizational commitment