Leadership styles, organisational culture and managerial effectiveness: The moderating effect of Islamic works ethics in Saudi Arabia public sector

The present study investigated the relationship between leadership styles and managerial effectiveness in the context of the public sector of Saudi Arabia. It also examined the relationship between organizational culture and managerial effectiveness and the moderating effect of Islamic work ethics on the leadership
styles, organizational culture, and managerial effectiveness relationship. The study was motivated by the inconsistent findings in the literature on the relationship between leadership styles, in particular transformational and transactional leadership
styles, and organizational culture, Islamic work ethics, and managerial effectiveness.
These inconsistencies led to a new stream of research that indicates the importance of
examining the effect of potential moderating variables that could clarify such relationship. For this purpose, the study took different theories into consideration including the contingency theory and the role-motivation theory of managerial effectiveness in order to map and position the potential relationships between the variables within the conceptual framework. The questionnaire was randomly
distributed to 357 middle managers in the Saudi public sector firms for data collection, and of the 321 which were returned, 295 were deemed usable for actual data analysis using PLS-SEM. The direct and indirect relationships between the variables were analyzed by using correlation and hierarchical regression analyses. The findings showed that transformational leadership, transactional leadership and organizational culture positively and significantly predicted managerial effectiveness. Furthermore, the findings supported the moderating effect of Islamic work ethics on the relationship between transactional leadership, organizational
culture, and managerial effectiveness, but not with transformational leadership. The study offers managerial, policy and theoretical implications and recommendations for future study.