Moderating effect of transformational leadership on the relationship between organizational justice and employee commitment in national hospital insurance fund, Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Public and private sector organizations face ongoing pressure to streamline activities, foster employee commitment, improve efficiency and achieve demanding organizational objectives. In this context, the ability of senior managers to understand organizational justice and organizational commitment in the dynamics of organizations and to deliver strong leadership could be the difference between organizational failure and success. Senior leaders in state government and public sector agencies must manage employee commitment to ensure quality services to the citizens they serve. Limited academic research exists on exploring the role of transformational leadership in managing organizational justice and organizational commitment. This study therefore seeks to address the gaps in the existing literature to understand the moderating role of transformational leadership towards organizational commitment. The general objective of this study is to investigate the moderating role of transformational leadership on the relationship between organizational justice and employee commitment in (NHIF), Kenya. The theories supporting the study are the Social exchange theory, Equity theory and Meyer and Allen multidimensional model. The study adopted census method of data collection which collects complete information from all participants in the study. The target population consisted of all the 397 employees and heads of departments under the Directorate of Operations and Quality Assurance based at NHIF headquarters, Industrial area and Westlands branches within Nairobi County. The researcher collected primary data which was done by use of self-administered questionnaires. On the other hand, pilot test was conducted to ensure validity of the research instruments. In this study, reliability of the research instrument was tested by measuring the internal consistency of the responses using Cronbach-alpha test. Descriptive data was analyzed and presented through percentages, frequencies, mean and standard deviation. Specifically, data was analyzed using multi-regression tests generated from SPSS version 20. The study found that employee commitment had a perfect correlation coefficient of 3.283 which implies a perfect relationship with organizational justice. The study recommends thatmanagement promote employee commitment by designing employment terms that are internally correspond with employee’s efforts and organizations to have work place policies which promote fairness in order to enhance employee commitment and resulting performance. There is a need to undertake further studies in order to widen the generalizability of the findings and also establish the roles of leaders in organizations. Future scholars may also investigate other leadership styles and their effect on employee commitment.