1. Introduction
Employees’ positive organizational relationships not only play an important role in shaping organizational reputation, but also contribute towards the achievement of organizational aims and boosting employee effectiveness. Likewise, no assignment can be effectively achieved if disagreement occurs between employees, and their organization [
1,
2]. Employees who maintain a respectable relationship with their leadership and the organization in which they are working consider organizational problems as their own and try to find solutions for them as if they were their own problems [
3]. Employees’ communal relationships are a form of positive relationship, introduced by Clark and Mills [
4] as “the efforts to give benefits to other party with no expectation of returns in future”. Empirical evidence reveals that a communal relationship plays a significant role in assisting organizational management to pay specific attention to its duties because it then assists its employees without any expectations [
5,
6].
Authentic leadership has nowadays appeared as a form of leadership style that has gained the attention of numerous scholars [
7,
8,
9] and practitioners [
10,
11,
12]. The interest on authentic leadership stems from the recent corporate scandals and organizational malfeasance, like leadership dishonesty and unethical practices [
13], and the reduction of conventional leadership approaches, such as transformational and charismatic leadership, which emphasize attaining organizational performance through leadership. Centering on authenticity and morality, authentic leadership focuses on ethical dilemmas and motivates firms to establish a positive learning and organizational climate [
14,
15]. In addition, authentic leadership has attracted researchers’ attention due to its positive influence on employees’ job outcomes and organizational-goal achievements [
16,
17,
18], and the call for more empirical work [
7,
8,
19].
Empirical evidence reveals the significant role of authentic leadership in affecting employees’ workplace outcomes [
20]. For instance, authentic leadership has been revealed to enhance employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) [
16,
17,
21] positively related to an ethical culture [
22], improving employees’ organizational commitment [
23], increasing employees’ work engagement [
24,
25], better employee performance [
26], and trust [
25,
27]. However, little research exists into investigating the direct impact of authentic leadership and employees’ communal relationships [
9]. In addition, although empirical evidence reveals a positive association between authentic leadership and employees’ communal relationships [
9], the psychological mechanism underlying this relationship is less clear.
This research makes an important addition to the literature on authentic leadership by examining a novel mediation framework that explains the procedure through which authentic leaders impact their subordinates’ communal relationships. Focusing on relational-model theory [
28] and social-exchange theory [
29], we examined the mediating effect of affective- and cognitive-based trust in transmitting the effect of authentic leadership to enhance employees’ communal relationships. Authentic leadership is defined as having optimistic beliefs that inculcate qualities of hope, trust, and positive emotions in their subordinates [
7,
30,
31]. Similarly, Dirks and Ferrin [
32], in their meta-analytic review, called for scholars to consider two dimensions of trust, affective- and cognitive-based trust, and to “attempt to distinguish between the processes involved” (p. 623), however, very few studies have followed this call [
33,
34,
35]. In addition, this is the first study that focuses on affective- and cognitive-based trust as a mediating variable while examining the relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ communal relationships. It is suitable to explore the mediating effect of affective- and cognitive-based trust at the individual level, as they were initially theorized as individual-level constructs; an increasing body of research has also revealed leadership’s influence on individuals and group levels [
36].
Conducting research related to authentic leadership and OCB in the context of Pakistan is important because most research related to these topics has been conducted in Western cultures, which are quite different from South Asian cultures (specifically Pakistani culture); this is a new contribution by examining this relationship in Pakistan’s collectivistic culture.
In addition, past studies have urged for more empirical research to examine authentic-leadership types globally [
7,
20]. This study is an attempt to respond to this call, and it explores the role of authentic leadership in affecting employees’ communal relationships by focusing on the collectivistic culture of Pakistan, which is quite different from Western culture. In addition, this is a three-way study in which authentic leadership influences employees’ communal relationship through two sequential mediators, namely, affective- and cognitive-based trust. By investigating processes through which these two dimensions of trust transmit the effects of authentic leadership on employees’ communal relationships, our study extends the authentic-leadership and trust literature in a new important direction.
3. Materials and Methods
We adopted a cross-sectional study design and collected data from 200 employees working in different private-sector banking organizations in the city of Peshawar of Pakistan. We highlighted the study’s significance to every bank manager and motivated staff members to participate. After the formal approval of managers, the self-administered questionnaire was distributed among all bank employees, ensuring the confidentiality of the respondents’ responses.
Through a convenient sampling technique, we circulated 300 questionnaires, but received 200 completed questionnaires.
Table 1 indicates that out of the 200 total respondents, the majority (143; 71%) were male, and 57 (29%) were female. Most of the respondents (104; 52%) were 21–30 years old, 79 (40%) respondents were 31–40 years old, and the remaining 17 (8%) were 41–50 years old. In addition, the majority (120; 60%) of respondents were married, and 80 (40%) were unmarried; 53 (26%) had a bachelor’s degree, 118 (59%) had a master’s degree, and the remaining 29 (15%) had an MPhil or above level of education. Further, the majority (108; 54%) of respondents had 1–5 years of work experience, 50 (25%) had 6–10 years of experience, 21 (11%) had 11–15 years of experience, and the remaining 12 (6%) had 16–20 years of experience. Lastly, out of the total respondents, only 49 (25%) worked as a bank manager, and the majority (151; 75%) worked as banking staff members.
3.1. Measurement
We used a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, to measure all scales used in the study.
3.2. Authentic Leadership
The authentic-leadership scale was measured by using a self-reported scale developed by Walumbwa, Avolio [
16]. The scale comprised of 16 items, and sample items included “My manager seeks feedback to improve interactions with others,” “My manager admits mistakes when they are made,” and “My manager demonstrates beliefs that are consistent with actions”. The alpha was 0.873.
3.3. Communal Relationships
The communal-relationships scale developed by Clark, Oullette [
60] was adopted for the study. The scale comprised 14 items. Example items included “When making a decision, I take other people’s needs and feelings into account” and “I expect people I know to be responsive to my needs and feelings”. The alpha was 0.795.
3.4. Affective- and Cognitive-Based Trust
Affective- and cognitive-based trust were measured by using a self-reported scale developed by McAllister (1995). The scale of affective-based trust comprised five items, and cognitive-based trust comprised six items. Sample items of affective-based trust included “My manager and I have a sharing relationship. We can both freely share our ideas, feelings, and hopes” and “If I shared my problems with my manager, I know he would respond constructively and caringly”. The alpha of the affective-based-trust scale was 0.754. Sample items of cognitive-based trust included “My manager approaches his/her job with professionalism and dedication” and “I can rely on my manager not to make my job more difficult by careless work”. The alpha of the cognitive-based-trust scale was 0.726.
5. Discussion
The present study explored the direct effect of authenticity on employees’ communal relationships as well as the indirect effect of an authentic leadership on employees’ communal relationships through affective- and cognitive-based trust.
This study indicated the vital role of authentic leadership in affecting employees’ communal relationships. As discussed in the literature section, authentic leadership has attracted researchers’ attention due to its positive role in affecting employees and organizational-goal achievements [
16,
17,
18], calling for more empirical work [
7,
8,
19]. We filled this gap by investigating the impact of authentic leadership on communal relationships among employees working in the banking sector of Pakistan. Moreover, in line with past studies [
9], this study revealed the positive role of authentic leadership in affecting employees’ communal relationships, supporting Hypothesis 1.
On the basis of relational model theory by Fiske [
28] and its theoretical component, specifically the communal-sharing mental schema, we argue that, when employees perceive their leader’s behavior as authentic, they display more concern for their work and take care of organizational fame, which aids the organization in accomplishing its goals. By adding relational-model theory, this study makes an important theoretical contribution to the literature in the field of psychology.
In addition, the current study significantly contributes to the existing literature related to authentic leadership and trust by giving a more comprehensive understanding of the mediating role played by trust on the association between authentic leadership and employees’ workplace-relationship outcomes than past studies, which typically hypothesized trust as a one-dimensional construct. Dirks and Ferrin [
32], in their meta-analytic review, urged researchers to consider multiple constructs of trust, including affective- and cognitive-based trust, and “attempt to distinguish between the processes involved” (p. 623), but very few studies have followed this call [
35,
36,
37]. We filled this breach and explored the indirect effect of authentic leadership on employees’ communal relationships through affective- and cognitive-based trust. In agreement with our initial expectations, authentic leadership was found to be positively associated with affective- and cognitive-based trust. In addition, affective- and cognitive-based trust both positively mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ communal relationships. From a social-exchange perspective, our findings have also revealed that trust stimulates positive workplace-relationship outcomes, which is important; this is pioneering, as it examined both affective- and cognitive-based trust as a mediating mechanism on exploring the relationship between authentic leadership with employees’ communal relationships, making a new contribution to the authentic-leadership literature.
Practical Implications, Limitations, and Future Research
The current study has confirmed that leadership plays an important role in influencing employee attitudes and behaviors within organizations. The results of the study suggested that an organization needs to pay specific attention to authentic leadership and to enhance follower workplace-relationship outcomes, such as employees’ communal relationships. To gain the full benefits of authentic leadership, organizations should consider integrating components of authentic leadership into their development, appraisal, and selection processes. For instance, an organization may give more importance to training both leaders and subordinates to advance their concerns with regard to workplace issues. This results in more authentic behavior by leaders, as well as enhancing the receptivity of subordinates to such behaviors. The current study also revealed the vital role of the affective- and cognitive-based-trust mediating mechanism underlying the relationship between authentic leadership and communal relationships. This study suggests that leaders should rationally consider approaches they utilize to influence their subordinates’ behaviors in the workplace. Specifically, our study suggests that authentic leadership may be used as an instrument by managers to influence employees’ communal relationships through the development of trust.
This study also had some limitations. First, we only focused on the private banking sector. Hence, it is suggested that the study should be extended to other work settings to further develop the understanding of relationships between the studied variables. Second, common-method bias was also a limitation. Furthermore, studies should be expanded to other departments and groups as well. Third, the current study should be replicated in other countries to increase the generalizability of our findings. Future studies are encouraged to consider other organizational variables, such as work engagement and well-being, while focusing on authentic leadership and trust.