Title: Leadership behaviour and employee engagement: a Kuwaiti services company

Authors: Silvia A. Nelson; Omar Shraim

Addresses: Southern Cross University, Locked Mailbag 4, Queensland 4225, Australia ' Advanced Technology Co., P.O. Box 44558, Hawalli 32060, Kuwait

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of three types of leadership behaviour on work engagement within a Kuwaiti services company. Quantitative methodology, through a survey, was utilised to gather data from 231 participants. The results indicated a significant but small positive relationship between both transactional and transformational leadership behaviours and work engagement, and a significant negative relation between laissez-faire leadership behaviour and work engagement. These interesting results appear to reflect a transnational organisational culture, characterised by shorter-term employment and commitment by managers, whose leadership behaviours are conditioned by their relationship to the 'employer' culture and their rewards expectations.

Keywords: motivation; laissez-faire leadership; transactional leadership; transformational leadership; work engagement; leadership behaviour; employee engagement; Kuwait; services; service industry; transnational organisations; organisational culture.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRDM.2014.068078

International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2014 Vol.14 No.1/2/3, pp.119 - 135

Published online: 26 Mar 2015 *

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