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 Universitiesin Uganda are slowly emerging as a major inhibitor to job satisfaction,organization commitment which has led to occupational stress, employeeturnover, burn out and brain drain . Many scholars have argued thatconsideration of job characteristics as means of enriching jobs andultimate personal job fit on employees (academic staff) would lead toorganizational commitment. It is on this premise that this study is aimedat examining the relationship between job characteristic andorganizational commitment and the role of leader member exchange inthe relationship between Job characteristic and organizationalcommitment of academic staff. Data were collected from a populationof 1935 academic staff from three public universities in Kampala,Uganda with a sample size of 260 academic staff using theproportionate 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 organizationcommitment was quite small with a variance of 13%. Findings furtherrevealed that Leader Member Exchange mediates the relationshipbetween job characteristic and organizational commitment. Academicstaff felt that job fit was not enough for them to realize organizationalcommitment especially affective commitment. There was need forleadership support, trust, profession, mutual contribution, and constantcommunication in form of leader member exchange on academic staffdevelopment, and enhancement of organization commitment at theUniversities.Key words: Leader Member Exchange, Job characteristic andOrganizational commitment