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Article

The Impact of Inclusive Leadership and Autocratic Leadership on Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Commitment in Sport Organizations: The Mediating Role of Organizational Trust and The Moderating Role of Sport Involvement

by
Jihyeon Oh
,
Dae Hee Kim
and
Daehwan Kim
*
Department of Marine Sports, Pukyong National University, Busan 48513, Republic of Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3367; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043367
Submission received: 21 January 2023 / Revised: 9 February 2023 / Accepted: 10 February 2023 / Published: 12 February 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability of Sport Management in the Post-COVID19 Era)
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Abstract

:
Leadership and organizational trust have become increasingly important in sport organizations. This study investigated the separate effects of inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership on organizational trust and the moderating role of sport involvement in these relationships. A total of 250 sport organization employees participated in the survey. This study conducted confirmatory factor analysis and latent moderated structural equation modeling (LMS) to test the research hypotheses. We found that while inclusive leadership was positively related to organizational trust, autocratic leadership was negatively related to organizational trust. Organizational trust positively influenced employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The findings also confirmed that sport involvement moderated the relationship between inclusive leadership and organizational trust. Furthermore, sport involvement had a marginally significant moderating effect on the relationship between autocratic leadership and organizational trust. The results of this study provide meaningful insight into sport organizations.

1. Introduction

As one of the most affected industries by COVID-19, sport organizations suffered various damages, such as a reduction in employees and dissolution of an entire organization due to the inability to make income. During this inevitable situation, the role of leadership, which positively influences the organizational psychology of employees, has emerged as important for the sustainability of sport organizations. In an unpredictable and competitive sport environment, it is recognized that the attitude and behavior of the leader of a sport organization influence the organization’s performance. Management must create an environment where employees can increase their job satisfaction and have a pool of leaders who can sustain and benefit the organization through successful job outcomes [1] and who can develop trust in the organization. Organizational trust becomes the motive to integrate new employees, manage them effectively, and inspire the business to perform at its best [2]. It is asserted that trust improves organizational performance, team performance, and productivity, and it has an impact on strengthening organizational commitment, justice, and organizational citizenship behavior [3]. Moreover, it is an imperative component in increasing employees’ job satisfaction [4]. As a result, sport organizations should foster a work environment that enhances organizational trust to produce positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Different leadership styles may have a broad range of impact on organizational trust [5]. Then, which leadership styles can increase organizational trust? Few studies have examined the connections between distinct leadership styles and employee’s organizational trust in the setting of sport organizations. In most sport organizations, especially in Asian cultural regions, autocratic leadership has long been a part of the organizational culture. However, the need for inclusive leadership has recently emerged. When the characteristics of these two leadership styles are compared, they have opposite characteristics. Inclusive leadership listens and reflects their employees’ opinions, but autocratic leadership is a structure in which employees must accept their leader’s orders or opinions. By comparing these two leadership styles, this study can provide direction on which leadership to accept and move forward in sport organizations in the future. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate how two different leadership styles, which are inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership, affect organizational trust.
Holye [6] suggests that an autocratic leadership style might be described as a hierarchical arrangement with leaders at the top and employees at the bottom. One-way communication, which characterizes this form of leadership, indicates that employees have little authority or influence over decision making and autocratic leaders are not concerned about feedback.
On the contrary, an inclusive leader communicates with their followers in an open, accessible, and available manner [7]. Nembhard and Edmondson [8] introduced the concept of leader inclusiveness to describe the behavior of leaders who support and value other people’s ideas, hence influencing their group members’ judgments of how much “their ideas are respected” (p. 948). Compared to autocratic leadership, inclusive leadership is more closely related to trust [9]. The perception of employees toward inclusive leadership and open communication increases their trust in the decision-making processes [10]. Moreover, according to the social exchange theory, deeper social connections result in more trust between people [11]. Previous studies investigated the relationship between leadership styles, behavior, and job satisfaction [12,13]. Based on earlier research examining job satisfaction as an intrinsic or extrinsic aspect of work [14], inclusive leadership allows leaders to build strong emotional ties with their employees, and it therefore raises higher levels of trust. Employees who trust their leader will be more satisfied with their jobs [15] because they experience higher levels of consideration and care. This may indicate that inclusive leadership increases employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment. From this perspective, it can be said that inclusive leadership encourages employees to be more satisfied and committed to their work through organizational trust [16,17], while autocratic leadership has a negative influence on organizational trust.
Furthermore, as various factors affect organizational trust, we suggest that employees’ sport involvement positively moderates the relationship between leadership (i.e., inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership) and organizational trust. We selected sport involvement as a moderator because sport organization employees who has a psychological connection with sport would feel psychologically different. If psychological bonding is measured by involvement [18], and a person’s level of involvement is related to their experience or knowledge [19], the level of involvement accomplished by an individual as a result of engaging in sports can be viewed as a moderator in the relationship between leadership and organizational trust, particularly among employees in sport organizations.
Based on these considerations, the present study proposed two main propositions: (1) sport involvement moderates the effect of leadership on organizational trust, and (2) organizational trust has an influence on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These propositions serve as the foundation for the current study, which aims to examine the inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership effects on organizational trust. This study contributes to the development and extension of the concepts of two different leadership styles (i.e., inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership) and a better understanding of their dynamic roles in the context of sport organizations.

2. Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development

2.1. Inclusive Leadership and Organizational Trust

Leaders who are active at listening to their employees’ ideas reflect the inclusive leadership, which encourages employee contributions and opinions [20]. According to Carmeli et al. [7], inclusive leaders are those who “demonstrate openness, accessibility, and availability in their interactions with followers” (p. 250). It may aid employees in developing the conviction that their opinions are truly valued. Among these, openness denotes that leaders value their workers’ viewpoints, invite them to participate in decision making, and encourage them to use fresh perspectives and innovative techniques to address issues. Availability means that managers can assist workers in a timely manner when they run across problems at work. Accessibility is the capacity of a leader to pay careful attention to the requirements of their subordinates and to establish a close relationship with them [21,22]. An inclusive leader, in contrast to other leadership styles, is better equipped to handle employee recommendations and is more receptive to hearing their opinions [7]. The existing literature suggests that a leader’s inclusiveness reflects a relational leadership style that promotes organizational trust [23]. According to Rempel, Holmes, and Zanna [24], organizational trust is recognized as a vital element in building interpersonal relationships at work and is crucial in fostering a culture of collaboration [25,26]. Organizational trust is the “expectation of individuals, groups, or organizations from groups or organizations with which they are in mutual interaction that they will make ethical decisions and will develop behaviors that are based on ethical principles” [27] (p. 4). Since an inclusive leader embraces their employees’ ideas and contributions, they provide emotional support that fosters trust in their relationships with their followers [28]. Edmondson’s [29] study describing a leader’s openness, availability, and accessibility is also in line with previous research suggestions, which point out that a leader’s generosity and support, for instance, build trust [30]. By focusing on their needs, an inclusive leader could develop trust within employees and fosters connections between them [31]. An inclusive leader develops a positive relationship with employees, which leads to higher organizational trust [32]. Therefore, this study suggests that organizational trust is an important outcome of inclusive leadership.
H1. 
Inclusive leadership will positively influence employees’ organizational trust.

2.2. Autocratic Leadership and Organizational Trust

Autocratic leadership, according to Foels et al. [33], is defined by behaviors that concentrate authority and manage the entire decision making, permitting a leader to control every aspect of employees’ conduct without taking their opinions into consideration [34]. Certain actions include directing team members, instructing them what to do, and making choices in an exclusive manner [35,36]. According to Ardichvili and Kuchenke [37] and Egwunyenga [38], an autocratic leader never allows employees to make decisions and usually keeps distance from employees. It is a type of leadership that is imposed on an organization, and it is occasionally termed as coercive leadership [39]. Employees may not be committed in this environment, which could lead to low morale, poor motivation, and reluctance to set goals [40]. Due to the complexity of trust, research considers a variety of perspectives from employees about their leaders, their organization, and its environment [41]. Embedded within the premise of the social exchange theory [26], autocratic leaders are equipped to create “low quality” levels of trust. The culture of communication that a leader cultivates for both internal and external stakeholders greatly contributes to the development of trust [38]. Additionally, trust develops when leaders uphold their values. Leaders clearly convey expectations and enhance employee perception by modeling these values [42]. According to Bulter [43], leaders who encourage free thoughts and exchange ideas with their employees improve the perception of trust in general. Based on previous studies, it is implied that communication is essential to the behavioral aspects of organizational trust. However, the characteristics of autocratic leadership has no communication or share opinion with employees. Therefore, this study suggests that autocratic leadership will be negatively related to organizational trust.
H2. 
Autocratic leadership will negatively influence employees’ organizational trust.

2.3. The Mediating Role of Organizational Trust

An individual’s personal assessment of their job, their work environment, or their own work experience is what is known as their “job satisfaction,” which is defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state [44,45]. Further investigation has revealed that employee satisfaction may play a crucial role in influencing their behavioral intentions [46], and as a result, the concept of job satisfaction is frequently used in the study of organizational behavior [47]. Numerous research studies that have looked into the link between organizational trust and job satisfaction have found a strong correlation between the two [48,49]. For instance, employees are more likely to believe that their organization would protect them and safeguard their jobs based on their trust when internal marketing tools foster such organizational trust, which in turn raises employees’ happiness with their organization [47,50,51]. Lee et al. [47] used this perspective to examine the CSR setting for hospitality employees and discovered that those who had more faith in their organization reported feeling safer and happier at work. This research suggests that trust has a favorable effect on the quality of interactions within an organization, and that this may enhance workers’ job satisfaction [50]. Hence, the current study explores whether organizational trust affects job satisfaction.
H3. 
Sport organization employee’s organizational trust will positively influence job satisfaction.
The relative degree to which a person identifies with and is involved in a given organization is referred to as organizational commitment [52]. Since it is characterized by both behavioral and emotion dispositions, organizational commitment is also known as attitudinal organizational commitment [52,53,54]. It is identified as an emotional connection and attachment to an organization, along with an identification with the organization; this commitment is thought to lead to a desire to devote more effort. Individuals who have a strong emotional connection to an organization have a strong belief in the organization’s objectives, are eager to go above and beyond for the organization, and are keen to keep their membership. An individual’s level of emotional connection and attachment to an organization also rises as organizational trust does. It is, therefore, strongly tied to organizational commitment, which denotes the degree to which members of an organization identify with it and demonstrate their relative commitment to it [55,56]. An organization’s members are more committed and less likely to have problems with one another or consider switching jobs when there is a greater mutual bond between them [57]. Therefore, we suggest organizational trust affects organizational commitment.
H4. 
Sport organization employee’s organizational trust will positively influence organizational commitment.

2.4. The Moderating Role of Sport Involvement

It is reasonable to assume that employees who work in sport organizations will differ depending on their sport involvement. Sport involvement can be viewed as a measurement of how central a role sports play in a person’s life. As noted by Beaton et al. [58], “sport involvement is present when individuals evaluate their participation in a sport activity as a central component of their life and provides both hedonic and symbolic value” (p. 128). A leader with inclusive leadership aggressively solicits input from their followers and welcomes their ideas [20]. The effects of inclusive leadership on organizational trust in sport organization employees who are involved in sports will be somewhat different, which can implement new ideas and productiveness from employees’ viewpoints. This is justified by the fact that involvement has been identified as a central purpose of human life that is connected to self-image and facilitates adaptive behavior [59]. In a positive work environment, thinking favorably about one’s work can be a substitute for obtaining resources, building resource caravans, or both [60]. For this reason, it could be assumed that inclusive leadership will have less influence on organizational trust when employees have high sport involvement. Autocratic leadership is characterized by individual control over group members’ action and limited participation. Autocratic leaders disregard the opinions of their followers when making choices and rarely listen to them, which calls for totalitarian power over the group [61]. This type of leader wants their employees to function as they command [62]. Despite this leadership style, since sport organization employees’ sport involvement could relate to their symbolic value [58], the negative impact of autocratic leadership on organizational trust will depend on sport involvement. Hence, this study assumes that employees’ sport involvement is expected to moderate the effect of inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership on organizational trust and puts forward the following hypotheses:
H5. 
Sport involvement moderates the relationship between inclusive leadership and organizational trust, such that a positive relationship will be weaker for employees with high sport involvement.
H6. 
Sport involvement moderates the relationship between autocratic leadership and organizational trust, such that a negative relationship will be weaker for employees with high sport involvement.
All hypotheses were visualized in Figure 1.

3. Methods

3.1. Participants and Procedure

The target population was employees who work in sport organizations belonging the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC), the K League (soccer), and the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). To recruit participants, sport organization employees’ email addresses from each institution’s website were obtained. We collected data from all different classes of employees because each job class might have their own leaders, and depending on the departments, different leadership styles can exist. The data were gathered via the use of the Prolific survey software, which is created specifically for conducting electronic surveys; Prolific sent out through email a survey link. Among the 400 employees who successfully received the survey link, 274 employees finished the survey. Although they completed the survey, 24 cases were removed due to incomplete responses. The final data set for this study included 250 employees. As a general rule, sample sizes of 200 to 300 respondents are considered acceptable for conducting structural equation modeling (SEM) [63]. Thus, our sample size is acceptable. The information about the research participants is summarized in Table 1.

3.2. Measurement Model

All the variables in the research model were measured with multiple items adopted from previous studies, and the measurement items were revised to fit the context of the present study. These items measured each of their target variables using a seven-point Likert scale anchored from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). Inclusive leadership is defined as a leader who demonstrates openness, accessibility, and availability in their interaction with employees [7]. Inclusive leadership was measured with six items that were adopted from Carmeli et al. [7]. Autocratic leadership is defined by behaviors that concentrate authority, manage the entire decision-making process, and control every aspect of employees’ conduct [33]. Autocratic leadership was measured with six items that were adopted from De Hoogh, Den Hartog, and Koop-man [35]. Organizational trust is the expectation of employees toward organizations with which they are in mutual interaction [27]. Giessner and Van Knippenberg [64]’s five-item scale was used to assess organizational trust. Job satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state [44,45]. A three-item scale was used to measure job satisfaction [65]. Lastly, organizational commitment is the degree to which a person identifies with and is involved in a given organization [52]. Organizational commitment was measured with four items that were adopted from the affective organizational commitment scale [66].
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to validate the theorized measurement model using Mplus 8. The latent moderated structural equation (LMS) analysis was evaluated with the two-step approach suggested by Klein and Moosbrugger [67].

4. Results

A CFA was performed to assess the construct validity and reliability of the measurement model. The results indicated acceptable fit between the data and the measurement model (χ2/df = 725.53/309 = 2.35, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.04). All factor loadings in the measurement model are greater than 0.05 and statistically significant (Table 2). The average variance extracted (AVE) values range from 0.73 (inclusive leadership) to 0.93 (autocratic leadership). Moreover, all composite reliability coefficients of the latent variables were found to be greater than 0.80. Based on these results, this study concluded that the measurement model has both reliability and convergent and discriminant validity [68,69].
For the hypothesis testing, this study estimated a structural model (model 0) without latent interaction terms (inclusive leadership × sport involvement and autocratic leadership × sport involvement) in the first step. The result showed an acceptable fit between the structural model and the data (χ2/df= 606.73/224 = 2.70, CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.05, log-likelihood value = −7834.622) [69]. Therefore, this study estimated another structural model (model 1) with the latent interaction terms and then conducted a log-likelihood ratio test in the second step. The result of the log-likelihood ratio test indicated that model 1 is statistically superior to model 0 (D = 2[|8963.82| − |7834.62|] = 2255.12 Δdf = 16). Accordingly, model 1 was adopted, and its coefficients were used for the hypothesis testing.
The results showed that inclusive leadership positively influenced organizational trust (β= 0.35, p < 0.001). Autocratic leadership negatively influenced organizational trust (β= −0.20, p < 0.01). Thus, H1 and H2 were supported. The result showed that the relationship between organizational trust and job satisfaction was statistically significant (β= 0.72, p < 0.001), and organizational trust positively influenced organizational commitment (β = 0.70, p < 0.001). Therefore, H3 and H4 were supported. The moderating effect of sport involvement on the relationship between inclusive leadership and organizational trust was statistically significant (β = −0.11, p < 0.05). Therefore, H5 was supported. Finally, the results showed that sport involvement had a marginally significant moderating effect on the relationship between autocratic leadership and organizational trust (β = −0.09, p = 0.053). Thus, H6 was supported. The results of the hypothesis testing are summarized in Table 3.

5. Discussion

This study aimed to investigate the effects of inclusive and autocratic leadership styles on organizational trust and the moderating role of sport involvement in sport organizations. The first objective was to demonstrate how inclusive leadership contributes to employees’ organizational trust. The second objective was to show how autocratic leadership and organizational trust are negatively related. Third, we aimed to examine whether organizational trust mediates the relationship between leadership and employee work behaviors (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment). Fourth, we aimed to determine the moderating effect of sport involvement.
This study demonstrates how inclusive leadership directly affects organizational trust. Previous studies have investigated how transformational leadership affects organizational trust [70]. By contrast, research on inclusive leadership as an antecedent of organizational trust is lacking. The results of this study establish that inclusive leadership promotes positive emotions that facilitate trust, which in turn impacts the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees. These findings support the importance of listening and including employees’ opinions during decisions making, which fosters positive working relationships [71]. On the contrary, autocratic leaders negatively influence organizational trust. Our findings support our argument based on the social exchange theory that employees’ organizational trust is based on communication [72]. These findings prove that employees who work under inclusive leaders are more likely to engage in organizational trust than when working under autocratic leaders.
In addition to the direct effects, this research investigated the partial mediating role of organizational trust. Organizational trust formed by inclusive leadership inspires positive emotions in employees and results in enhanced employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Positive emotions are more likely to lead to positive work behaviors among employees. In this study, organizational trust negatively mediates the relationship between autocratic leadership and employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Organizational trust has been well documented as a mediator between inclusive leadership and positive organizational behaviors. However, it has not been highlighted as a mediator between autocratic leadership and work behaviors [73]. The present study’s results strengthen the knowledge of the mediating role of organizational trust in the relationship between inclusive leadership and organizational work behaviors.
We also examined the moderating role of sport involvement. The moderating role of sport involvement in the relationship between inclusive leadership and organizational trust is significant. This suggests that inclusive leadership is effective in enhancing employees’ organizational trust for employees with a low sport involvement. Moreover, the moderating effect of sport involvement in the relationship between autocratic leadership and organizational trust is marginally significant. This means that the negative relationship between autocratic leadership and organizational trust will weaken when employees’ sport involvement is high. The characteristics of autocratic leadership means a leader acts out what they want to do without considering employees’ opinions [61]. Despite the absence of a communication environment in sport organization, if an employee has a high level of sport involvement, the relationship between autocratic leadership and organizational trust will be stronger. Therefore, in the relationship between leadership styles and organization trust, the moderating effect of sport involvement is confirmed in our study. The best combination is to apply inclusive leadership when employees have low sport involvement and autocratic leadership when employees have high sport involvement.
The current research has several theoretical implications for academics. Positive leadership behavior is well acknowledged as having a significant influence on employees’ well-being [74], but relatively little is known about the underlying processes by which leaders influence the psychological well-being of their employees [51]. According to our study, inclusive leadership fosters organizational trust as a favorable situational factor. These results are consistent with prior research on various leadership styles, such as transformational leadership, and trust [75]. Additionally, a further contribution of our study to the literature on job satisfaction and organizational commitment is the insight regarding the indirect effect of inclusive leadership on job satisfaction and organizational commitment via organizational trust. These findings demonstrate that inclusive leadership behavior influences employee’s view of sport organizational setting in a way that is more conducive to job satisfaction and commitment than autocratic leadership. This result adds to the knowledge of the relationship between inclusive leadership and organizational trust among South Korean sport organization employees. A leader’s inclusiveness offers a horizontal environment between the leader and their employees. Thus, it will be theoretically implicated in both leadership research and sport organizational behaviors. Second, this study shows that employees with high sport involvement are less likely to have organizational trust when their leader demonstrates inclusive leadership. This means that if an employee has a low interest in sports, their leader’s inclusiveness will increase a positive perception of organizational trust. On the contrary, if an employee has high sport involvement, an autocratic leader will decrease the negative perception of organizational trust. These findings provide a comprehensive understanding of how sport involvement promotes or decreases employees’ organizational trust depending on the leadership styles in sport organizations. Additionally, this study is the first study to attempt to investigate these relationships in sport organizational context. Therefore, this study could be the cornerstone for research investigating the influence of sport involvement on the relationship between leadership and organizational trust in sport organizations. Lastly, this study compared inclusive leadership with autocratic leadership to determine which leadership style is more effective for organizational trust. There are many research studies on the influences of leadership on work behaviors, but there are fewer research studies about how different leadership styles influence employees’ organizational trust. Therefore, this study has theoretical implications by investigating two commonly used comparative leadership styles in sport organizations.
The findings of this research also have several implications for sport practitioners. First, this study investigated whether inclusive leadership positively impacts organizational trust and whether autocratic leadership negatively impacts organizational trust. As a result, organizations should prioritize and allocate enough resources to select and develop leaders with inclusive quotients. For instance, firms should consider developing programs to encourage and support inclusive role modeling. Organizations should offer regular seminars and training sessions for leaders in order to improve their openness and availability conduct [70,76]. Furthermore, in order to control and discourage autocratic leadership, organizations should establish specific norms about inclusive and non-inclusive work behaviors and recognize them through human resource management (HRM) policies and practices. Second, compensation strategies for employees with low sport involvement assure fair treatment, with open and accessible communication to employees about the degree to which inclusive leadership will enhance organizational trust. Lastly, this study suggests that organizational trust positively mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employees’ positive work behaviors (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment). As a result, leaders should be concerned with developing steps to strengthen employees’ organizational trust. It will improve their organization’s reputation by encouraging employees to recognize themselves as organizational members and by building favorable organizational pictures in employees’ mind through the organization’s communication style. Therefore, our findings suggest that organizational policymakers should be aware of the significance of a leader’s inclusive behavior on employees’ organizational trust, which can result in the sustainable growth of an organization.

6. Limitations and Future Research Agendas

Despite the theoretical and practical implications of the present study, several limitations should be discussed to suggest directions for further study. First, we collected data through survey, which was confined to measuring employees’ perception of leadership, organizational trust, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Future research should characterize the effects of inclusive leadership, autocratic leadership, and personal factors on organizational trust using actual performance output or members’ outcome data. Second, the generalizability of our study is limited because this study was conducted among Korean employees. Future research should collect samples from many different nations to measure the effects of inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership. Lastly, in this study, we only examined the moderating effect of sport involvement. Other elements should be examined as potential moderators in future studies, taking into account that other significant aspects may contribute to the understanding of this complicated organizational concept. Among other factors, organizational scale [77], environmental dynamism [78], and structural isolation [79] could operate as moderators in the relationship between leadership styles and organizational trust. Thus, examining such potential moderators in our conceptual model will improve knowledge on the conditional effect of inclusive leadership and autocratic leadership on organizational trust depending on the moderators.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, J.O. and D.K.; methodology, D.K. and D.H.K.; validation, formal analysis, D.K.; data curation, D.K.; writing—original draft preparation, J.O.; writing—review and editing, D.K. and D.H.K.; visualization, D.H.K.; supervision, D.K.; project administration, D.K.; funding acquisition, D.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Seoul National University (SNU IRB No. 2109/004-011).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in this research.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Sustainability 15 03367 g001 550
Figure 1. Research Model.
Figure 1. Research Model.
Sustainability 15 03367 g001
Table
Table 1. Demographic information.
Table 1. Demographic information.
VariableGroupn%
GenderMale19578%
Female5522%
Age20s3212.8%
30s10542%
40s7931.6%
50s3112.4%
Over 60s31.2%
Education LevelBachelor’s degree21686.4%
Master’s degree2610.4%
Doctoral degree83.2%
Work LevelContract Employee4116.4%
Staff—Assistant Manager10341.2%
Section Chief—Chief7128.4%
Manager208%
Director156%
Duration of WorkUnder 1 year3313.2%
1 year—3 years3313.2%
3 years—5 years3212.8%
5 years—7 years3514%
7 years—9 years4016%
Over 9 years7730.8%
Total 250100%
Table
Table 2. Summary results for the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Table 2. Summary results for the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Factors and ItemsλCRAVE
Inclusive leadership 0.940.73
The leader is open to hearing new ideas0.86
The leader is attentive to new opportunities to improve work processes0.84
The leader is open to discuss the desired goals and new ways to achieve them0.89
The leader is available for consultation on problems0.86
The leader has an ongoing ‘presence’ in this team as someone who is readily available0.83
The leader is ready to listen to my requests0.86
Autocratic leadership 0.940.93
This leader makes decisions in an autocratic way0.84
This leader often pushes his/her opinions0.86
This leader makes decisions alone without asking for suggestions0.90
This leader harshly tells subordinates what to do0.85
This leader is bossy and orders subordinates around0.89
This leader makes sure that his/her own interests are always met0.80
Organizational trust 0.950.85
I trust this organization absolutely0.91
I think this organization is trustworthy0.90
This organization is very committed to employees0.95
This organization wants to the best for the employees0.94
Job satisfaction 0.970.92
All in all, I am satisfied with my job0.95
In general, I do like my job0.97
In general, I like working here0.96
Organizational commitment 0.950.84
I feel a strong sense of belonging to my organization0.91
I feel personally attached to my work organization 0.92
I am proud to tell others that I work at my organization0.91
Working at my organization has a great deal of personal meaning to me0.94
Sport involvement 0.940.82
I know sport very well0.87
I enjoy discussing sport with others0.94
Sport says a lot about who I am 0.92
Sport is one of the most satisfying things that I do0.91
Note. CR= composite reliability; AVE = average variance extracted.
Table
Table 3. Results of hypothesis testing.
Table 3. Results of hypothesis testing.
Structural PathStandardized
Coefficient		p-ValueHypothesis Testing
H1Inclusive leadership → organizational trust0.35 ***<0.001Supported
H2Autocratic leadership → organizational trust−0.20 **<0.01Supported
H3Organizational trust → job satisfaction0.72 ***<0.001Supported
H4Organizational trust→ organizational commitment0.70 ***<0.001Supported
H5Sport inovelvement × inclusive leadership → organizational trust−0.11 *<0.05Supported
H6Sport inovelvement × autocratic leadership → organizational trust−0.09 *0.053Supported
Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. *** p < 0.001.
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Oh, J.; Kim, D.H.; Kim, D. The Impact of Inclusive Leadership and Autocratic Leadership on Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Commitment in Sport Organizations: The Mediating Role of Organizational Trust and The Moderating Role of Sport Involvement. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3367. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043367

AMA Style

Oh J, Kim DH, Kim D. The Impact of Inclusive Leadership and Autocratic Leadership on Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Commitment in Sport Organizations: The Mediating Role of Organizational Trust and The Moderating Role of Sport Involvement. Sustainability. 2023; 15(4):3367. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043367

Chicago/Turabian Style

Oh, Jihyeon, Dae Hee Kim, and Daehwan Kim. 2023. "The Impact of Inclusive Leadership and Autocratic Leadership on Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Commitment in Sport Organizations: The Mediating Role of Organizational Trust and The Moderating Role of Sport Involvement" Sustainability 15, no. 4: 3367. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043367

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