The Influence of Shared Leadership towards Organizational Commitment in a Public Organization of United Arab Emirates

Abstract

The existence of many leadership styles implies a lack of consensus on the best way to guide organizations in their pursuit for progress. Equally, the interplay between leadership style and outcomes such as organizational commitment remains unclear. This study investigated the influence of shared leadership on organizational commitment within the public sector in UAE context. The research aims to explicate the influence of shared leadership on organizational commitment in one of the public organizations in UAE. The study employed a quantitative research approach - a survey method using questionnaires to collect data. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The descriptive approach relied on the mean, standard deviation while inferential method was deployed using regression analyses. The study found that shared leadership is practiced in the public sector entity in UAE, given the average mean values of 4.1 and standard deviation of 0.92. The R value between shared leadership and organizational commitment is 0.48 thus indicating a moderate relationship between shared leadership and organizational commitment in public sector entity in UAE. The study has both practical and theoretical implications. Given the possibility of the influence of shared leadership being indirect, the study implication is that future researcher should investigate the presence and role of intervening variables. Practically, leaders within the UAE context would benefit from employing shared leadership as best practice more extensively to improve organizational commitment.