Relationship between responsible leadership and performance in Iranian pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Organizations aim to enhance employee performance, resulting in improved overall organizational performance. One of the crucial factors influencing employee performance is the leadership. Responsible leadership, a recent leadership style garnering significant attention due to its distinctive features such as considering all stakeholders, has gained prominence especially in the aftermath of recent corporate disasters. This research was conducted to explore the relationship between responsible leadership and employee performance, through the mediating variables of organizational commitment, work engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior at individual level, and teamwork engagement at group level. To achieve these goals, three studies were conducted, each of them is placed in a chapter of the dissertation. The first chapter provides a general introduction. The second chapter presents a systematic literature review of corporate social responsibility models in Iran to compare the dimensions of this phenomenon as a characteristics of a responsible leader, in Iran with English-speaking countries. The third chapter explores the relationship between responsible leadership and employee performance within Iranian pharmaceutical companies, emphasizing the mediating effects of organizational commitment, work engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior at the individual level. The fourth chapter analyzes the mediating effect of the teamwork engagement variable between responsible leadership and employee performance using a multi-level analysis approach. In the final chapter, conclusions, and discussions concerning the thesis are presented. This chapter includes key findings, theoretical implications, practical implementation, methodological implications, limitations and suggestions for future research.