Investigating the Effects of Leadership Styles and Organizational Identity on Entrepreneurial Behavior of the Employees of Iranian Social Security Organization in Khuzestan Province, Iran

Abstract

Managers play important roles in motivating and supporting the employees in order to find new opportunities, develop new goods and services and improve the processes and methods in organizations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of some of the leadership styles and medium role of Organizational Identity (OI) on entrepreneurial behavior of the employees of Iranian Social Security organization in Khuzestan, Iran. The research method was applied in purpose and descriptive-survey in method. The data of this study was collected using the following standardized questionnaire: OI questionnaire, multifactor leadership questionnaire and organizational entrepreneurial behavior. The questionnaires were distributed among 302 employees of Iranian Social Security Organization in Khuzestan province, Iran and the data was analyzed using least square model in “Smart PLS” software. The population of this study was all the 1370 employees of Iranian Social Security Organization in 34 different branches in Khuzestan province. Cochran formula was used to estimate the sample population size and the individuals were selected using cluster random sampling. Cronbach’s alphas were 0.774 for organization identity, 0.865 for entrepreneurial behavior, 0.821 for Laissez faire, 0.836 for passive management-by-exception, 0.807 active management-by-exceptions, 0.823 for contingent reward, 0.778 for individual attention, 0.826 for inspirational motivation, 0.781 for intellectual stimulation and finally, 0.775 for idealized influence. The data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially. The average scores for different leadership styles were 5.02 for organization identity, 4.95 for entrepreneurial behavior, 4.94 for Laissez faire, 4.93 for passive management-by-exception, 4.907 active management-by-exceptions, 5.09 for contingent reward, 4.95 for individual attention, 4.99 for inspirational motivation, 5.05 for intellectual stimulation and finally and 3.09 for idealized influence among the managers of Iranian Social Security Organization. The inferential statistics revealed that transformational leadership style did not have significant effects on entrepreneurial behavior of employees. However, transformational style had significant effects on OI and OI had significant effects on entrepreneurial behavior of employees.