The Effect of Participative Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior: An Applied Study at Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital, Maysan Health Directorate

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has become increasingly important in healthcare organizations because of its contribution to service quality, employee collaboration, and organizational effectiveness. Despite extensive research linking leadership styles to OCB, empirical evidence regarding the influence of participative leadership remains inconsistent across organizational contexts, while evidence from Iraqi public healthcare institutions remains particularly limited. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the impact of participative leadership on organizational citizenship behavior among employees at Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital, one of the hospitals affiliated with the Maysan Health Directorate.

Grounded in Somech's multidimensional model of participative leadership and Organ's organizational citizenship behavior framework, the study adopts a descriptive-analytical design. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to a stratified random sample of 274 hospital employees and analyzed using correlation and multiple regression techniques. The findings revealed that participative leadership exerts a statistically significant positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Collectively, the five dimensions of participative leadership accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in organizational citizenship behavior. Among these dimensions, the degree of participation emerged as the strongest predictor, followed by the objective of participation, decision domain, and rationale, whereas the structure dimension exhibited the weakest unique contribution after controlling for the remaining dimensions. The study concludes that strengthening employees' genuine involvement in organizational decision-making represents an effective managerial strategy for promoting organizational citizenship behavior in public healthcare organizations. The findings extend the empirical applicability of Somech's multidimensional participative leadership model within an under-researched Iraqi healthcare context and provide practical implications for enhancing employee engagement and organizational effectiveness.