An Empirical Study On The Effect Of Responsible Leadership On Employee Prototypical Following Behaviors In The Republic Of Botswana Public Sector

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of responsible leadership on employee prototypical following behaviors.This study further sought to investigate whether felt obligation and psychological safety mediate the above relationship.This study further examined whether employee power distance orientation moderates the relationship between responsible leadership and employee prototypical following behaviors.A correlational design was used to collect and analyze survey data.Data were collected from a cross-sectional sample of 370 Botswana Public sector officers.A series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the construct validity of the measurements.Structural Equation modeling and Hayes(2013)PROCESS Model 1 and Model 4 were used to test the hypothesized moderation and mediation effect respectively,on the hypothesized main interaction.The findings of this study indicated that responsible leadership is positively and significantly correlated with prototypical following behaviors.Felt obligation and psychological safety significantly and positively mediate this relationship.Finally,power distance orientation has a negative but significant moderation effect on the relationship between responsible leadership and prototypical following behaviors.This study contributes to the body of knowledge on responsible leadership through investigating its’ applicability in the public sector.Another contribution is the unique combination of the key constructs,prototypical following behaviors,felt obligation,psychological safety and power distance orientation used in exploring responsible leadership behavior.The findings of the current studies have implications for leadership behavior in the Public sector.Theoretical and practical implications are discussed,together with the limitations of the study and directions for future research.