Job Autonomy And Task Performance: The Roles Of Ethical Leadership And Felt Obligation Of Employees

The positive influence of job autonomy on employees’ task performance is welldocumented by domestic and foreign scholars. However, it lacks of domestic empiricalstudies about this influence. Moreover, what leaders should do to make theirsubordinates behave better after their subordinates getting job autonomy has beenoverlooked. Against this research context and based on self-determination theory, socialexchange theory and social learning theory, I propose that in the background ofemployees have got job autonomy, the subordinates of ethical leaders are more likely toperform better because ethical leadership enhances their felt obligation of theirorganizations. This paper develop and test a model linking job autonomy,taskperformance, ethical leadership and felt obligation of employees.Empirical research is carried on by sending out questionnaires. Measurementscales of variables involved in this study originate from leading journals of relevantareas.We translated these scales according to scientific procedures. Liker scale with5degree is applied is applied.Our survey samples are39head nurses and246nurses of39departments from2hospitals of Guangdong. First, we conducted reliability analysisby SPSS18.0software. Then, we conducted validity analysis by SPSS5.0software. Wedid regression analysis by SPSS18.0software is applied to testify hypotheses1,hypotheses2, hypotheses3, hypotheses4a, finally, we applied bootstrapping method totestify hypotheses4b.Test results indicate that: job autonomy is positive related to task performance;ethical leadership does not moderate the relationship between job autonomy and taskperformance; ethical leadership is positive related to felt obligation of employees; feltobligation of employees moderates the job autonomy-task performance relationshipsuch that high felt obligation of employees strengthens the positive relationship betweenjob autonomy and task performance. In the end, implications and limitations arediscussed. We also identify areas for future research.