Impact of servant leadership on perceived organizational support of employees in manufacturing industries and educational institution

Abstract

In this work impact of servant leadership on perceived organizational support of employees in manufacturing industries and educational institutions in the Indian context. The servant leadership was the independent variable and perceived organizational support was the dependent variable of the research. The questionnaires linked to servant leadership and the perceived organizational support were used to collect the data from full-time employees rating the servant leadership style of managers, engineers and officers, teaching faculty along with the perceived organizational support of their organization. In the servant leadership questionnaire 23 items, 5 dimensions, and the perceived organizational support questionnaire 16 items. The final research survey was carried out on a convenience sample of 307 manufacturing industries and educational institution 324 samples using a non-probability sampling strategy and its empirical analysis, the studyused the SPSS version 22.0 tested construct validity using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA > 0.5) was 0.9, tested for reliability and adequacy of the sample (>0.6) was very high 0.9.The independent sample test shows that hypothesis 1 and 2 of servant leadership and the perceived organizational support of both manufacturing industries and educational institution employees are analogous. And hypothesis 3 by multiple linear regression analysis proved the existence of a solid association between servant leadership and perceived organizational support employees of both manufacturing industries and educational institutions. This study finds that both the servant leadership and perceived organizational support are strongly followed by employees of manufacturing industries and educational institutions. In addition, proves that there is a strong relationship between the servant leadership and perceived organizational support in manufacturing industries and educational institutions employees.

Keywords:

• servant leadership
• Perceived organizational support
• Independent sample test
• multiple linear regression
• Manufacturing Industries and Educational Institution

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1 Introduction

In the management literature, concepts of leadership are one of the most comprehensively studied research areas because leadership plays a significant part in determining the success of the organization by mobilizing the efforts of individuals towards organisational objectives. Leadership is also a key component that influences organisational behaviour (Parris & Peachey, 2013). The concept of the way of life philosophy was the basis for coining the term servant leadership. The main viewpoint for servant leadership is that establishment of an organisation by itself will motivate the people to create a better tomorrow thereby inculcating greatness in the followers (Greenleaf, 1977).

In India, the root cause of all the organized crimes and systematic problems is based on profit maximization. The impact has been remarkable in the economy which resulted in bringing ethics to the forefront of business studies. This wave has created focused interest on the importance of ethics in the present-day workplace which sent alarm bells to organizations working beyond the rules of the game (Brown et al., 2005).

Research in the field of leadership is spread across various theories, notions, and terminologies. The main agenda is about a particular group and target along with leader-member communication. Businesses call for a revived management thinking wherein employees gain motivation and constantly work towards offering better than the best service. Hence, servant leadership approach is very apt in the ever-changing world condition.

Whenever an individual is treated positively by someone, there comes the psychological pressure as well as a sense of obligation naturally generated related to paying it back to the one who provided it. Further, it leads to developing an attitude or in other words retribution to one who provided it. In the case of organisational landscape, employees provide positive feedback more often on perceiving the organization’s concern, appreciation, and affirmation (Aselage & Eisenberger, 2003).

On the other hand, perceived organizational support is directly connected to the happiness of the employees (Kurtessi et al., 2015), job satisfaction (McCarthy et al., 2013), entrepreneurial passion (Gao et al., 2021), the performance of the employee and organisation, and organizational performance (Shoss et al., 2013) (Eisenberger & Stinglhamber, 2011).

2. Review of literature and hypotheses development

2.1 Servant leadership

Servant Leadership is a style of leading when “honor is given to the personal dignity and worth of all who are led and to evoke as much as possible of their innate creative power for leadership” (Sims, 1997). Servant leadership is about oneself and how best one can inspire people to perform action as well as influencing the people to become, however, best they can (Maxwell, 2007).

In the world of business comprising of servant-led organizations, the model of servant leadership is very effective and same fact was also reported in the 2001 issue of Fortune magazine. Effectiveness of servant leadership approach has resulted in it being the most popular in most of the corporates in the world (Hunter, 2004). The changing of approach to servant leadership enhanced the performance of above mentioned companies and yielded around 50% higher return to shareholders compared to competitors. Further, leaders of the above mentioned profitable companies also practiced servant leadership themselves.

Researchers have utilized the questionnaire (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006) on servant leadership. This includes five dimensions as shown in figure 1. Altruistic calling is the aspiration of the leader to forge a favorable change in the lives of others. Emotional healing is an integral part of servant leadership. It is the capability to identify the necessity and initiate the reparative activity for employees of the organization. Another dimension is wisdom. It is the ability to how one can learn from the surroundings and understand the effects on the individual and organization. The fourth dimension is persuasive mapping. It is the expertise to envisage a mental framework that mapped situations thereby allowing sizeable opportunities for the entire organization. The fifth and final dimension is organizational stewardship. This ability of the leader will shape the organization in contributing positively to society by arranging outreach programs and the development of the community.

Figure 1. Characteristics and impact of servant leadership and perceived organizational support its implementation at manufacturing industries(MI) and educational institutions (EI)

Grisaffe et al. (2016) reportable that whereas sides of servant leadership do overlap with different sorts of leadership (i.e. transformational and transactional), it will offer progressive will increase in salespersons’ attitudes and behaviors on the far side that of transformational and transactional leadership designs at higher levels of the sales hierarchy.

2.2 Perceived organizational support

Perceived organizational support (POS) is defined as “employee’s general belief that their work organization values their contribution and cares about their wellbeing” (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002).

Eisenberger et al. (1986) say that the perceived organizational support (POS) means the level of perception of organizational members on whether the organization looks upon employees as an important and valuable asset, recognizes and fairly treats them. Organisational support theory is the basis for POS which explains that social exchange theory is the underlying concept behind employer and employee relationships (Eisenberger et al., 1986).

Organisational rewards, job conditions, and perceived fairness are the prominent factors that are observed to influence employees while perceiving organizational support (Baran et al., 2012). Organisational rewards and job conditions are designed with methods that recognize the contribution of the employees inclusive of the work environment (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Further, rewards and conditions can be explicitly stated as recognition, pay, promotions and job security, job autonomy, training and development experiences, work-family policies respectively (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002).

Sagie and Koslowsky (1994) have observed that under uncertain circumstances of an organisation, employees require precise and frequent responses that they are needed in the organisation and that they want to perceive that they are needed as an internal asset of the organisation. Employees’ perception of organizational support becomes a core of social exchange in employee relationships. Allen et al. (2003) said that if employees’ perception of organizational support remains high, attitudes and behaviours of employees show positivity and this benefits an organisation. Perception of organisational support improves positive results like job satisfaction and positive mood and reduces withdrawal, job turnover, and tardiness.

The survey of POS as reported by earlier researchers requires high internal reliability (Eisenberger et al., 1990, 1986) due to which 16 of the 36 items that are significantly weighed on the main factor as well as applicable to a different type of organisations was selected as depicted in figure1. Some of the key characteristics of POS include viz., organisation caring about employee opinions, well-being, strongly considering employee goals and values, providing help when the employee has a problem, forgiving an honest mistake on the part of the employee, and being willing to help the employee. On the other hand, if given the opportunity, organisation would take advantage of employees and showing very little concern for the employee.

His review (DeConinck et al., 2018) has shown the significance of worker authority on salespersons’POS and execution. By implication, through these two factors, worker pioneers can impact the turnover cycle in the business power. Ideally, these outcomes can show associations the advantages of employing as well as advancing project supervisors who can go about as worker pioneers to their sales reps.

The review (Chee Kiong Piong, 2016) connection results recommended that establishing a worker initiative methodology might empower easygoing eating cafés to raise their nonsupervisory representatives’ authoritative responsibility and saw view of hierarchical help, subsequently conceivably holding them longer. The discoveries have suggestions for social change since they might persuade easygoing feasting cafés to establish worker initiative, along these lines possibly expanding the prosperity and occupation fulfillment of their representatives and the assistance experience of their clients.

This review (Kang & Hwang, 2014) affirmed that workers’ impression of director support plays a significant interceding job in the connection between the worker administration of a manager and view of hierarchical help among representatives of the aircraft administration industry.

This review (Rai & Prakash, 2016) examines the job of worker initiative in absorptive limit. Information from assembling and administration area associations found that there was the balance of worker initiative impact on information distinguishing proof through POS by a significant requirement for perception, there was the balance of worker authority effect on information application through POS by low time tension, and POS intervened connection between worker initiative and information dispersal. The discoveries outline and backing the significance of an exhaustive model incorporating worker initiative, POS, and epistemic inspiration in deciding absorptive limit. Author found study could be located that has examined the relationship between servant leadership and POS (Zhou & Miao, 2014).

2.3 Hypothesis development for servant leadership and POS

The conception of Servant leadership considers variables area unit selfless job, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, knowledge, and organizational stewardship. Within the educational institution and manufacturing industries, the approach they dole out their work area unit is completely different. The manufacturing industry’s employees focus a lot on business compare to educational institutions. The manufacturing industries employee’s area unit exposed to technical talent, however, instructional educational institutions restricted target business. Servant leadership differs on the premise of talent it’s assumed that it varies in the educational institution and manufacturing industries.

Hypothesis 1: The Servant leadership approach differs between the manufacturing industries and Educational institutions.

The conception of Perceived organizational support considers variables area unit my organization considers my goals and values, my organization very cares concerning my well-being, my organization shows very little concern on behalf of me, my organization would forgive associate honest mistake on my half, my organization cares concerning my opinion. Within the educational institution and manufacturing industries, the approach they dole out their work area unit is completely different. The economic employees focus a lot on business compare to the establishment. The manufacturing industries employees are becoming support unceasingly otherwise than the tutorial educational institution employees. Perceived organizational support differs on the premise of a company it’s assumed that it varies in the educational institution and manufacturing industries.

Hypothesis 2: The Perceived organizational support differs between the manufacturing industries and Educational institution

In an organisation, giving priority to the interests of followers is the main target as per the theory of servant leadership (Joseph & Winston, 2005). There could be an agreement-based kind of relationship involving servant leaders and followers’ instep with the living literature. It also means the presence of big personal bonding that includes shared values, commitment, trust, and concern which cannot be taken away simply and end in optimistic feelings together with structure support perceptions. Conversely, POS includes employee feelings concerning caring behavior shown by organisation towards employee well-being, interests, values, accomplishments, and beliefs regarding the tendency of the organisation to help in the development of employees as well as meeting the employee wishes (Eisenberger et al., 2001).

A servant leader is a distinguishable personality who cares for the followers and serving them is of his highest priority according to living literature (Greenleaf et al., 2002). Hence, interactions involving managers and subordinates which can be grouped under servant leadership can extend perceptions of people concerning structure support (Baranik et al., 2010).

POS, “the degree to it staff see that their commitments unit esteemed by their association that that cares in regards to their prosperity” (Eisenberger et al., 1986), has been the most objective of the different investigations all through the most recent 30 years and has been joined to a repercussion of employment perspectives and practices (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Nonetheless, a look at the writing discovered the investigation that examined the connection between servant leadership and POS (Zhou & Miao, 2014).

In any case, any investigation is needed capacities to impact of servant leadership to, saw perceived organizational support as an inquiry on this relationship is prohibited or solely theoretical. So to make the hypothesis on servant leadership, it’s speculated that servant leadership will impact the apparent perceived organisational support among each single ranked part within the point in the Indian setting.

Hypothesis 3: The relation exists between servant leadership, and perceived organizational support.

2.4. Statement of the problem

The lack of research establishing the connection between business organizations associate degreed servant leadership, and also the effectualness of servant leadership in promoting employees of an organization, provided the impetus for this study, that aims to search out if such a relation or correlation exists. Whereas a lot of knowledge exist on the staff of the Business organizations, there’s very little or no proof of the impact of these holding values of servant leadership on the staff of an organization.

However, the literature review for this study recommended an absence of previous research on, however, servant leadership is expounded to those structure outcomes through perceived structure support among workers of the organization. Appreciably, there’s very little understanding of, however, servant leadership influences perceived organizational support.

2.5 Research gap

Though servant leadership has attracted a lot of attention from the researchers still there is a vacuum to be fulfilled to understand the servant leadership approach fully. Though there are studies related to some selected industries, education, not much research has not been done regarding higher education and some of the manufacturing, service sector. Servant leadership has not been covered fully though there are studies related to the Education sector, manufacturing sector, and service sector. Still, there is a lacuna in the Servant leadership areas to be covered are Manufacturing, Hospitals, Software companies, banking sector, universities, and private educational institutions.

Though less in number studies in the Indian context on the connection and effect of servant leadership on perceived organizational support. Despite that, it is very rare to arrive at studies that have been executing the relationship and impact of servant leadership on perceived organizational support in the Manufacturing Industries, hospitals, and other business organizations.

3. Research Method and design

A non-probability sampling strategy was employed in the work. The process involved collecting data on google and printed form surveys (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). A good number of samples were collected from institutions and industries. Teaching faculty from different educational institutions and managers, engineers, and officers of industries, participated in the survey. These questionnaires were distributed to teaching faculty completing their research at the educational institution, managers, engineers, and officers of industries. The total number of items in the questionnaire was 23 from servant leaders, dimensions 5 and 16, from perceived organisational support. There are four prominent stages in this process, namely, scale reliability, sample adequacy, independent test, and multiple linear regression analysis for servant leadership.

This research adopted a questionnaire survey research design. The sample frame is the list of teaching faculty in engineering, medical, and management colleges, and qualified managers, engineers, and officers of industries. Ethical permission for the survey was taken from the head of the institute, research head, and human resource department of the industry. Participation was voluntary and the confidentiality statement in the questionnaire ensured freedom of expression of the respondents on their perceptions. The questionnaires in google forms and printed forms were made available in English to the respondents.

3.1 Sample design

The population size was 1500 for the institution and 1200 for industries and the sample size required according to the standard formula the sample size for the Educational Institution was seen as 315 and manufacturing industries representatives was 300 (Yamane, 1967). Randomly chosen 1233 teaching faculty and 823 managers, engineers, and officers were emailed the link of the google form and printed form having the self-administered questionnaire. The final sample was 324 and 307 as mentioned in table 1 on servant leadership and perceived organizational support. The filled questionnaires were obtained with a response rate of 26% and 37% as displayed in table 1. To do sample representative, districts with maximum higher educational institutions and manufacturing and service industries located have been considered for selecting the sample. There is a total of 14 institutions in the Udupi and South Canara district in which the institution where there is a minimum of 50 employees, that is, 14 private institutions in Udupi and South Canara district, Karnataka were considered for the study. The respondents in the institution include assistant professors, associate professors, and professors. In addition, nine industries were taken for the study. The respondents in the industries include associate managers, managers, officers, and engineers as project heads, senior employees, and relatively new employees in the software industry.

Table 1. Sample size

Description	Circulated	Received	Used
Manufacturing industries	823	361	307
Educational institutions	1233	394	324

3.2 Questionnaire development

The self-administered questionnaire employed for data collection had two sections: the first section elicited the demographic details of the subject (gender, age, status, experience, and qualification) and the second part obtained quantitative data through the Likert 5-point scale (5- strongly agree; 1- strongly disagree). The instrument was derived from the standard scales developed by a group of researchers (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006; Eisenberger et al., 1986) employed in many different contexts such as learning in physical education, primary schools, and organisations and was slightly modified to suit the requirement of higher education and industries without diluting the content. The sources of these standard scales were their Cronbach’s alpha in the earlier studies (Field, 2007) and the present work. The Cronbach’s alpha values for the scale availed in this research were in the acceptable range in comparison to earlier scales in terms of the internal consistency of the reliability.

3.3 Objectives of the survey

The objectives of the survey included the following.

a) To find the reliability and adequacy of sample

b) To study the descriptive statistics of the sample

c) To study the servant leadership approach of employees from manufacturing industries and educational institutions.

d) To analyze the perceived organisational support of manufacturing industries and educational institution employees

e) To compare the association between servant leadership, the perceived organisational support of employees in manufacturing industries and educational institutions.

3.3.1. Hypothesis of the research

H1: The Servant leadership approach differs between the manufacturing industries and Educational institutions.

H2: The Perceived organizational support differs between the manufacturing industries and Educational institution.

H3: The relation exists between servant leadership, and perceived organizational support.

3.3.2. Purpose of the research

The purpose of this study is to produce insights into the impact of servant leadership on perceived organizational support. The authors investigate the results of perceived organizational support (POS) on the connection between servant leadership. In doing so, the authors obtain to create the subsequent contributions. First, the authors seek to provide further empirical proof for servant leadership and POS as a good organizational theory. Additionally, the authors seek to ascertain POS, as underlying mechanisms that transmit the positive effects of servant leadership.

4. Results

The demographics as presented in figure 2 show male and female 68%, 32%, and 79%, 21% of the institution, and industries responses for the questionnaires on servant leadership and POS were presented in figure 2. It shows the results, servant leadership 23 items, 5 dimensions, and POS 16 items. The scale for the questionnaire is supervised using a 5-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The survey conducted for institutions and industries included 324 and 307 samples respectively.

Figure 2. Demographics of the Respondents

Before going for further analysis first confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) was carried out to know the model fitness, the structure of the observed variables, and to obtain correlation and composite reliability. For all the variables CFA was performed for the item analyses to identify any poor items of the questionnaires and completely deleted standardized factor loading (<0.5) (Hair et al., 2013) employed their study by using SPSS22, which is less than 0.5 factor-loading items excluded from subsequent analysis(Hair et al., 2013). The results of servant leadership and POS viz., Cronbach’s alpha, sample adequacy test, mean, and the standard deviation were analyzed and presented in tables 2,3,4, and figure 4 respectively. There is a small difference between the institutions and industries samples of study regarding mean, standard deviation, and Cronbach’s alpha. The dimension of servant leadership and POS are having differences in Cronbach’s alpha value which indicates reliability as depicted in table 2. While comparing institutions and industries, both servant leadership 0.994, 0.995 and POS 0.930 0.992, Cronbach’s alpha value not having much difference, its value is more than 0.6.

Table 2. Internal reliability of the items- Cronbach’s alpha (α)

Scale	Items of the scale	Manufacturing Industries (MI) N=307 Cronbach’s alpha(α)	Educational institutions (EI) N=324	Total N=631
Servant leadership	23	0. 995	0.994	0.994
Perceived organizational support	16	0.992	0. 930	0.968

Table 3. Sample adequacy Test - Kaiser-Meyer-Okin (KMO) values

Scale	Items of the scale	Manufacturing Industries (MI) N=307	Educational institutions (EI)N=324	Total N=631
Servant leadership	23	0.914	0.972	0.977
POS	16	0 .920	0.927	0.944

Table 4. Independent sample test of servant leadership (SL)

		Levene’s test for equality of variances		t-test for equality of means
		F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean difference	Std. error difference	95% confidence interval of the difference
									Lower	Upper
Servant leadership	Equal variances assumed	.213	.645	.573	629	.567	.0643	.1122	-0.1561	.2847

This study uses non-probability sampling, namely purposive techniques sampling, where respondents will be determined based on certain criteria (Cooper & Schindler, 2014). The convenience sampling (purposive) method is employed for the selection of samples in the sample unit as displayed in table 1.

The sample adequacy test was done to see whether the sample collected is adequate to proceed for further analysis. KMO and Bartlett`s test of sphericity (Cerny C A and Kaiser H F, 1977) is a yardstick of sampling sufficiency which varies from 0 to 1. The well-accepted rule of thumb is KMO value must be more than 0.6 which shows sampling is adequate. The test result of servant leadership, POS shows the KMO value 0.972, 0.927 in the educational institution, and 0.914,0.920 in the industries respectively, which shows the sample is adequate. The sample adequacy test was done for all the variables considered for the study as shown in table 3 i.e., servant leadership, POS for both the variables KMO value > 0.9, so the sample is adequate.

The validation of normality is an important element before proceeding towards any hypothesis testing (Cribbie et al., 2012; Schoder et al., 2006) made one of the common assumptions after obtaining data, that is, to treat data as normally distributed without using any statistical test to signify. In the study, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Shapiro-Wilk test are used ( Hair et al., 2013). The result of the test of servant leadership, POS, are not having statistical significance towards normality (p < 0.000). It is concluded that samples of both educational institutions and industries employees are non-normally distributed.

Descriptive statistics presented in figure 3 show the mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and standard error of the variables of servant leadership and POS in the educational institution and industry employees. The mean and standard deviation (SD) for the servant leadership was 3.64 and 1.41 in an educational institution as presented in table 4 and figure 4, 3.58 and 1.4 in industries employees are also shown in figure 4, mean and SD was very high for an educational institution, that means servant leadership strongly followed than industries but SD variation was high in the educational institution. For the mean and standard deviation (SD) perceived organisational support was 3.59 and 1.06 in the educational institution, 3.57 and 1.40 in industries employees, mean was very high for an educational institution that means strongly followed than industries, but SD variation was high in industries.

Figure 3. Elucidatory statistics for servant leadership and POS

Figure 4. Mean for the samples of the variables at manufacturing industries(MI) and educational institutions (EI)

Hypothesis H1: The servant leadership approach differs between educational institutions and industries. T-test was utilized to gauge the huge contrast between industry and educational institutions to quantify the servant leadership characteristics of the association of the pioneers. Since the p-value, 0.567 is not significant, as depicted in table 4 since it is more than the critical level of 0.05, consequently, we presume that there is no noteworthy distinction between the industry and organisation regarding the pioneers are servant leaders. It can be reasoned that in industries or educational institutions, pioneers will have requisite characteristics of servant leadership.

Hypothesis H2: The POS differs between the business organisation and educational institution. T-test was utilized to quantify the huge distinction among industry and educational institutions to gauge the ethical climate characteristics of the association of the pion.

Since the p-value of 0.803 (>0.05) is not significant as displayed in table 5 is a noteworthy level, thus we reason that, there is no huge distinction between the industry and educational institution concerning the ethical climate. Subsequently, we can presume that both industry and educational institution associations have an ethical climate.

Table 5. Independent sample test of Perceived organizational support (POS)

		Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances		t-test for Equality of Means
		F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2 tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
									Lower	Upper
POS	Equal variances assumed	69.9	.00	249	629	803	0246	099	169	219

Hypothesis H3: The relation exists between servant leadership and POS.

The relationship involving servant leadership and POS in the manufacturing industries (MI) and educational institutions (EI). In Manufacturing industries, there is a high level of association involving servant leadership on POS which is confirmed by the value of 0.994 as shown in table 6. Specialists found that the R2 value of 0.98 infers that 98.9 percent of difference to servant leadership upon POS. It implies 98.9 percent variety in the POS, is clarified by the free factor, that is, servant leadership, and the rest 1.1 percent, of POS, is unexplained as shown in table 6. It was observed from the ANOVA explained in table 6 that the F value (ANOVA) of servant leadership on POS, is 27349, which is measurably noteworthy at a 5% level of importance. This hypothetical relationship is embraced by the importance of esteem (0.000) related to the ANOVA table. The coefficient 0.993, shows that with each one-unit variation in servant leadership, there would be proportionate variation by 99.3 percent upon POS. From the estimation of coefficients explained in table 6, the connection between servant leadership on POS, distinguished for the investigation is factually huge. The criticalness value obtained is less than 0.05. It is from the coefficient table that the servant leadership value of 0.994 on the perceived organizational support is profoundly connected.

Table 6. Multiple linear regression analysis of servant leadership

MI(Manufacturing industries) N=307,EI(Educational Institution) N=324
Independent variables		Dependent variables
Servant leadership		POS
		EI	MI
R		0.509	0.994
R^2		0.259	0.989
F		112.61	27349
Coefficients B	Constant	2.190 0.385	0.010 0.993
T		15.43**	0.44**

(Standardised coefficients are reported P< 0.01** Significant)

In Educational institutions, there is a high level of association involving servant leadership and perceived organizational support that is confirmed by the value of 0.509 shown in table 6. Specialists found that the R2 value of 0.259, which infers that 25.9 percent of change to servant leadership upon POS. It implies 25.9 percent of the variation in the POS is clarified by the independent variable i.e., servant leadership, and the rest 74.1 percent, of POS, individually it is unexplained as presented in table 6. It was also observed from the ANOVA as displayed in table 6 that the F Value (ANOVA) of servant leadership on POS is 112.61, which is measurably critical at a 5% level of significance. The coefficient 0.385 demonstrates that with each one-unit variation in servant leadership, there would be proportionate varies by 38.5 percent upon POS. From the estimation of coefficients shown in table 6, the connection between servant leadership on POS, distinguished for the investigation is factually noteworthy, the criticalness value obtained is less than 0.05. It is very well may be deduced from the coefficient table that servant leadership value of 0.509 on POS is exceptionally associated.

5. Summary of results and discussion

Leadership has been an important focus of research for many years among a variety of employees. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between servant leadership and perceived organizational support. The results of this study have important theoretical and practical implications for managing the industries by managers and educational institutions staff. Here there are two variables, servant leadership was the independent variable and perceived organizational support was the dependent variable.

The empirical research establishing the relationship between business organizations and servant leadership, perceived organizational support. In which results found that a relation or correlation exists between the variables. And there is evidence of the impact of servant leadership on perceived organizational support in staff of an organization.

It is also observed that the mean score of servant leadership in higher educational institutions (3.64, N = 324) and manufacturing industries (3.58, N = 307) is different. The higher educational institution has slightly higher servant leadership compared with industries. But both the institutions and industries had a mean score of 3.61, N = 631. It is also observed that the mean score of the POS for higher educational institutions (3.59, N = 324) and manufacturing industries (3.57, N = 307) is different. The higher educational institution has a slightly higher POS compared with industries. But both the institutions and industries had a mean score of 3.62,3.58, N = 631.

It was observed that the p-value 0.567 shown in table 4 is more than the marked level of 0.05, so not remarkable, hence there is no notable difference between the industry and institution concerning the leaders being servant leaders. It is observed from the T-test that the p-value of 0.803 shown in table 5 is more than the marked level of 0.05, so not remarkable, hence there is no notable difference between the industry and institution for the perceived organizational support.

It is observed that both institutions (0.509) and industries (0.994) have a high level of association involving servant leadership and POS. The attention of the researchers worldwide has received notable attention on servant leadership, similarly, POS. This analysis intends to look at the role of servant leadership on POS, on a sample of employees belonging to educational institutions and manufacturing industries. Educational institutions and manufacturing industries play a dominant role in India’s economic system, and the performance of institutions and industries is reflective of the expansion pattern of the Indian economy.

Since the human capital conception has emerged as an important area in the practice of management in the educational institutions and manufacturing industries, it has given considerable importance to servant leadership and POS. However, little attention was paid by the Indian researchers to servant leadership. The present study is the observed research gap.

In the present scenario, due to the diminishing aspect of ethical behavior projected in educational institutions and industries at this juncture, the philosophy of servant leadership will be an eye-opener for making the system better and vibrant. The relationship involving servant leadership and other variables considered for the work and its linkage has a lot of significance in the practical aspect of leadership.

It is determined from the study that there’s no major important distinction between the general public and personal-sector corporations regarding their servant leadership profiles in India. It is determined from the study; servant leadership profiles measure a great deal in Indian managers. The notion of servant leadership has its roots philosophically in the Indian system. But those ideas may differ from one culture to another culture. Therefore, cultural influence can be seen while practicing management decision-making.

5.1. Practical implications

The efficacy of the structure can be raised by lessening the turnover of top-performing employees from the company. By improving within the perceived organizational support of the organizations, servant leadership can be exercised effectively in operating surroundings.

The head of the department, faculty member as a servant leader is probably going to produce some tutoring job, collaboration, and growth to the teaching faculty to extend their grasp of individual variations.

In the industries, servant leadership plays an appreciable role in the perceived organizational support. So, the managers, officers, and engineers must interact with the industry employees and explain clearly the procedure followed in the organization. It was observed in the educational institutions that servant leadership is the most important factor influencing perceived organizational support. Thus, the head of the institution must initiate actions to improve the perceptions of teaching faculty concerning perceived organizational support in educational institutions.

A vital implication of those results is that servant leadership contains a direct relationship with Managers and teaching faculty level of POS. The inclusion of POS during this study additionally has important implications for managers and teaching faculty. The managers and teaching faculty acting as a servant leader, creates a perception among the workforce that the organization cares concerning them, takes nice pride in their accomplishments, and is willing to assist them once they have a problem. This perception that the organization supports their efforts can result in higher performance, indirectly to lower turnover.

6. Conclusions

Servant leadership is a paradox that is useful to improve the overall organizational well-being in a given situation. Similarly, the Perceived organizational support (POS) and its relation are also paramount important in bringing the desired performance in the educational institution as well as industries. These notions focus on human behaviors in the organisation.

Independent sample test (H1, H2), as well as multiple linear regression analysis (H3), was conducted to determine the relationship between servant leadership and perceived organizational support. The results indicate that five dimensions of servant leadership correlate with the 16 items of perceived organizational support. The servant leadership and POS, approach differ between manufacturing industries and educational institutions. However, according to the independent sample test, there is no difference between the manufacturing industries and educational institution’s employees. Here, the servant leadership and POS approach was the same for the manufacturing industries and educational institutions. In hypothesis 3, the association exists between servant leadership and POS in manufacturing industries and educational institutions employees. Multiple linear regression analysis showed a very strong relationship between servant leadership and POS in the manufacturing industry but not strong relation with the educational institutions’ employees.

When servant leadership was voiced within such POS, it resulted in very favourable levels of synergy, teamwork, and supplementary-role behaviors among employees, which brings about the organisation becoming more effective. Further, the specialists say that when servant leadership was conveyed in such POS, it brought about more appreciable levels of collaboration, cooperation, and additional job practices among representatives, which adds to the association getting progressively compelling.

In future research, more manufacturing industries and educational institution samples need to be considered to generalize the study. That means a longitudinal study has to be conducted. Presently 39 questionnaires are exercised for research. The number of questionnaires from servant leadership and POS is to be reduced, to get a good response without bias from the employees of the organisation. The study is conducted with a short sample size on a huge population because of the time limit. Therefore, to generalize the study for the entire population, the sample size must be more. More number of items in the questionnaire might discourage the respondents to give a proper response, and they might be overviewed some of the items.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2323291.