THE MEDIATION EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

This study deals with the servant leadership style and its positive effects of firm performance. It is foreseen that supportive leadership style of servant leadership, that is the tendency to hold the followers in the front, will have a positive impact on the organizational identification of the employees and organizational identification will have a mediating effect on the relationship between servant leadership and firm performance. Field survey of the study was conducted on 187 firms operating in the production and service sectors in the Marmara region and 5 data collection forms were sent to each of these companies and in the end 527 available forms were obtained. The participants were selected especially from white-collar workers. The data were analyzed by structural equilibrium modeling and it was found that servant leadership was influential on organizational identification of followers, and effect of servant leadership on firm performance was achieved through organizational identification. The findings of the study were similar to the previous studies on firm performance and servant leadership. The indirect effect occurring through organizational identification confirms that servant leadership is not a compelling form of leadership namely; it is not a strictly performance-focused, competitive leadership style; on the contrary, it is a form of leadership that prioritizes the interests of followers prior to organizational outcomes