Exploring Affiliative Leadership Among Department Heads in Sabah, Malaysia: Impact on Lecturers’ Organizational Commitment

The purpose of this study was to examine lecturers’ perceptions of affiliative leadership and its impact on perceived organizational commitment in Sabah, Malaysia. The sample comprised 56 lecturers from three private higher educational institutions (PHEIs) in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, who responded to two structured questionnaires on Google Forms. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 29.0. Results showed that only a low number of lecturers tend to perceive their department heads as affiliative (48.3 to 64.3 percent); besides, only low percentages (42.9 to 58.5 percent) of them tend to demonstrate organizational commitment. On the other hand, nonparametric tests showed that there were no significant differences by way of gender, age, and job experience in affiliative leadership and perceived organizational commitment. Additionally, Wilcoxon signed rank test based on a hypothesized value of 3.5 showed that all items related to affiliative leadership were significant at p < 0.001, having medians that were significantly different from the test value, and were likely to indicate strong disagreement. Although levels of affiliative leadership and organizational commitment tend to be low, both appear to be significantly and positively related. In light of the findings, some recommendations were made to enhance the levels of both variables within the context of PHEIs in Sabah, Malaysia.