Reconstruction of trust and organizational commitment through servant leadership in the postpandemic era: evidence from the IT sector of Pakistan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the role of trust in leaders in the relationship between dimensions of servant leadership and dimensions of organizational commitment in the information technology (IT) sector of Pakistan in post-COVID era. This paper also highlights the role of trust in leader as mediating mechanism among the examined variables. Design/methodology/approach Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to IT professional working in the IT sector of Pakistan. The sample included 283 across Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings Results indicated that trust in a leader has a significant indirect effect on the relationship between the dimensions of servant leadership and organizational commitment. Upon further investigation, it is found that in the majority of cases, the nature of mediation is partial in nature. Whereas, it is found that trust in leader fully mediates the relationship between persuasive mapping and normative commitment. Furthermore, trust in leader is also found to be fully mediating the relationship between emotional healing and continuance commitment. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to the geographical boundaries of Pakistan, results obtained during the course of study have limited generalizability outside the country. Originality/value This paper aims at addressing a gap in the literature by developing a model of how trust in leader mediates the relationship between servant leadership and organizational commitment, and examine relationship between individual dimensions of servant leadership and organizational commitment.