December 2025

VOlUME 04 ISSUE 12 December 2025
The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership, Public Service Motivation, Affective Commitment and Organizational Performance at the Public Service Employees Transport Service Enterprise (PSETSE) in Ethiopia
Tesfaye Molla
Institute of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia
DOI : https://doi.org/10.58806/ijsshmr.2025.v4i12n03

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ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between transformational leadership (TL), affective organizational commitment (AOC), public service motivation (PSM), and perceived organizational performance (POP). A structural equation modeling was used to examine the perceptions of 112 public employees in Ethiopian Public Service Employees Transport Service Enterprise (PSETSE). The result indicates that transformational leadership has a positive, significant but medium relationship with perceived organization performance, affective organizational commitment, and public service motivation. It is also found that TL has a positive effect on AOC, PSM and POP. However, the level of influence slightly differs. It is revealed that 29.6%, 41.6% and 23.5% of change on civil servant’s perceived organizational performance, affective organizational commitment, and public service motivation respectively is explained by the variation in the transformational leadership at the Enterprise. It is found that affective organizational commitment has significant contribution in the improvement of organizational performance at Enterprise. The result also indicated that public service motivation has a significantly positive relation with and influences on both perceived organizational performance and affective organizational commitment. AOC and PSM have mediating effect on perceived organizational performance albeit the indirect effect is weak. It is also found that none of the control variables (gender, age, marital status, educational background and work experience) has any significant effect on affective organizational commitment, public service motivation, and perceived organizational performance. It is possible to conclude that transformational leadership does play an important role in determining the levels of perceived organizational performance, both directly and indirectly, but only at medium level.

KEYWORDS:

Transformational Leadership, Affective Organizational Commitment, Public Service Motivation, Perceived Organizational Performance

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VOlUME 04 ISSUE 12 December 2025

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