How servant leadership affects organizational citizenship behavior: the mediating roles of perceived procedural justice and trust

Purpose The paper aimed (1) to examine the mediating effects of procedural justice perception and trust in leaders between servant leadership and customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior and (2) to investigate the relationships between procedural justice perception and trust in leaders in the context of Chinese hotel industry. Design/methodology/approach The paper opted for a quantitative study using online survey to collect data. Data screening was carried out to ensure all the data met the underlying statistical assumptions. This paper adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses. Findings The paper found that procedural justice perception and trust in leaders have a full mediating effect on the relationship between servant leadership and customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Procedural justice perception was positively associated with trust in leaders. Originality/value The paper provided a framework to enhance the theoretical understanding of interconnectedness of servant-leadership-related variables. It filled a theoretical gap by proposing an integrative model that examined the relationships among the variables of interest.