Servant and collaborative leadership in the performance of Peruvian tourism organizations: Mediation of social capital

Abstract

Leadership plays a crucial role in the performance of organizations and is a fundamental element in the construction of capital. This paper aims to measure the relationship between servant and collaborative leadership with organizational performance and the mediating role of social capital in small companies in the Peruvian tourism sector. The methodology used the quantitative approach at an explanatory level. Data were obtained from 623 representatives of tourism organizations using a 19-item questionnaire; the hypotheses were tested using the SEM model through AMOS and SPSS. The results indicate that servant leadership is largely related to organizational performance (β = 0.566, p < 0.001) and explains 20.5% of this variable. Collaborative leadership has a moderate relationship with organizational performance (β = 0.454, p < 0.001) and explains 21.3%. No evidence demonstrated the relationship between servant leadership and social capital. Collaborative leadership has a low relationship with social capital (β = 0.163, p < 0.001) and explains only 2%. Social capital has a low relationship with organizational performance (β = 0.293, p < 0.001) and explains 10.8%. Furthermore, social capital fully mediates the relationship between servant leadership and organizational performance and partially mediates the relationship between collaborative leadership and organizational performance.

Keywords

• collaborative leadership
• performance
• servant leadership
• social capital
• tourism