Understanding Organisational Commitment and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour in Context of Work from Home Virtual Leadership during COVID-19 - Pandemic in India

Abstract

The COVID-19 induced lockdown had forced the organisations to adopt work from home (WFH) , putting virtual leadership to test. The article aims to explore the employee’s ability to learn and adapt to a new work environment at home through organisational citizenship behaviour and organisational commitment influenced by virtual leadership. Organisational Commitment Scale (OCS) was used using the Likert scale (5 points) with virtual leadership contribution, and employee commitment as variables in conducting virtual duties. The findings revealed that the transformational leadership in the virtual work environment pattern shows that employee’s willingness, individually and in teams, require reward to influence behaviour. OCB was found to be task-based as active and passive leadership management coupled with charismatic leadership was found to influence change in employee behaviour, overcome challenges, and show allegiance to leadership inputs during virtual work processes and methods. The results indicated that commitment from employees is conditional in the work from home (WFH) context, while the role of leadership abilities to influence OCB is dependent on culture, willingness and readiness. It is backed by leadership coaching and training for easier employee transition towards a work environment that is an individual and team level commitment output shaped by forces of psychosocial needs.

Keywords: Organisational Commitment, Organisational Citizenship Behavior, Work from Home, Virtual Leadership

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