Transformational leadership and service quality in UAE hospitals

Abstract

Purpose – This paper investigates the relationship between transformational leadership and service quality in UAE hospitals. The paper first determined the level of satisfaction of patients with the service quality they received. The paper also analyzed how hospital employees perceived the dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership of their leaders. Finally, the relationship between the dimensions of service quality and those of transformational and transactional leadership was investigated Design/methodology/approach – Two questionnaires were administered. The first questionnaire addressed service quality using an adapted SERVQUAL. The second one addressed transformational and transactional leadership using the multi-level leadership questionnaire. The first questionnaire was distributed to patients of six major UAE hospitals while the second one was distributed to employees of the same hospitals. Data were collected and analyzed using SPSS. Findings – The paper found that UAE patients were generally satisfied with the service quality rendered by their hospitals. It however found that hospital employees had a low rating of their leaders in terms of the transformational leadership and contingent reward. Finally, service quality was found to be positively related to all dimension of transformational leadership and the transactional leadership dimension of contingent reward. The two dimensions of active exception and passive avoidant leadership were negatively related to service quality. Originality/value – This paper bridged an important gap in the literature by addressing the relationship between service quality and transformational leadership. It provided important guidelines for managers on the dimensions of leadership that needed to be enhanced in order to improve service quality.